Open fire n00b questions

P-J-D_2

A._Badger wrote: »

If your coal is spitting it certainly isn't premium grade. Much of the pre-packed coal bought at garages and the like is of inferior quality and is smaller in size than coal bought loose from a coal merchant. If you want decent fuel, a coal merchant is the place to go, but even then shop around as they can vary in price by quite a bit.

Can't speak for others but I am buying premium quality coal from the merchant... not pre-packed, they bag it in 50kg open sacks at my door... finest mined from sheffield, buying regular or trebles which are massive cobs up to 6" across.. these burn a bit longer but still have to keep an eye on it

The poorer quality stuff doesn't spit ime. It's because the coal is high grade, it burns so hot and is so combustable, cobs coming in from the cold are bound to tear up when put on a scorching fire! Sometimes they split into pieces, sometimes the energy is so much shards will fly across the room..

Maybe I should get a metal skuttle to bring it up to room temp first?? My landlord/agent should provide these things imo, I've got no money to spend on stuff so I'm using a plastic bucket, which would of course melt next to fire...(even have to move the tools from fireplace or they are too hot to touch). Glad to hear I'm not the only one without an ash tray... again I would expect one to be provided standard... beggars cant be chosers..

I may try mixing in logs...they do burn longer

Love the open fire btw... just dont wanna screw up the carpet

ash28

P-J-D wrote: »

Moved recently to a place with open fire.. got numerous quetions probably but for starters... Bought some decent coal (I think).. unfortunately it also spits fragments out onto the new carpet occasionally.. is it really the case that you use a fire guard whenever loading or even all the time?? I haven't been into many houses with open fires lately, but don't remember that being de facto standard.. plus there is noticeable heat loss from fire guard (certainly the one I'm using, which has four segments that fold out).. So.. is it just a fact that your going to get much more carpet wear and tear.. or do you always keep the fireguard in place.. any other comments ??

We use a small spark guard in front of the fire when we go out of the room and when we go to bed if the fire is still burning.


We don't tend to suffer from sparks - I don't know the type of coal we are using but it is low ash and very hot and doesn't spit - we have had coal that burned fairly poorly, didn't throw out much heat and spat. Any spitting we get now comes from the kindling (we use soft wood), we burn hard wood logs in addition to coal.

P-J-D_2

ash28 wrote: »

We use a small spark guard in front of the fire when we go out of the room and when we go to bed if the fire is still burning.


We don't tend to suffer from sparks - I don't know the type of coal we are using but it is low ash and very hot and doesn't spit - we have had coal that burned fairly poorly, didn't throw out much heat and spat.

Right..

I was getting CPL coal in 10Kg bags from the garage/supermarket etc.. but it burned poorly, didn't throw out much heat.. there would be partly formed coal chunks remaining in the morning you just left it burning...

What I'm getting now is very low ash and very very hot and DOES spit.. !

Could it be that coals mined from certain regions have different content and that is the cause, not the fuel content itself ???

I was working on the presumption that spitting was caused by heat differential v combustionability.. ie. the colder and more fuel-rich the coal and the hotter the fire the more you would see spitting.... .

ash28 wrote: »

Any spitting we get now comes from the kindling (we use soft wood), we burn hard wood logs in addition to coal.

Smokeless or...?

A._Badger

P-J-D wrote: »

Can't speak for others but I am buying premium quality coal from the merchant... not pre-packed, they bag it in 50kg open sacks at my door... finest mined from sheffield, buying regular or trebles which are massive cobs up to 6" across.. these burn a bit longer but still have to keep an eye on it

The poorer quality stuff doesn't spit ime. It's because the coal is high grade, it burns so hot and is so combustable, cobs coming in from the cold are bound to tear up when put on a scorching fire! Sometimes they split into pieces, sometimes the energy is so much shards will fly across the room..

Maybe I should get a metal skuttle to bring it up to room temp first?? My landlord/agent should provide these things imo, I've got no money to spend on stuff so I'm using a plastic bucket, which would of course melt next to fire...(even have to move the tools from fireplace or they are too hot to touch). Glad to hear I'm not the only one without an ash tray... again I would expect one to be provided standard... beggars cant be chosers..

I may try mixing in logs...they do burn longer

Love the open fire btw... just dont wanna screw up the carpet

Well, I've spent a lifetime burning coal and never had good quality coal explode - cold or not. You can buy a coal scuttle pretty cheaply at car boot sales, junk shops and the like. YMMV.

highrisklowreturn

All coal types I have burnt will spit - it is just a question of to what extent. For example the best anthracite will only do so mildly, whereas the cheapest will do so aggresively. It also depends on how hot the fire is you're putting it into.

suki1964

Could always buy smokeless ovoids - dont spit and burn for ages

zoltari

Hi, this may sound like a daft question but here goes:

I had a new open coal fire installed in December, it was done properly, fitter where the old fire had been years ago; they swept the chimney, tested for leaks, fitted an air brick etc... It burns fantastically and the chinmney sucks so hard the dog could be pulled up it, but it seems to burn through coal at a phenominal rate and logs don't really burn at all, they just smoulder and end up as charcoal.

There is no way to regulate the air flow at all: the bottom plate has vents in it but you can't close them, and the baffle plate is not adjustable, it is just a completely free moving cast iron plate, so it's either open fully or closed.

My questions are:
1. In 12 hours I use 20k of good quality ovoids. Is that normal?
2. Is there anything I can do to slow down the burn rate, as I can't adjust the baffle plate in the chimney?
3. How do I stop all the heat going up the chimney? THe fire burns fantastically, but heat output is poor. The room barely gets above 18 degrees when it's 10 degrees outside.

We had a coal fire as kids and I recall the room being sweltering when it was on. Same period house, no double glazing, same kind of coal, but I recall that fire was adjustable.


Are all modern open fires real for decoration only?

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks.

Greenfires

An open fire is such an inefficient thing that I'm surprised you can still buy new ones to be honest! 80% or more of the heat it produces goes straight out the chimney, and the huge amount of draught means that cold air is constantly being pulled into the house from outside to feed it. In some cases, using an open fire can have an overall cooling effect on the house - you may be warm enough sitting right in front of it, but overall the house can be getting colder, or the central heating (if fitted) ends up having to work overtime to try and warm all the cold air being pulled in - meaning bigger energy bills.

You'd be so much better with a stove - much more heat for a fraction of the fuel - many of our customers reckon fitting a stove has been one of the best things they've ever done - and I don't sell or fit stoves by the way so I'm not just trying to promote something! The majority of them also say they've turned down the central heating by several degrees as the heat from the stove gets round the house, so they're saving on their gas or electric bills as well. A stove uses a fraction of the air of an open fire too, so you're not pulling in roomfulls of air to replace it as you obviously are at the moment.

Andy

bernithebiker

Greenfires has summed it up very well in a nutshell.

Our house is heated by a 44kW log boiler, but we have a lovely marble open fireplace too. The latter is only used very occasionally as an 'ambience' effect, cos it looks nice! It has a kind of heat baffle thing at the back so it does throw out a bit of heat, but it goes through logs quite quickly. In fact, one load of logs on the fireplace heats the big room a bit. The same amount of logs in the boiler heats the whole house alot. Go figure! Probably about 4 to 5 times more efficient.

A._Badger

Personally, having had long experience of both open fires and stoves, I've come to the conclusion, much as the OP suggests, that a lot of the problem with open fires today lies with modern fire design and their installation by people who see them as cosmetic items, rather than working, primary sources of heat.

Whatever the figures can be tortured to suggest, a properly run, competently designed open fire will produce a lot of heat - the OP remembers correctly. Few of them had anything in the way of control, either - but they were often well made and chosen to suit the room, rather than because they looked pretty in the pages of a 'lifestyle' magazine.

My advice would be to start by consulting a sweep - but find the oldest and most experienced one you can. Ask his advice. He may be able to help you get more heat into your room.

It's perfectly true that a stove would offer greater efficiency, but you need to be able to amortise somewhere in the region of £2,000 before you even begin to break even, and that needs to be borne in mind if you start thinking stovewards.