I know very little about either, but I wonder how a wood pellet stove compares in fuel cost to a coal stove.
Posted on 09/13/2005 8:26:28 AM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
The nip of autumn has been in the air the past few mornings. And as the temperature drops, thermostats get bumped up, an extra log might get tossed into the stove and increasingly, a few extra chunks of coal are being dropped into hoppers. That's because as the prices of oil, gas and firewood continue to climb, coal dealers say more and more people are returning to grandpa's heating fuel: coal.
"This fall, I would say with the price of gasoline up and the price of home heating oil up, we're getting more calls about coal," said Greg Pelchuck, owner of Black Rock Coal Inc. in East Montpelier. "We're taking new customers, probably about two or three every day."
Other dealers agree.
Terry Moran, owner of Rutland's Hugh Duffy Coal & Oil, said that while his company no longer deals in bulk anthracite, he still sells 40 pound bags of coal and people are buying.
"We still have the bags and we're moving them faster," Moran said on Friday. "Yesterday, a guy came in and bought 20 bags."
The reason for the increase, Pelchuck said, is that today's anthracite coal isn't the same stuff the old-timers used to use. With high carbon and low sulfur content and modern washing practices, anthracite burns cleanly and it's not nearly as dusty as the soft, bituminous coal used by blacksmiths and power plants, Pelchuck said. And as for warmth, Pelchuck says anthracite can't be beat.
"Coal doesn't have a stellar reputation, but it is warm," Pelchuck said. "You'll get the most bang for the BTUs for home heating out of coal versus any other product on the market."
Specifically, Pelchuck said one ton of anthracite coal produces about the same amount of heat as two cords of dry firewood, 180 gallons of heating oil or 234 gallons of propane. And at Black Rock's price of $250 per ton, the savings can be substantial.
Pelchuck estimated that an average home can be heated for the winter on about two to four tons of coal. The most recent figures from the Department of Public Service's September 2005 Vermont Fuel Price Report list home heating oil at a price of $2.63 per gallon. At those numbers, $1,000 will purchase four tons of coal or about 380 gallons of oil. When Pelchuck did the math with estimated numbers, he figured $1,000 would buy closer to 500 gallons of oil, and that, he laughed, wouldn't heat his house.
The savings are part of the reason East Montpelier resident and business owner Mo Cerutti is adding a coal stove to his heating system later this fall. As the owner of the Riverbend Country Store, Cerutti said when the temperature gets way down below zero, his current oil-fired hot water system can't put out the heat to compensate for a concrete slab floor and the constantly opening door. Cerutti said he's tried to bolster the warmth in the store by using a wood stove in conjunction with the oil system, but for the upcoming winter, he's switching to coal.
"The thing with the coal stove is it's a more even heat," Cerutti said. "With a wood stove, you feed it and it's hot, but then it cools down until you feed it again. With a coal stove, it stays warm all day and you just feed it once."
Cerutti estimated he'll save a few hundred dollars over the winter by making the switch to coal.
As for pollution, Moran said coal has gotten "a black eye" over environmental issues. He said people often mistake anthracite for the bituminous coal burned in power plants that can emit high amounts of sulfur. But, he said, anthracite coal is actually a clean-burning fuel.
"Coal is in my eyes, so much better for everybody and everything than wood," Moran said. "Anthracite is as clean as or competitive with gasoline or oil, and there's no creosote or chimney fires."
Harold Garabedian, deputy director with the Department of Environmental Conservation's Air Pollution Control Division, said comparing the cleanliness of anthracite to other fuels is a difficult task because different fuels emit different things when burned. He said both wood and coal have higher emissions than oil and gas, but that while wood doesn't emit sulfur, other particles are released into the air when it's burned.
Richard Valentinetti, director of the state's Air Pollution Control Division, said Friday that from an air pollution point of view, the burning of anthracite coal is probably better for the environment than the burning of wood.
Garabedian said the state isn't aware of a "wholesale change" in heating fuel usage and that coal users are proportionately a small group in Vermont.
Nonetheless, people are switching to coal to some degree. Raymond Plagge, owner of Montpelier Stove & Flag Works, said he has noticed a slight increase recently in coal-stove sales. However, just because the stoves aren't flying out the door, doesn't mean coal usage isn't growing. Plagge said he sold a lot of coal stoves in the 1970s and 1980s, and they haven't just disappeared.
"I think what people are doing is resurrecting their old stoves, they're dusting them off," he said.
And that seems to be the case for customers of Lake Champlain Coal Co., said owner Jeff Benjamin. Based in Whitehall, N.Y., Benjamin's company delivers 3,000 to 4,000 tons of anthracite a year in New York and in western areas of Vermont.
"We've seen a slight increase," Benjamin said. "Some of the customers that we've had who haven't been with us for a few years are starting to come back. I wouldn't say it's huge, but it's a noticeable increase. I just took a rough figure last week, and I think in one day we had 30 to 40 tons to be delivered."
Benjamin said business isn't what it used to be years ago, but he said he expects more people will be switching back to coal as gas and oil prices continue to climb.
As for Pelchuck, he has a similar outlook for the future of the coal business.
"We did about a thousand tons last heating season," he said. "And if everything runs like it's tracking right now, I think we'll do between 12 and 15 hundred tons this coming season."
Shouldn't Vermonters be consigned to solar heating?
We're catching up to the Chinese!
Actually, I love the smell of a coal fire. They used to heat with coal in NYC when I was a kid (I know, acid rain and all that, and it's better that they changed). But it always meant winter and Christmas to me.
I go to Spain a lot, and there are still areas there that heat with small coal or charcoal stoves, and I still associate the smell with coziness and warmth on a cold day.
I have coal under my house near the "furnace bunker" as we call it, concrete vault where various furnaces have been, the original structure was built in the 1890's...had coal for heat...
Not a bad idea really...
CORN fed furnaces are pretty slick too... and super cheap to operate.
My brother had a fire brick lined Warm Morning coal stove in the living room of his house years ago. It would get so hot you have to open the front door and let the cold air in to cool down the room.
And here I thought Vermont would utilize Scream Dean's and Fagey Leahy's hot air...
I know very little about either, but I wonder how a wood pellet stove compares in fuel cost to a coal stove.
Where are the greenies and others on corn fired stoves? These are super efficient, clean burning and allows corn to be used as fuel right from the field to the stove.
http://burncorn.cas.psu.edu/
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:qi2FasBKGFMJ:www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/culture/tools.html+corn+fired+stoves&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=corn+fired+stoves
"I go to Spain a lot, and there are still areas there that heat with small coal or charcoal stoves, and I still associate the smell with coziness and warmth on a cold day."
Coal fires are VERY warm. They still used coal when I was a kid in Nashville, my grandmother cooked breakfast for me on a coal stove.
My house is 1,800 sq ft. I've been burning wood pellets for 4 years now.
Paid $580.00 (In Aug) for 3 tons including delivery.
Here in the Northwest hills of Connecticut we're pretty comparable in climate to parts of Vermont. I'd rather cut open a 40 pound bag, dump it in the hopper and walk away then deal with coal.
I guess I need to go walk the train tracks where the coal trains run so I can heat my house.
Read too fast, me bad.
My stove is 35,000 BTU will heat a 2,000ft house cost $1800.00 including the pipes. It is controlled by a conventional wall thermostat and uses an electronic igniter.
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