Yeah, this is my first year burning coal and I'm very pleased with the results. I put a ton of soft and a ton of hard though so far and have a ton scheduled for delivery tomorrow. I am going to burn coal for the remainder of the season and try to get my wood in for the next two seasons so it has a chance to dry. I can burn seasoned wood and coal with very little smoke. After the first burn cycle smoke free... Just clear waves coming out of the stack. I live in central pa and heat a 2600 sq ft house and 600 sq ft basement plus a lot of dhw with a family of 5 (the washer and dishwasher runs pretty much non stop and lots of showers plus large corner jaccuzi tub). My house is a brick cap cod built in the 50s with very little insulation. I added an addition to the back of the house and renovated the second floor insulating every thing I could with exception to my crawl space...which I plan on insulating in the spring. Last year I put about 10 cord of straight wood through (about 70 percent of that was green). This year about 5 chord of seasoned wood and I'm guessing 3 ton of coal. I'm still trying to figure out how much coal I need to add to get me through to the next load if I'm burning straight coal...but ill figure that out soon...I know I'm wasting a lot now.
The set up works very well with the fire brick and sand. I added some sand at the end of one season but you don't really have to. The wood burns up into such a fine ash that you can leave some in the firebox and use that to level off with. With the auger out the back you can empty your ashes while in full operation which works well especially while burning coal. If I'm burning wood I auger once a week...if I'm burning coal I auger twice a week. You get more ash with the coal, plus you want to make sure you keep the area below the grates clear so the coal gets plenty of air from underneath.
Another nice feature of the heatmor is the second door on the exterior of the stove. The blower is mounted at the bottom of the stove between the doors which preheats the air before entering the firebox as opposed to other stoves which pull cold air from outside. This year I added additional insulation to the inside of the exterior doors which I believe is helping. My underground lines are not the best...I have pex with the bubble wrap insulation inside of pvc which was the method everyone used at the time (installed the lines in 04). I plan on a redo in the near future. I would guess I'm loosing about two chord a year to the ground. Whatever stove you go with, get the best underground lines that money can buy....don't go cheap.
Hopefully, I answered your questions, let me know if you have any more and GL.