New Chimney!

At last! I am amazed at how quickly this went; what you see took me less than four hours to complete! Needless to say I am more than a little tired now, but it was well worth it.

The whole assembly, inside and out, still needs some work. The chimney is not plumb yet, and I am short one locking band, and really should have a roof guy kit installed. Inside the stove pipe is not yet straight, and doesn't fit up quite as tightly as I'd like... But the good news is, despite being just as hot (if not hotter) outside than in the chimney ALREADY is pulling a stable draft!

It shouldn't be any trouble to have these problems resolved by the time my door kit comes in, at which point I'll be ready for Frost Insurance to approve it.

Once it's approved it'll be ready for the first firing. This will have to be done with all of the windows open, as the paint on both the stove and the stovepipe needs to be cured, which produces noxious smoke. Fortunately fall is coming soon, which means plenty of cool evenings when a fire would be pleasant but not nessasary by any means...

Notice the shakes behind the chimney. Yes I did that myself. My work isn't quite as neat as my father's, but between the fact that it's largely hidden by the chimney and the fact that they're installed over an existing weathertight surface I think they'll do nicely.

As I stated before I am rather tired, so I think it's time for me to chill out. After I work out the detals of the chimney I just have to build and fill a coal bunker and I'll be ready for winter!

Coal Stove

After driving my truck over 140 miles to Van Wert and back I now am the owner of a Harman Magnafire Mk. 1 coal stove. This stove is designed to burn anthracite (hard) coal, and according to the manufacturer only needs to be tended two or three times a day!

The really exciting part is how much money this will save me in the long run: Last year, despite not living here, I burned up over $1200 worth of LP gas! It is noteworthy that I did have an old, inefficient furnace at the time and there were two large holes in the walls. Yet my house has no insulation to speak of... With LP gas prices approaching the $4 per gallon mark I don't care to think how much it would cost to keep the house at a comfortable temperature now that I'm living here.
Hard coal is currently approx. $170 per ton. One ton of coal is the equivelant of about 300 gallons of propane. And, at $4 per gallon, that's $1200 worth of propane! That's a BIG price difference!

Obviously the stove is still incomplete; I was given the wrong door kit, and will be recieving a new one soon. Once I recieve that and complete the chimney I'll be ready for winter! For more information on the Magnafire Mk. 1 stove please click here.