I haven’t burnt coal before, and am just trying it out now. Man, does it ever take a long time to heat up a room!

That said, I have not yet closed the door as I am afraid to cut off the circulation and stifle the fire.

The coals are currently burning (there is flame), and I am wondering at what point I can close the door and just begin basking in the heat. Anyone?

Might be a good idea to close the door mate & put some wood on top

the only way it’ll get hot is if you close the door!!!

just load it up and close the door, turn down the air feeds – roasty toasty!

Aye up saxrider!.. ye we just ran out of logs xmas eve pm!… so shot to garage for a couple of bags of coal for our multifuel stove!… once up to temp,put coal on,& she’ll go for AGES on slow burn!…. u tend to get a lot more ash tho…but when needs must…;))

Using a 50/50 mix of taybrite [or similiar nuts] and coal works well

Take care… coal burns too hot for a multi-fuel stove. My neighbour who has the same Dovre 250 as we have, actually melted her baffle plate by burning coal; it collapsed like melted chocolate onto the grate and took me a hell of a lot of trouble to get it out. That and two replacement fire bricks cost her £170.

(Okay, she had a chimney fire because she had never had it swept, the resulting powerful updraft made the stove run away with itself, hence the intense heat. The whole stove was choked solid with fine brown dust, which must have been soot ash. I told her to stop burning coal and she borrowed a bag of Pureheat from us and promised to replace it. A few days later she turned up with a bag of… COAL! I tried some in our Dovre and didn’t like the filthy black smoke and the smoky yellow flame so I gave the bag to another neighbour who has an open fire.)

Make a wood fire first and let the wood burn down to a nice bed of hot ashes then add 4 or 5 coals, then 1 piece of wood every hour or so.

The coal lasts about 6 hours and you barely burn any wood.

Take care… coal burns too hot for a multi-fuel stove.

Not sure that’s true TBH; admittedly it’ll be dependent on your stove / installation etc but if it’s truly multi-fuel it should be fine; we’ve been burning Phurnicite (sp?) and coal (depending on availability and price) in our Stratford mult-fuel stove for coming on 5 years without issue (along with well seasoned wood)…

I use a layer of coal everyday on ours as it provides a good bed. I’ve also ran it on just coal for weeks, control the vents and it’ll be fine. They don’t burn too hot unless you let them, just like logs then.

As its Christmas I’ll join the argument! Coal doesn’t burn too hot for a multifuel at all unless it’s a cheapie stove! As a seasoned veteran of all things burning is if you’re struggling to get the flames on just half latch the door with vents fully open. This will offer the best draw of an scenario!

The instructions for my stove say to only burn smokeless fuels or high quality coal like anthrasite. Multi flue stoves burn hotter than an open fire so house coal is not suitable.

If the chimney has a stainless liner ensure it is the right type for burning smokeless fuel (should be 904)otherwise it will be damaged , there are 2 types of liner the cheaper one is for wood only.

Mixing fuels (wood and smokeless)is also a no no as the moisture from the wood and the eflux from burning smokeless fuel combine to create acid which will eat through the liner (stainless 904).

All the above is in the info pack with the stove and online.