solid fuel stanley range going through lots of coal!

markbarabus

Hello,

We moved into a new house recently and it has a stanley solid fuel stove, i believe its a stanley super star. Basically its a cooker but heats the water and radiators aswell. Amazing piece of kit really but i dont really know much about these things as i've always had central heating before. We just use it for heating and water.

After lots of experimenting over the weeks we have been here i have sucessfully got it to run 24/7 using anthracite large ovals. I top it up and shake it down once in the morning and again before i go to bed. I've got this down to a fine art now where the fire only goes out once a week to clean it.

The problem is it seems to be using excessive amounts of coal, i'm going through roughly 20kg every 2-3 days and its costing a fortune. Thats with it on the lowest setting aswell so i fear when we get into colder weather its going to use a hell of a lot more!

I dont know how efficient these things are supposed to be but i was told they are supposed to be much much cheaper than the cost of say gas or oil. A 20kg bag of coal costs me £8 here and we're going through 3 a week on average so thats already costing more than it would in gas.

Maybe something is wrong with it, like a leak but i checked all the seals and they seem good.

Any advice welcome

Thanks

Smiley_Dan

This: http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison/energy_comparison_data/august_2014 ... puts the kWh/kg at 6.85 for coal. So if you used 20kg for two days that's 137kWh, or about £6 of gas or £8.50 of coal. So that's about £30 a week.

That does seem expensive - even an Aga "only" costs about £20 (which is still ridiculously expensive for what it does... anyway...).

I can't find the efficiency of these devices anywhere. What's the full name of the model?

Someone else with experiences of these things might chip in. Maybe you need to get it serviced to see how things go.

markbarabus

Thanks for confirming, very expensive yes i wouldnt mind if i was at max output but its only setting number 1 so i cant understand it.

I dont really know much about it at all as it just came with the house so i dont know its history or anything. I do know the previous owners had it running over christmas and it was nice and cosy so they obviously used it. Whether or not they had the same problem with coal consumption i dont know.

There was a manual left which says Stanley Super Star on the front so i presume that to be the right model. I did try and search for it myself but must admit i couldnt find a lot of information and when i did there were minor differences such as mine having no ash spin valve. The manual also mentions an automatic thermostat but i have no idea how this works or if it works it all, i just adjust it manually when i need to.

Thanks

Smiley_Dan

Yeah, well the previous occupants of our house had the Aga running all year. As well as two immersion heaters. People just get used to ways of doing things and don't necessarily notice the cost... People get wrapped up with this "oh but it heats the water too" without considering they could use a boiler to heat the water at half the cost...

All I could suggest is looking for other experiences online, or getting someone to service it.

markbarabus

Thanks i'll see what i can find...

It wouldnt be too bad if i could find something, id probably even have a go at servicing it myself but theres very limited information about- probably due to it being so old.

I've got some new rope gaskets on the way anyway so i'll fit those and see if it improves. The current rope is okay, if i close with a piece of paper in there i cant pull it out but if i tug it comes out eventually. Probably wont make much of a difference if any but i figure its worth a try.

thozza

Stanley Stoves are made in Waterford and they are popular in Ireland, might be worth also posting the question on one of the Irish message boards.

There is a recent thread about the oil fired Stanley Super Star here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=83200697

highrisklowreturn

I don't see how that's particularly expensive. Move to a cheaper coal type. If you search about you'll eventually find a wholesaler doing anthracite for £5.40 a 25kg bag, which is what I paid.