Posted on 12/26/2008 3:34:28 PM PST by reaganaut1
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Aptly, perhaps, for an era of hard times, coal is making a comeback as a home heating fuel.
Problematic in some ways and difficult to handle, coal is nonetheless a cheap, plentiful, mined-in-America source of heat. And with the cost of heating oil and natural gas increasingly prone to spikes, some homeowners in the Northeast, pockets of the Midwest and even Alaska are deciding coal is worth the trouble.
Burning coal at home was once commonplace, of course, but the practice had been declining for decades. Coal consumption for residential use hit a low of 258,000 tons in 2006 — then started to rise. It jumped 9 percent in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration, and 10 percent more in the first eight months of 2008.
Online coal forums are buzzing with activity, as residential coal enthusiasts trade tips and advice for buying and tending to coal heaters. And manufacturers and dealers of coal-burning stoves say they have been deluged with orders — many placed when the price of heating oil jumped last summer — that they are struggling to fill.
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The coal trend is consistent with steep increases in other forms of supplementary heating that people can use to save money — most of them less messy than coal. Home Depot, for example, reports that it has sold over 80,000 tons of pellet fuel, a sort of compressed sawdust, for the season to date. That is an increase of 137 percent compared with the same period last year, said Jean Niemi, a company spokeswoman.
Coal may never make economic sense in areas far from where it is mined. But in places within reasonable delivery range, the price tends to be stable, compared with heating oil or natural gas.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The Eco-Nazis say this is VERBOTEN!
I’m not sure if burning coal at home is a good idea, especially if you consider burning coal releases a huge amount of pollutants that make wood burning seem like a minor problem in comparison. The cost of coal-emissions controls would be ridiculous, to say the least.
Drill here, drill now.
I imagine the carbon monoxide would escape through an installed chimney.
Of course it's a good idea! Where else are you intending to get all the lumps for your liberal friends next Christmas?
Anyone know if you can burn it in a fireplace? Is it safe? I would like to add it to my enclosed fireplace that heats the house.
Like what pollutants that you don’t have with wood?
I’ve seen plenty of both sources of heat, and coal is certainly visually cleaner by far. When one considers the fact that few people know how to operate a wood-fueled, airtight stove properly, the pollution opportunity from wood easily exceeds coal.
Never had a problem with it.
FMCDH(BITS)
Not knowing what type of enclosure you have, I don't know. Coal burns hotter than wood when done correctly. You should check with the manufacturer before trying it.
FMCDH(BITS)
Coal is marvelous in a wood fire fireplace. I would get a load and bag it in brown paper sandwich bags all at once and drop one or two in the fireplace for an evening’s warmth. It has a beautiful flame, glowing embers, and very little residue.
Nowadays you have to get it from the local plants in West Va., or PA, and freight can be a bit much, but its still worth it.
I used to live in an 1830 farm house. Had a wood and coal burning furnace. Almost every weekend was spent in the 110 acre woodlot cutting down standing deadwood, then splitting it for the furnace. House, of course, had no insulation. The furnace was very old, so I had to stoke it every 3 or 4 hours. To avoid getting up at night, or waking to a stone cold house, I’d throw in the coal at night. Sagamore Hills, Summit County, Ohio. It gets cold. Miss the house. Miss the great hunting. But,,, I don’t miss the labor involved! Besides, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park forced the sale of 100 of the acres, so,,,,,,,,,,
Years ago I lived in a duplex whose only heat source was a wood burning stove. I loved it when my friends who worked at a coal plant brought me coal. My stove would be piping hot the next morning and with some fresh kindling I’d have a cozy fire.
Once lit, coal burns for hours. Hours. And, it’s a hot fire when stoked up.
It depends on the fabrication of your fireplace. In some areas of the country, you can get big, fist-sized chunks of coal that would burn well in a conventional fireplace, but many wood burning fireplaces are not designed for the use of coal. Specifically, many wood-burning stoves and fireplaces are not designed for the more intense heat that a coal fire can produce. eg, any fireplace with glass doors or a fire glass insert, I probably would NOT use to burn coal.
A heavy airtight wood stove lined with firebrick? I might give it a try - in small amounts at first.
NB there are different types of coal in the US: in PA, you’ll seen mostly anthracite, or “hard coal” — which you won’t find in big chunks. Here in Wyoming, we have sub-lignite, which can be found at dealers in big 4”+ chunks all the way down to rice coal for stokers - and the big chunk coal works well in a conventional airtight wood stove. So not all coal is the same; they all have different burning characteristics, heat values (BTU/lb), ash residue, sulphur content, etc.
Here in Wyoming, there are a LOT of coal-fired boilers and heating plants. There is nothing that is as cheap as coal for heating a house here, and I mean nothing. Coal is about $40/ton if you pick it up at a local mine by yourself, $75/ton if you don’t. BTU for the bucks, you can’t beat that with a stick.
raybbr wrote:Coal can be burned in an open fireplace, but you need a "coal grate" or "coal basket." It's also very difficult to start and requires somewhat different approaches than conventional wood or even charcoal. Heating efficiency for an open fireplace isn't so good. You get lots of radiant heat in the room with the fireplace, but you generally lose heat in outlying rooms. Total efficiency for most open fireplaces is around zero +/- ten percent.
Anyone know if you can burn it in a fireplace? Is it safe? I would like to add it to my enclosed fireplace that heats the house.
If you're using an enclosed stove, you'll need a coal stove. One specifically designed for burning coal. These have a taller, narrower combustion chamber and different air handling from a wood stove.
And check for local supplies. If you're in the appalachians, in "coal country," coal is easy to find. It's probably available in western coal producing areas as well. But shipments of less than a complete trainload aren't as easily available outside of the coal producing areas.
We burned coal in our fireplace in the 60’s and 70’s in Illinois. As with any fire burning within the confines of one’s home, care must be taken. The chimney should be cleaned every few years by a reputable chimney sweep.
The biggest hassle with coal is that it is very dirty to handle. I can remember the many fun trips to the train yards with my dad to pick up a load of coal. In the house that we lived in, there was a coal chute that fed into the basement. At one time in this country, you could order a load of coal to be delivered to your house and it would be funneled into the house via this chute. When we finally got around to repainting the basement, it was a real hassle cleaning the walls and floors of the coal residue.
You will still need wood for your fireplace. A hot fire is a requirement to ignite the coal. Once ignited, the heat generated by the coal far surpasses that of just a wood fire. I have a feeling that the hassle of dealing with coal resulted in the invention of the home heat pump!
Burning coal is cheaper than most heating alternatives short of having the acreage of trees you can fell, cut and burn.
My idea for those that cannot get coal is to get as much spam mail as they can, shred everything and if possible add some sawdust and make your own presto logs.
Its actually quite feasible to turn ordinary combustible paper trash into compressed logs, it only has to be shredded and then mixed into a wet slurry, poured into some short 4” ABS tubes and set aside to dry, push out the logs so to speak.
Shredding can be done any number of ways from actually buying a leaf shredder or using a power mower, after any number of ways to get the paper, sawdust, cardboard etc chopped into smaller but not real small chunks put everything into a portable concrete mixer you can rent, if not a plastic garbage can and use a large paint mixer on a drill.
4 inch ABS pipe is real cheap,its not mandatory to use 4 inch it just costs more to get something bigger the more tube you have the better, I would say just off the top of my head because I have never done this just cut as many as you need 24” tubes, have a rubber cap on one end of all of them or a non-glued ABS cap, pour the oatmeal consistency slurry in the tubes for what length you desire, let dry, it may take some time to dry, maybe a week or longer.
The logs I think should easily push out because of shrinkage. Just remove the cap and using a ram rod of say another piece of smaller ABS or PVC with a cap to push, I cannot say how fragile they may be.
In my shop I would use a hydraulic press to make mine, make them more dense and to squeeze out moisture for faster curing.
I hope this was good advice to someone.
Fascinating thread - I have to research whether my wood stove can handle it.
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