Solid fuel stove

Does anyone have a solid fuel stove on their boats?
We are installing a wood/coal stove with back boiler, that would heat radiators throughout the boat.

Has anyone plumbed their heating though the engine so as to warm up the engine on cold mornings before starting it?

"We are installing a wood/coal stove with back boiler, that would heat radiators throughout the boat."

Had a friend that used coal, but the problem with all solid fuel is someone has to tend the fire.

Our oil fired setup allowed me to work 3-4 days away and come home to a warm boat..

An engine loop is easy and can be piped bpth ways , the furnace keeps the boat and engine warm , the operating engine keeps the boat interior and the FW heater happy.

Don't forget a heated hanging locker to dry clothes and a heated towel rack in the head.

I had a wood / coal burning stove on a liveaboard boat decades ago. It's been a long time but if memory serves it was a Washingotn Stove Works Neptune. I loved the heat, and with coal it would burn long into the night. But I got tired of cleaning my marina neighbor's boats from the coal ash and soot.

Portage_Bay said:

I had a wood / coal burning stove on a liveaboard boat decades ago. It's been a long time but if memory serves it was a Washingotn Stove Works Neptune. I loved the heat, and with coal it would burn long into the night. But I got tired of cleaning my marina neighbor's boats from the coal ash and soot.

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Yeah, that seems like a bummer but don't the pellet types of "fuel" burn much cleaner? Dickinson has a solid fuel option.

That's good to know we can preheat the engine using the stove.

Most of our cruising on the west coast of Scotland is very rural.
We will have a diesel boiler installed aswell so we can get cleaner heat in marinas and keep the heat going when no one is on board..

Greetings,
Mr. M. If you will have a diesel boiler, why the solid fuel stove given the space needed to store pellets/coal and the bother of cleaning the ash?

there are few things nicer than sitting I front of a real log fire and we have the space.
An unlimited supply of wood helps too.

Greetings,
Mr. M. Buy a big telly...

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. M. Buy a big telly...

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Aye, very good, bet that heats up yer boat quite well.

I hope you have a steel boat,


I myself would not dare to put a fire in the stove glass fiber on the boat Too much risk for me, that's just my idea.




NBs

South of Heaven said:

Yeah, that seems like a bummer but don't the pellet types of "fuel" burn much cleaner? Dickinson has a solid fuel option.

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All the pellet stoves I know of need forced air to burn. If it's a good pellet the ash is minimal.

Had a solid fuel burning stove on my liveaboard sailboat in FT Lauderdale.

Loved it except it was small and for wood burning ....needed attention more than a nice wood stove in a home.

Speaking of homes ....they being built of wood and other flammables, hard to get worried over a well installed one on a boat.

I burned coal for 25 years in a boiler at our house in Connecticut. (4 1/3 ton would get me thru a winter)
You will have lots (and I mean lots) of ash to dispose of.
You will need a steel container with a lid for it as the ash will be hot when you shake it down 2 or 3 times a day.
And the ash is very light and will get everywhere, no matter how careful you are.
You'll also go thru a learning curve.
Good luck.

jleonard said:

I burned coal for 25 years in a boiler at our house in Connecticut. (4 1/3 ton would get me thru a winter)
You will have lots (and I mean lots) of ash to dispose of.
You will need a steel container with a lid for it as the ash will be hot when you shake it down 2 or 3 times a day.
And the ash is very light and will get everywhere, no matter how careful you are.
You'll also go thru a learning curve.
Good luck.

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Whe we bought our old house at auction. All of the oak trim was black,covered with coal dust from the coal fireplace. My wif spent a lot of time scrubbing the trim with turpentine. There is still some black bedded in the grain but man it looks 100% better.

Doesn’t building a fire inside a boat make it hard for the air conditioner to keep it cool inside?

“And the ash is very light and will get everywhere, no matter how careful you are”

Including your lungs, sinuses, and any other crevices your body may have.
Go with diesel heater

I have a hydronic system with a oil fired boiler as a base. Tied in is a pellet stove, wood stove and the main engines. Each stove has a water coil and plumbed to heat the boiler water. The oil burner doesn't come on unless the water temp gets cold. I heated a couple years with wood. A real PIA. The boat was either too hot or too cold. Wood is only cheap heat if you cut and split it yourself. Then you need storage. Wood pellets are the cheapest and most temperature consistent. Besides providing salon heat, the pellet stove coil with it's own circulation pump, keeps the boiler hot. The boiler circulation pump comes on when heat is called for. Cruising, either main engine provides the heat to the boiler.
If you haven't used coal, it's a dirty fuel and lots of soot leaves the stove pipe. Cleaning out the ash can leave a mess inside the boat, too. Quality wood pellets have little ash and produce much more heat than cheap pellets. They more than make up the difference in price. I have yet to clean my ash this winter. In really cold weather, I maybe clean the ash once a month. There are pellet stoves that don't require a blower, but probably too big for small boats. Also there are combination pellet stoves that also have a boiler for hydronics. About 2'x2'x4'. Mine is a smaller stove with a coil from pipe I made.

I also enjoy a wood fired heater but don’t have the space on the boat.
At home we have a wood fireplace. We would burn several tonnes of wood per year and the residue would be one small bucket of ash when burning grey box, a local hard wood that burns slow, hot and clean.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. M. Buy a big telly...

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Dont over roast your 'chestnuts'. That will hurt, so I am told.

PSN makes a good point....but I have such a hard time willingly starting a fire on a boat. I don't even allow candles in my home. I know that it is a manageable risk, and I am totally illogical about it.... I just couldn't do it.

Benthic2 said:

PSN makes a good point....but I have such a hard time willingly starting a fire on a boat. I don't even allow candles in my home. I know that it is a manageable risk, and I am totally illogical about it.... I just couldn't do it.

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I guess I am a scaredy cat for I do not allow an open flame except to light my cigars. No extra magnets in the pilot house either.

Yep, scaredy cats...understand and practice risk management and all kinds of things in life become manageable.

While I wouldn't suggest a wood burner for a small boat as a full time heat source for a variety of reasons, danger isn't even slightly on the radar as a reason.

Dickinson oil stove, Webasto, and a fireplace. Run coils through the oven and Webasto. We are toasty

It's going into a steel boat, and in all honesty, CO2 poisoning concerns me more than fire.

The wood /coal burner is not the prime source of heating , but it is nice to make the most of it when it does get used.

Paul Luke used to make delightful wall mounted fire places out of soapstone

They would warm a modest cabin easily.

Shipmate made far less expensive units in SS , but at least they still had a mica window to watch the fire , cozy.

As emergency heat , or just for a cool (or romantic) evening mounting it at the foot of the double bed worked great.

For all night heat a feeding of charcoal left no mess on the deck as coal might.


https://www.google.com/search?q=pau...fAhUQvFkKHXqKDwQQsAR6BAgEEAE&biw=1366&bih=654

Manny, are you putting that stove on a narrowboat? From what I know that is very common there.

We had a wood/charcoal heater on Shalimar, our 42 foot ketch. It worked well and it had super ambiance. The issues were disposal of ash, on board storage of wood and charcoal, and we did have a few incidents where the charcoal got wet. What a mess. It dissolves into a black soppy powder. If it were I, I think diesel is a better answer.

Hi Manny, We're on the BC coast in Canada and have a 34' CHB which has a diesel Espar furnace which is great. We also have a small Dickinson solid fuel stove in main salon on bulkhead to port above settee. Around here, we also heat our home with wood, so when collecting firewood, there's always a good supply of small dia. branches that I cut into 4" lengths. The fireplace gives a nice DRY heat...same as in our home. I squirrel the firewood away on boat, but admittedly does take up room and you do need to tend to the stove fairly frequently. I do like it though. For you in Scotland, maybe firewood is less plentiful? I have no experience with coal, don't even know where you'd get that here, but maybe a preferred solid fuel over there? What type of boat do you have?

We have a Dutch steel, ex fishing trawler conversion, wee bit bigger than your average narrowboat
On the west coast of Scotland, fire wood is plentiful, as is coal and peat.

I have a reflex diesel heater that is big enough to heat a cabin, but like the idea of a wood stove with back boiler to heat radiators, water and the engine.

The wood stove will not be the only source of heat, we will use the engine ( Gardner 8l3b) and a diesel fired boiler.

"but like the idea of a wood stove with back boiler to heat radiators, water and the engine."

Depending on how its constructed be sure you can operate the wood stove with NO water in the heating system.

An added tank on the top or side is usually no problem , but internal tubing in the fire can be a hassle.