Home Comfort wood Cook stove firing questions

[Pete S]

We just purchased and installed a 1933 Home Comfort wood cook stove.

Many of the stoves we looked at but didn't buy it "appeared" that you could/should feed the wood through the fire box door.

This model has a fire box door BUT the there is a fire box liner plate that actually belongs there.

There is a bit of a "peep" hole, that you could feed MAYBE 1x2's through.

It seems the best way, but not the "best way" is through the plate within the plate above the fire box on the range top.

Does anyone have information on this function.

I would think feeding through the range top would be problematic, and through the little opening,................inefficient.

Thanks!

[happy thoughts]

My house came with a Sweetheart wood stove and a manual that is probably set up like the "other" stoves you looked at. I haven't fired my own stove because the set up wasn't safe. It's now a very heavy door stop until I figure out what to do with it. But that said, my manual suggests loading from the top once the initial fire is built through the fire door. That is also the way my hubby remembers his grandmother loading her cookstove. Mine doesn't have the double ring lid but thinking the smaller ring may be for loading coal or very small chunks of wood. If your stove was made to burn both coal and wood there should be two sets of grates, one for wood and one for coal.

Not sure what your peephole is but it may be some sort of damper???? Is it possible it's missing a part that would regulate airflow?

You might be interested in the 1934 Home Comfort manual and cookbook I found online that can be downloaded here as 2 pdfs.

http://okielegacy.net/WIRange/index.html

http://okielegacy.net/pdf-files/WIRHCckbk-1933.pdf

http://okielegacy.net/pdf-files/WIRHCckbk-1933-bk2.pdf

Both files are large ones (33MB each) so may take a bit to download. The first file has some basic instructions for use and has an illustrated parts list.

Good luck and have fun using your new stove:)

[Scribner's Mountain Maple]

I have a Home Comfort cook stove. I use it a lot to take the chill off on real cold nights.

Mine has a small 7"*7" door to the firebox. A slightly smaller damper door below that and the ash box underneath. In using mine for many years I've learned some things. There is a damper on the right side of the smoke stack, slide it back is open, pulled forward is closed. I take the top plates off, build a starter fire with paper and kindling. put it back together and light it from door on the fire box. Once it is going, feed it from the top. Open the damper next to the stack and take one plate off and put wood in quick. Mine is temperamental and likes to smoke a lot. Don't open the damper door when top is off or it will smoke. I can't completely close mine down or it will smoke. You will learn how it wants to be run. Have fun. I boil water on it and occasionally cook breakfast.

It has given me a major appreciation to gas and electric ranges. I can't imagine standing over that stove cooking for the family day after day. Especially in the summer.

Ben

[gregnel]

I'm no expert but I have a model A1 Home Comfort wood cook stove that I rebuilt 5 years ago. I've been using it most every day, all day since then. At least for the 9 months each year it's cool enough around here (central Minnesota) to not drive you out of the kitchen.

I don't know why more people don't run these things. They'll burn almost anything. A 15 minute walk in the woods with a bow saw and I can pick up enough 2 or 3" dead wood to last a couple days. They cook your food, keep it warm, heat your house, smell good, the oven is always hot and they heat your water. And it's true, they tend to make the nice warn kitchen the center point of the house. The normal thing around here in the winter is to start the stove in the morning for breakfast and keep it burning all day. With the small firebox they do need regular feeding.

Most of these are combination coal and wood stoves. The grate is rotated one way for coal, and the other for wood. I burn only wood since it's what I have for free and it's easier on the stove. I don't know for sure but I think the grate is rotated to a concave shape for coal, and convex for wood. The cast iron door (fire door) that fits on the firebox side of the wood loading door (fire door shield) is normally only used when burning coal. Coal burns hot and this door protects the loading door and anyone near it. I have noticed that on some cook stoves this fire door is bolted in place so the stove can only be top loaded. Coal is normally loaded from the top through the each eye (lid) on Home Comforts. Other stove have different coal loading methods.

Since I burn only wood I removed the cast iron fire door (failing to notice if it somehow rotated out of the way to allow front loading) and load from the front through the fire door shield which on this stove flips up or down. You can load from the top but it's a bit of trouble. You have to move your cooking pans aside, remove the lids and center piece (which half the time falls into the hot firebox), add wood then put everything back. That's too much work so I just open the front loading door and throw in a piece of wood. I do top load sometimes for trash and small pieces of wood. There's smoke and a bit of ash that get out when I do. Front loading is cleaner.

You know already that you have 3 dampers/valves to control. Fresh air in (draft door, door in front below loading door and above ash pan), oven diverter (lever on stove top rear to right of stove pipe) which controls how the flue gases/smoke leave the stove (directly up the stove pipe or diverted around the oven and water res. to heat them, then to the stove pipe), and chimney damper (in stove pipe).

Mine draws exceptionally well, and will never smoke unless I use punky wood and close the chimney damper all the way. Even then it smokes very little.

The normal cold starting routine is to remove the left hand lids and fill the firebox half full of crumpled paper, .and then add small sticks and branches. Open chinmey damper fully (set vertical), fresh air draft door open about an inch, and oven diverter all the way back (so flue gases go straight up the chimney for maximum draft and not around oven). Lids back in place and light from the front. Let fire get going well (about 5 min.), then close draft door and fill up the fire box from the front. Pull oven diverter all the way forward to start heating oven and water and you're done. Add wood every 15 to 30 minutes or so. We regulate stove, oven and water temperature by how much wood we add and hardly ever touch any damper once started for the day.

Great stove. I should have gotten one years ago.

[gregnel]

I thought I'd do an update since I've begun burning coal in my Home Comfort cook stove. I like the stove very much, and like it even better when it's on coal.

With the criminally high propane prices last winter I had to do something about heating the house. I'm kind of fed up with propane and decided to use it as little as possible. Wood heat works well, I like the price, but of course won't last the night and you wake up to a very cold house. It takes at least an hour of messing around before I get my two stoves restarted and kind of warmed up. Even with the big wood burner loaded up in the basement at night, the house can get down to the 30's or low 40's by the time morning comes around.

I burn anthracite (hard) coal (the clean smokeless kind) and it works very well following the guidelines. Everything I know about coal I learned from the NEPA website. I generally use nut size down to about 0 degrees, and stove size below that. I can load up the stove for supper and it's still throwing off tons of heat the next day. No more cold mornings. I use the cook stove to heat the first and second floors. At any outside temperature the first floor is always warm (sometimes too warm). Below zero the second floor will only stay up to about high 50's or so with the stove going full bore and kitchen nearly too hot. Standard story.

In Minnesota I pay a bit over $7 per 40lb bag of hard coal. The price is very steady from year to year. But that ends up being less than I pay per btu for propane at $1.84 a gallon, much less the $4 a gallon they were charging at the peak last winter. It is a bit more work as I have to load the stove and take out ashes twice a day. But it only takes a couple minutes in the morning and evening. Times I'm in the kitchen anyways waiting for something to cook.

If the temperature is above freezing I might not burn any coal at all and just stick with wood. Otherwise it gets too hot. I generally burn about 15 to 35 pounds a day, depending on temperature.

I have tried burning bituminous (soft) coal and North Dakota black lignite. So far not very well. I may not even bother and just stick with anthracite.

I know it sounds strange that anyone would burn coal nowadays, but hard coal is clean, hardly any bother, and cheaper than propane. Almost as easy as just turning up the thermostat.

[Pete S]

AWESOME STORY! Thank you for sharing!