OT, Coal, versus Firewood, for Heating?

Off topic I know, but who on here uses Coal, to heat with, and have you compared it to Firewood? Thinking about burning some Coal this year, instead of Firewood, any thoughts? Thanks.

Do you have a coal burner? I dont think you can burn coal in a woodburner?

I think firewood is cheaper then coal.

Yes, I have a Wondercoal, stove. From BTU Coal, versus Wood, it is looking like Coal might be a little cheaper. $180 a ton, here, for Bitumunous lump Coal.

All I know is coal burns real, real hot, real dang hot but leaves behind some messy remains that have to be disposed of.

Bitumunous is soft coal that I believe is smoky. Some communities do not want soft coal to be burned.
If you have the ability it is less cost per BTU and you may be able to mix coal and wood.

All depends what you pay per ton. Also takes a bit different handling than a wood-fire.

I suspect most deaths from coal burning are from CO poisoning, whereas deaths related to wood-heat are from wood-fires. That's not based on any stats - just my own experience.

One pound of wood yields 7800 BTUs of heat.
One pound of soft coal around 8800 BTUs.
One pound of hard coal around 12,700 BTUs.

A full cord of dry soft maple weighs 3000 lbs. and yields around 19,000,000 BTUs of heat.

A full cord of dry red oak weighs 3700 lbs. and yields around 24,000,000 BTUs of heat.

A full cord of dry hickory weighs 4300 lbs. and yields around 28,000,000 BTUs of heat.

In my area, a full cord of firewood right now costs around $220.

I was wondering about mixing the two, I am out in the country, so smoke, is not a problem. I may get 1/2 ton, and try it first.

Thanks. Here, a Cord is bringing about $150.

Maintain your chimney!! A creosote fire from the higher temp of coal is not an answer you want.
Practice and be careful on the use and mix of wood/coal.
Jim

With soft coal it"s not just the smoke but the soot; it"ll put some out even if you keep your fire good and hot...if wind swirls around house or outbuildings can darken them pretty quick.
Price hard coal (anthracite??) if available, for comparison. Good luck.

I burn Anthracite in a Surdiac that loads through a hopper in the top and self feeds. It just needs to be "knifed" about four times a day. I burn about 1.25 tons a year in about four months, at a cost of about $350.00 My primary source of heat is oil, and I burn about 500 gallons a year of that here in balmy NH.

Thanks, the problem is, I can not find any Anthracite near here.

Glad you brought this up. My son-in-law has an outdoor wood furnace (hot water heater) as well as an indoor woodstove and I help him cut wood. I asked him whether he couldn't put a large chunk of coal (or shovel full) in with the wood each load. He said it takes a different grate for coal. But even with just a little coal to stretch the wood supply? I can't see where that would hurt anything.

Anthracite, or hard coal, is found in only a few places in the world. It burns clean and hot - 13500 BTU / lb. I live in NE Pa. which is the center of hard coal for the U S A. Hard coal must be burned on a grate; it needs air to flow forming a draft. Putting hard coal in a wood burner is not going to give much heat. Additionaly, coal gas [methane] can and will be given off which may pop off in your livingroom. Burn wood in your wood burner and coal only if you have the correct stove. Ed

I have, a Wondercoal, stove, with the shaker grate, so I am setup for Coal. Still looking for the hard, Antracite Coal, asd of now. May have found some near Cincinnati, will call in the morning about it.
http://www.ruralking.com/wondercoal coal heater.html

I go into coal fired power plants all of the time. The coal that they use is a hybrid mixture of coals thats low in sulphur to meet EPA standards, but is high in acid. I'm certain that it burns much better than wood does under most conventional methods of burning wood, and it actually has a tendency to burn spontaneously at certain temps. I've seen it burn in bunkers within the plants while waiting to be added into the burners, and that's not a good thing. Under the right conditions, coal works fine. Has a tendency to create methane gas in underground pockets below piles. I've seen it explode too. I've seen coal blow the entire sides off of two power plants and several breaker/crusher houses and twist super thick steel girders 3' across.

Coal can be good. You wanna see something neat? Google "coal gasification" and go to our department of energy's website about it. Breaks coal down into three components to provide power for power plants, not burning it in any conventional methods. Turns it into clean burning gas to power the turbins, also into a biproduct of hydrogen for those proposed hydrogen cars, and another biproduct, I forget but think was a useable form of amonia. All of its components are good and useable, with one problem...its coal, and when people hear "coal", its followed by banning, and trouble, even though isn't burned as conventional coal.

Incidentally, without getting into politics, it may have changed, but a few years ago there were only two places in the world were the low sulphur coal that the EPA requires the power plants to use. One is in Utah, right where it was turned into federal parks land a couple of decades ago by a president whose name I won't mention. Its off limits to everyone. The other place is Indonesia, where a fella by the name of James Riady was the chairman of the Lippo group, who overseas that coal, delivered huge campaign contributions to the party of the president that turned all of that land in Utah into US park land. I'm not going to name the president, but it can be Googled because it happened. Riady is banned from the US now, and politics aside, some others should've gone to jail and prison over that, but didn't. Google James Riady and Lippo Group, and follow the trail that put our low sulphur coal off limits for Indonesian coal.

Mark

Coal can be use din a stoker stove which can be left unattended for days. Wood have to be stoked several times a day.
Few things worse than somebody trying to run a wood stove on 1 or 2 fills a day. They jam the firebox tight and close the draft. Then wonder why their chimney is full of creosoot?Why they are burning a lot of wood for all the heat they obtain? Plus the neighbours have to live down wind of a stinking, smoking coke oven.

In my area, it is hard to find a fuel dealer that still sells ANY coal these days. Apparently it has fallen out of fashion and few people were buying it anymore.

When I was a kid, we had a wood and coal kitchen range in our old farmhouse. It was designed to work well with either fuel, and usually we would burn wood during the day during the heating season and would supplement the wood with coal during the night, as the coal would keep burning until morning. Using coal, the stove drafts had to be set differently than when using wood.

One time I was home alone and was going to get the stove ready for night time use. I filled the fire box with coal chunks and then got distracted by a phone call. About 20 minutes later, I went back into the kitchen and discovered that the whole range top was cherry red, as was part of the stove pipe going to the chimney. I realized that I had left the drafts wide open and quickly closed them. I also opened the oven door to let some heat out. I thought about throwing water on the stove, but luckily did not do that--it might have cracked the plate steel. After a few minutes, things cooled down to a more normal level. I probably also had a chimney fire going when things were really hot, but it didn't seem to damage the chimney. Except for a bit of scorching of the drywall behind the stovepipe, nothing seemed to be damaged. But I gained a whole lot of respect for the power of coal that night.

Every Fall, we would drive into town to the coal yard in our old farm truck. The fuel company would weigh the truck empty and then let us pick the sized of coal pieces that we wanted from the coal pile. Then with the truck loaded, we would go back to the fuel company and get reweighed. It was a lot of work to do it this way, but then we got only the size pieces we could use, and not huge pieces or fines, which didn't work well in our range. Looking back on it, I am surprised that they would let us load up that way. It was not very expensive--I think a whole truck load was only about $40 or $50.

Something else to consider is ash disposal. Coal ashes should not be put on a garden or any place that you want to grow something. I bet the area we dumped our coal ashes still doesn't grow plants very well, and that was 40 years ago. On the other hand, coal ashes are wonderful for adding traction on an icy driveway. You also need to be careful about ashes, as often there are hot coals mixed in with the ashes. Those coals can start fires days after they have been dumped. We always used metal buckets to store ashes, and never left the buckets on or near a surface that could burn.

Good luck in trying coal. I hope it will work OK for you. But just remember that coal is a very concentrated fuel that REQUIRES careful use or it can come back to bite you! My misadventure really scared me. Undoubtedly I nearly burned the house down. Be careful!

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My Dad used some coal years ago when it cost 25 bucks a ton.Every town had a coal dealer.I shoveled coal in the 60s when I worked in the mill.The railroad cars dumped from the bottom but we had to keep the coal moving down the slope.1 boiler was coal fired the other oil.Theres only one place to buy coal here, 25 miles away.Ashes were a problem.Dad had a sifter that sat on top a steel barrel.It saved bits of unburned coal.I was with my father when he bought a Warm Morning coal stove at Fabers Hardware for 45.00

This is my second season burning Anthracite rice coal in my stoker boiler. This time of year it burns unattended for about 6 days. At the peak of the season I can get 2-3 days out of a fill. I'm using the ash as fill in my laneways, similar to what high schools used to do for their tracks.

My stove is a Harmon VF3000, the cost was around $5000 for the boiler. The fuel costs me about half of what my old fuel oil furnace cost and the house is warm now.

I've used both in large quantities. One thing about coal is it produces about 8 times the ashes that wood does and as WA-hal mentioned, they're poisonous to plants for years whereas wood ashes make good fertilizer for just about anything. We had plenty of room to dump the ashes and now, 50 or so years later, there is no sign of any damage they might have done. Even a slight amount of coal smoke has a very unpleasant smell. Wood smoke is pleasant in comparison.

Must be a pretty low average IQ in your neighborhood judging from all the examples you come up with from your neighbors

A neighbor, since passed away, told of a brother-
in-law, who lived in Southern Illinois, who had
coal on his farm, and went out with the Ford
tractor, and trailer, and pick and shovel and dug
coal to burn. The seam was right at the surface
at that spot on the farm.

I dont want to start anything here because I value youe words on here,But,,, I tend my wood stove 2 times a day,unless its really cold and I dont have alot of flue build up,I only use seasoned wood. I run the brush down my flue every 2 months or so.I dont cram the stove full either, Its pretty small,17 X 22 inside

Depends on where you are.

If you can get coal for the right price, you can't go wrong.

I am heating with Eastern PA Anthracite coal right now. I get it from the breaker for $150 a ton. That is equal to about 2 cords of hardwood that is going for $150 a cord. So unless you cut your own wood (and what is your time, effort, and tools worth) coal is a win.

Bituminous coal is around $100 a ton here. It is a bit harder to use and requires a bit more maintenance. It is worth it for me to pay the extra $50 a ton for the cadilac of coals.

And in my opinion, the best part of coal is I tend to the fire once or twice a day. I load it up in the morning, shake it down right before I leave for work. I get Very consistant heat output all day long. Stove runs right about 400 degrees all day. House stays a comfy 70.

I'm burning in a 1912 Smith & Anthony HUB Heater #215 made in Cape Cod. Its a baseburner built for burning Anthracite. 100 years old and it still heats wonderfully.