can you mix coal and wood in stove ?

pineapple

spinningsheep wrote: »

clean the glass with some Mr Muscle oven foam and some kitchen paper

You can also use ash on a bit of damp paper.

pineapple

mervyn11 wrote: »

How complicated...........
Chuck some sticks in rhe grate light the gas poker bung in in for 5 minutes & Bobs your fathers brother !!!!!!

I don't think the original question was about fire lighting but burning coal with wood. But it was a bit vague. If it was about firelighting you would start with wood/firelighters/whatever then add the coal.
If it's about burning wood and coal together I'm taking 'wood' to mean logs. Because ordinary timber would burn away too quickly. Many stoves, as already mentioned, require you to remove the grate if you are burning logs, so in those circumstances, I would have thought it was one or t'other
OP did your stove not come with an instruction leaflet?

muckybutt

grahamc2003 wrote: »

that's why sweeps recomend having it swept every six months. Haven't had mine swept in four years - not bravado/stupidity (I'm sure others will disagree, as is their right), just that I know there hasn't been much soot or tar deposited in the chimney since there's hardly been any smoke going up there. (The chance of a chimney fire, in my opinion, is less for me than it is for those who have sooty glass yet have a sweep every six months, in my opinion).

I may get it swept this summer, just to be on the ultra safe side.

Sorry but... what an absolute load of b ollocks !!

Can I ask how do you know what is up your flue pipe if it hasnt been swept in 4 years ? hardly any smoke going up there means sweet FA. Just because you cant see smoke doesnt mean you are not producing / creating creosote and soot.

I can give you an example, today I swep a clearview with a 6" flue, not been swept in 3 years, customer burns wood and lots of it, stove looks brand new, swept it and got a good carrier bag full of soot out of the flue. He had a stove pipe thermometer and said without me prompting him that the stove was always burnt at 250 - 350F which is bang on for correct burning. That ammount of soot can severely restrict flow and is ideal conditions for a chimney fire.

Think of it this way, if you have a 6" liner and it goes into a 45deg bend to go up and out of the chimney, that bend is where a lot of soot and creosote will stick to as it does it will start to narrow down the diameter, depending how long you leave it between sweeping depends on how restricted its going to get obviously.

We dont recommend you do something if its not needed, sweeping a flue / chimney at the end of the day can mean life or death through either co poisoning or a chimney fire going bad.

I agree what you wrote is your opinion, just because you havent seen a chimney fire is by no means an indication that you havent had one, many go un-noticed and can burn for days, others flash over - they are the ones you know you have as they are noiseey and you will see flames / sparks.

That is my opinion as a sweep.

muckybutt

shegar wrote: »

Id get mine swept every year , 4 yrs is too long without a sweep, you say you dont get soot but you cant see up the chimney to see whats going on up there, I dont think a fire officer would agree to leaving it 4 yrs at a time................But as you say its entirely up to you, in my area there has been 22 chimney fires from Jan 1 2012 to 13 Feb 2012.......
That report was on local radio, fire officer advise chimney needs it every year, the old tradition was to get the sweep out September time before you lit your fires, I remember my mother and grandmother doing it that way, they made a day of it by taking down all the ornaments and covering the sofa,chairs, and sideboards with old sheets before sweep come ,:D then spent all day putting it all back, oh those certaintly were the old days.:D...
I light my fire by putting 3 or 4 pieces of scrunched up paper, handful kindling, then couple shovels coal, job done........

:T:T:T a responsible home / stove owner

Williwoodburner

pineapple wrote: »

I don't think the original question was about fire lighting but burning coal with wood.
Many stoves, as already mentioned, require you to remove the grate if you are burning logs, so in those circumstances, I would have thought it was one or t'other
OP did your stove not come with an instruction leaflet?

I thought that was the purpose of a multifuel ie a stove with a grate, so you can burn wood and or coal.

We only burn wood but our village sweep (who sweeps our chimneys once a year) burns wood and coal together in his stove so I wouldn't worry about doing so.

regards

Willie.

muckybutt

Williwoodburner wrote: »

I thought that was the purpose of a multifuel ie a stove with a grate, so you can burn wood and or coal.

We only burn wood but our village sweep (who sweeps our chimneys once a year) burns wood and coal together in his stove so I wouldn't worry about doing so.

regards

Willie.

I actually burn both myself, house coal - smokeless and wood.
House coal and wood during the day and smokeless during the night.
Burning the house coal just means I need to sweep the liner more frequently....but what the hell i'm a sweep

A._Badger

It's worth noting that some manufacturers explicitly say you shouldn't use ordinary housecoal on their stoves - which is a great shame as it's a lot cheaper!

The reason is that it produces a lot of soot which can block the stove's passageways, as well as the flue, as muckybutt says.

I'd far rather use coal, myself, but I've given up trying, having seen how much soot it makes.

As for multifuel stoves, the better ones have a rocking grate mechanism which means you can not only riddle them easily but can close the air gaps, so you get a more or less flat surface on which to burn wood. Wood burns best on a bed of ash, so needs a closed grate. Coal and smokeless need air from beneath.

Hope that helps someone.