Lump Coal for Hunting Camp Stove

[338winmag]

Last year, 3rd season in Colorado, we had our nice big Davis Wall Tent and the largest stove they sell for our hunting camp. We had a slight problem. No matter how we set the damper and other adjustments, our hardwood never lasted more than an hour to an hour and a half. This meant somebody had to wakeup at those intervals to stoke the fire.

Lump coal was mentioned as the fuel to burn. Has anyone ever used this for thier hunting camp fuel instead of hardwood?

Thanks
Steve

 

[flyin lizard]

I have a coal stove in my basement and I go thru about 3.5 to 4 tons of anthricite coal, that the hard stuff, a winter, light it in Oct. and go till April. Just so you know coal burns a LOT hotter then wood. Also make sure the stove you plan to use it in is designed to burn coal and find out what size it takes. You must have shaker grates and the draft needs to come from below the firebed, that is why wood burns so fast in a coal stove. You need to start a wood fire first then put the coal on top to get it going, or match lite charcoal works good too. I would guess that chestnut size coal would most likely work very well. Buy a bag and give it a test run outside to see what your burn time is. Oh and all coal is NOT created equal, good luck.

 

[kcebcj]

I burn wood exclusively for heat October till April. Also have three different tent stoves that we use hunting. I get five hours at least burning fir on an average with the stoves shut down too low. Goin full tilt they get at best three hours. With a hardwood such as oak or similar another hour or two easily.

I would say you have a poorly design stove. You should be able to adjust the stove down and nearly put the fire out.

I would not want to have to haul my stove fuel in to camp. You want to burn what's there. The tent stoves I use were made by a friend who runs a sheet metal shop to my specifications for size and he put all the appropriate vents and such to control the air flow into the stove. It's the air entering the stove that controls how fast the fuel burns and the stoves BTU output.

 

[cowboy]

I would say you have a poorly design stove. You should be able to adjust the stove down and nearly put the fire out.

Agree with above.

Been using stoves in wall tents for many years. We avg. about 8-10 years life on a stove. Have tried a number of different stoves and have 2 things we look for - it has to pack on a horse/mule and has to be sturdy enough to pack.

Never have we ever had a situation which you describe on length of time for burn length. You either have the most inefficient designed stove ever made or you have some problems with your controls. Do you have a dampener on your flue pipe? If you choke down your inlet air and then shut down your exit dampener you should get a minimum of 4-5 hours burn time with just plain old pine - hard wood should have a longer burn rate.

Coal burns extremely hot - I don't think most stoves would handle the heat produced by coal even knowing that all coal is not equal.

Also are you lining the bottom of your stove with a couple inches of dirt before you lite it? This prevents burning out the bottom when you get a good set of coals going and will extend the life of the stove for a lot longer.

 

[338winmag]

Thanks guys!
I think I see an answer re-enforced with your comments. We have the following stove below. I have the idea that we are just not making the right adjustments.

Wall Tent Stove, Cylinder Stove, Canvas tent wood stove


Thanks again

 

[CogburnR]

One of the guys I hunt with has been experimenting with pellet stove conversions to wood stoves. They can be a pain to get running right but once the proper adjustments are made you can basically run the stove continuously. Wood can be burned also as normal but since the conversion they have not had any wood in them.

I used a modified Traeger pellet stove last year and it worked but it had way to much heat for my tent so I just shut it off after a bit and went without(insulated arctic tent). I may work on building a conversion for my big tent's stove. The currently available units are not perfect.Any of them with a "shuttle" will gum up. Something between a Traeger design and a Clarry would work better I think.

Of course it only makes sense if you can haul the wood pellets but if you are planning on hauling coal you probably can haul pellets.

We had a few problems with making wood piles at camp and having them dis-appear. Cutting wood is time consuming, requires permits, and is a bit dangerous.

 

[338winmag]

"We had a few problems with making wood piles at camp and having them dis-appear. Cutting wood is time consuming, requires permits, and is a bit dangerous."

In Colorado, at least where we are hunting, no problem with anyone pilfering anything from another hunters camp but we are in pretty deep at our location and only a few other camps are in the vicinity. In the past, we have not locked up anything of value as well and know the other hunter camps but ... maybe after hearing that we won't be so trusting these next seasons.

thanks for the thoughts on pellets.

 

[CogburnR]

To clarify a bit...the wood we cut is piled up to cure and hidden for the next year. The wood piles for the most part are undisturbed except for a few the next year. We hunt in some of the more remote areas of the Black Hills of South Dakota but anywhere in the Black Hills can be accessed by logging trails and you can't set up camp more than 100 yards off the trail and only in approved areas. Even if you packed in you could not be more than a mile or two from a trail.

The problem is local kids going up there to party and burning the wood(even with a ban on campfires).

Where I am hunting in Colorado(Routt) this year is accessed by logging trail and has the same limitation on camping now that the forest service has implemented the new "travel plan". It is pretty easy to haul 10 or 15 bags of pellets on top of the horse feed and camp gear. In Colorado the wood would never make it a year...the next group of hunters would burn it all though it is the last place you can camp on without packing it all in. We usually just take a horse and drag deadfall in to cut up as we need it.