Have used my Vogelzang potbelly stove for 10 + years. Only replacement part was the shaker grate assembly at year 9 when the lower bar of the external shaker assembly snapped off - (where you insert the shaker handle). Replaced the shaker grate and will have the broken piece repaired locally. Use anthracite nut coal only. Start fire with a 1 inch copper water pipe surrounded by a stack of 1 inch square by 4 inch long oak sticks. The pipe sits on 2 rolled up newspaper pages at the bottom and points up out of the top surface of the stove with the cooking plate removed. With the pipe and sticks in place, I load 40 pounds of coal into the lower half of the stove - being careful to not knock over the copper pipe and sticks while spreading the coal around them.
Open flue damper and ash damper - drop lit wooden kitchen match down the copper pipe to light the paper. When paper is lit, remove the pipe and replace the round cooking plate. Watch the sticks fire up and heat the chimney, while igniting the surrounding coal. In about 15 mins I start closing the ash damper, then the flue damper to get the flue temperature steady at 400 F. I monitor the flue temperature with a K thermocouple in the flue pipe connected to a furnace temperature monitor in the living room. High temp alarm is set at 425 F - low temp alarm set at 300 F. The wood stick ash falls right onto the ash shaker grate and is removed at the first shake-down. The stove is fed 5 shovels of new coal when the flue temperature drops below 350 F, with the new coal added around the OUTSIDE of the inner stove circumference, not in the center area. I shake the stove down every second feeding. (approx. every 8 hours). I can usually get 2, 24 hour days from each firing.
I use automatic temperature controlled fans to circulate heat at the ceiling level throughout the house, cool air returns along the floor to the stove shed - (separate from the house), accessed thru a metal door. There are 4 CO monitors, 3 smoke detectors, and 2 radio CO - Smoke detector units that use voice messages to alert everyone in the house if there is a problem in either of the two areas. My stove does not operate well unless the outside temperature is below 30 F, so we use the original hot air furnace for above 30 F outside air temperature times. Using the Vogelzang Railroad Potbelly Stove saves me a good 50% over heating oil prices, and once you find the best operating conditions for your situation, you could fine-tune your operations to save some money (unless you have a high-paying job - a long distance from home) !

Had horrible smell first week. Turned gray and it is not as pretty. Shipping was a week late.

...shipped and arrived over a week after promised and found the hinge on the feed door cracked and damaged from manufacturing defect. USSC (US Stove) has not corrected the crack flaw as it can be found all over the internet as negative feedback by other buyers. As for heating with a potbelly it is a great idea however keep this in mind as well because if you use coal in this stove... It is NOT UL RATED for coal and this was another thing that pissed me off because I wanted a dual fuel stove AND IT WAS ADVERTISED AS ONE. Coal is not as dirty as extremist claim! Anthracite coal can burn in a potbelly stove for as long as 6-8 hours AND NOT NEED TENDING. It will put out more BTUs than any other fuel out there by far. No creosote to deal with and very little ash so chimney is ALWAYS clean. The wood I use is expensive and kiln dried to under 20% moisture content. I can add 3 logs and the stove can consume them to ash in under an hour so sleeping and wanting to keep the fire going is out of the question. Recommend a infrared temperature hand held to monitor temperature of the stove and exhaust pipe as an extra log will over firing this stove and may produce serious damage it. In my case the crack may cause the door to open exposing the fuel chamber to vent gases or flame... Walk into a stove shop and check them out before trying to find one online sight unseen!!!!!! Coal in this stove would surely make it glow red hot and give you temps over 800 degrees to the body and will make you leave the room from the heat output! I am now looking for another potbelly that I can trust to just burn a few logs or coal safely!!!!!!!!!!

The only problem is the door hinge was broke and had to be welded back together. Seems to work great.

Prime Net Shops is not prepared to deal successfully with the public. This dreadful experience almost caused me to stop shopping on line.