My BIL (famous last words) lives in a large cottage which has a smokeless fuel set up .

Whilst he’s exploring gas/oil/other heating set ups, what’s the best way to keep a fire burning over night?

By the time they get up in morning it’s out and has to start all over again. Takes half a day to get heat into the house.

I thought i’s seen some sort of coal that burns slower and may just make it through the night.

Any ideas?

normally smokeless fuel will last overnight if you stick some on the fire last thing and use the ash from under the fire on top of the coal – its messy though.

when I was young (*see also Eric Burdon)

my parents used to seal our fire with damp dross(at night, let it burn down, air vents closed and use damp dross on top of fire to seal so no naked flames/no obvious air holes) and in the morning poke through and use paper(as a fan) or bellows to get it going again – worked for them but then we didn’t have mains leccy till I was 8

Decent block of ordinary coal covered with dross was always enough for us in an ordinary open hearth fireplace. The more you can shut off the draught the better of course.

Is this a stove or open fire? If the latter he’ll probably struggle regardless, if the former it shouldn’t take long to get it going again even if it does go out.
Sounds like he needs to insulate the walls internally to help stop the heat draining away.

Smokeless is hos best bet although we once had a bag of crushed coal (forgotten the proper name) that would create a solid layer on top of the fire that could keep it in nearly all night.

eggs or the briquettes and then cover with the ash from the fire – dampen this if required

At best it will be warm/glowing enough to get the fire going quickly and the room wont be that cold

Less succesful in an open fire and you are into bellows and the like

We used to call crushed coal – “slack. Drop some of that on a low fire late at night and it would still be alight in the morning. This was on an open fire. We’d close the damper in the chimney as well to reduce the draw.

slack or dross on top and close down the vents. seen it work many times in both open fires and stoves

What purpose does it serve other than sooting up the chimney and sending a whole load of partially burnt shit up the chimney.

My grandad used to do it. House was still freezing come morning as he closed in stove didn’t give off very much heat. It’s only benifit was come morning time he only had to give you a poke and chuck some kindling in and it was going…..but then given it saved him a single match and a sheet of paper…. They figured it wasn’t worth the coal or illusion of keeping house warm when they insulated.

Best thing they did was insulate the house. Now they don’t have to close in the fire and the house is still warm come morning.

Trail rat +1

Keep my stove in overnight over the weekend when will be at home in the morning. Use smokeless ovoids. Chuck half a bucket in before bed. Leave vent open just a smidgen. Still plenty left in the morning. Room still nice and warm.

So it does work. Did take a while to get the airflow properly sorted. Too much and it all burns and you’re left with just a few embers in the morning. Too little and it goes out. leaving a big pile of partially burnt coal in there. Its a very fine line.

I lived in a cottage with a solid fuel central heating running off a stove in the living room. Never really got the knack of getting it to stay lit over night and through the day was a bigger problem as I was out working pretty long hours.

Because it ran the radiators the stove had a water jacket around it so even in the room it was in it didn’t give off any heat when first lit for a few hours until it had managed to put heat into the radiators so it wasn’t worth lighting in the morning before work and if I got home at night after 8pm it wasn’t really worth lighting then either.

The solution was a thermal under suit from a deep-sea divers outfit and a big hat, and getting used to watching TV through a cloud of my own breath. 🙂

I’m about to stick the thermal suit on eBay if you’re BIL is my size 🙂

Insulation, that’s the only real solution.

We had an open fire in a rental a few years back. The smokeless briquettes would still be glowing in the morning (6ish) but gave off far less heat than normal coal. We never tried to keep it going overnight, just an observation