Back in the fall of 2020, my oldest son, Robert, and I installed a classic anthracite heating stove in his house. I thought you might like to see how it works. Anthracite is a clean-burning, smokeless coal that has about 3x the heating value of dry hardwood, pound for pound. This video is based on a stove designed and built by Larry Trainer in his one-man shop. He calls it the Chubby anthracite stove, and he began making them 40 years ago. Though once common, most people have never seen an anthracite stove in action. Here’s your chance for a detailed tour.
In this 40 minute video I explain the differences between managing a woodstove versus an anthracite stove. Anthracite is quite a bit less work than wood, and you’ll get to see this amazing fuel from yesteryear in action. If you live outside the reach of natural gas supplies, anthracite is the cheapest source of purchased heating fuel on the planet. Five minutes work in the morning, five minutes work at night, and the rest of the day you have beautiful, even heat that’s also quite safe because there are no chimney deposits and no smoke.
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Steve Maxwell
