I’ve recently gotten a burner for my garage/workshop but after a few burns its apparent that smoke is an issue. (I’m burning wood)

Not wishing to inconvenience my neighbours I wondered if I might try smokeless coal instead.

The burner is a converted gas bottle so no grate, dies that mean I’m snookered for burning something like smokeless coal?

You should be able to, a friend of mine burnt ordinary coal in his. Once. The whole thing glowed orange and had an afterburner effect out the airwash 😯

Can you improve the airflow – or burn drier wood? Both should improve the smoke issue.

Wood is looking increasingly unfeasible. Its an old gas bottle, see;

No grate inside though, I’d really like to burn smokeless coal…

coal burns hotter so will certainly expose any weak points in there, used to bend lots of stuff on the old family mixed fuel stove by getting it going too well

id reckon on two issues at work here….

poor burner design

and

chimney is no where near high enough.

coal burns hotter so will certainly expose any weak points in there, used to bend lots of stuff on the old family mixed fuel stove by getting it going too well

Everyone says that, but with our multi-fuel burner in terms of flue temp, we can never get coal anywhere near as hot as wood. We have to turbo charge coal by adding wood to get the stove really hot. Yesterday couldn’t even get the stove fan to turn on till I added some wood, coal was just burning too cool. (Smokeless stuff)

That doesn’t look like it gets a great seal on the door, if that’s the case it’s not going to be turn efficiently causing the the wood to smoke. How dry is that wood? It’s hard to tell but doesn’t look that well seasoned.

That doesn’t look like it gets a great seal on the door, if that’s the case it’s not going to be turn efficiently causing the the wood to smoke.

Poor seals allow unwanted air in which is inefficient because it means the wood burns quicker and more heat is chucked up the flue – it doesn’t mean the wood smokes, that’s just damp wood.

Poor seals allow unwanted air in which is inefficient because it means the wood burns quicker and more heat is chucked up the flue

Having just replaced he seals on mine I beg to differ, before replacing them the glass would soot up regularly while there was plenty heat it wasn’t burning the same at all as the draw was wrong. Now I have new seals the vents are barely open all day long to produce the same heat as the air is entering where it should be but the glass is clean.

Poor draw causes things to smoke too.

The main source of draw is the chimney height, so I agree with Trail Rat. Add a metre of pipe.

Properly dried wood usually has radial cracks and flaking bark.

There’s over a metre of vertical chimney externally and the same inside, the draw is fine, rather the fuel was the question.

I really don’t want to burn wood due to proximity of neighbours so that’s why I asked: Can I burn smokeless coal in a device with no grate?

You want the chimney a metre or so higher than the high point of the roof. Coal burns better with air from below so even if the stove can cope with the coal it may not burn very well. Try some well dried wood and if you still want to use coal get the local fabricator to weld up a grate from half inch square steel and pop it in.

Nice one sweepy that sounds like a plan.

Everyone says that, but with our multi-fuel burner in terms of flue temp, we can never get coal anywhere near as hot as wood.

If your multifuel is anything like ours, the primary vents are not large enough to let in enough air to get it mega hot when burning coal. I just assumed that was done to prevent idiots end users from over firing the stove. The secondary air vent is plenty big enough to get a wood fire stinking hot though.

Having said that, if we open the ashpan door, coal gets plenty hot.

How deep a bed of coal do you have burning? You need a big old lump to get a coal fire working properly.

The smell of smokeless fuel is arguably worse than the smell of wood; just because it’s smokeless doesn’t mean it doesn’t give off some fumes!

You’d do better to split those logs up and burn the smaller bits hotter, which will create less visible smoke as the combustion will be more efficient.

Be careful with real coal – it burns a lot hotter than smokeless and as others have warned, can melt the stove internals.

Properly seasoned wood will produce less/a nicer smoke than badly burning smokeless fuel. Smokeless and coal really needs a grate – also, as already mentioned, if you do get it burning hot, you run the risk of warping parts of the stove.

Stick to properly dry wood and you’ll be fine.

Edit – also, how narrow is the flue? You seem to be going to a reduced diameter out the top, which doesn’t seem like a good idea IMHO.