it costs me about $5 a day no matter how cold out and still keeps the house at 75deg. what i like best is the constant temperature, no up and down like my fuel oil heater.
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.
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.
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.
The few times I visited my granny in the Winter in backwoods, WV, the quilts and the waning coal fire in the stove made for the best sleep I’ve ever had in my life. The smell of the gases coming off the coal was soothing and familiar, if not exactly Yankee Candle. It would give way to the smell of wood cooking the biscuits in the iron oven in the morning before she had the coffee on and the eggs frying.
You can’t take that away from me, but it will go with me when I go.
That’s too bad, really.
When we were in England outside of Cambridge for a year, back in the 1970s, we burned soft coal in the fireplace. There was no central heat in the house.
There was just a grate in the fireplace. You started the fire with a bit of kindling, and just fed soft coal to it from a bucket.
As long as you clean the chimney at regular intervals, which you should do anyway, I can’t see any problem with burning it in any good-drawing fireplace.
We have always lived in old houses, and several of them had coal cellars, where a truck could deliver down the chute so delivery and storage were easy. Then just carry it up daily in a coal bucket.
I also had some cousins who burned coal in their Franklin stove. If you have a wood stove you probably want to consult with someone as to whether you can burn coal in it. But as long as you have one of those thermometers on the stove pipe to monitor the temperature, I don’t really see why not.
it costs me about $5 a day no matter how cold out and still keeps the house at 75deg. what i like best is the constant temperature, no up and down like my fuel oil heater.
This story makes me want to convert my city of Chicago gas-boiler back to coal-fired.
I can feel my leftie neighbors’ heads exploding.
Most folks I know, here in central PA (anthracite territory), use coal, and they all swear by it. Our house had a new oil furnace when we bought it, so we use oil, but the old coal furnace is still down there. I’d consider switching if not for the old chimneys here, they might not be able to deal with it. Coal’s cheap when you’re in a valley surrounded by big black mountains! :)
Or how many people might just go up to Grandpa’s old cabin or even exposed coal seams on the side of the road with picks and shovels and not breathe a word about it.
Coal and corn cobs. That’s how my Grandma’s farmhouse in Iowa was heated, probably up into the Seventies, at least.
The cobs burned quick and real hot so the coal would catch. Back then they still picked corn, and shelled out of the corn crib. So, there was an almost unlimited supply of cobs. That was before everyone started using combines, which shell the corn as they go through the field and shred the cobs before dropping them back on the ground.
I’ve learned a lot about home heating from this thread — thanks. Maybe some Freepers would also be interested in an NYT story http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/europe/27house.html about “Houses With No Furnace but Plenty of Heat” that are so well-insulated that they don’t require any type of furnace.
Worth considering in anticipation of any upcoming BTU tax on the stuff eh?
I still remember the coal furnace at home, and standing on this one register to warm up after playing outside. Mom’s wood cook stove in the kitchen. The pitcher pump on the drain board, and of course the outhouse. I remember the black soot upon the newly fallen snow. The homemade snow ice creme. No heat upstairs for some reason. The windows would be a sheet of ice, but it was so warm in bed. The school had coal fired furnaces. We would sneak into the boiler room for a couple cigs. Along with some of the teachers. Times were good. So many things to reminesce about. I do love my free gas heat now though. There is one family in town who still burns coal. Love to smell it. Lordy, I am about to get old.
With Dear Leader coming to power next month, does anyone here have any recipes for grass, tree bark, dandelions and road kill? Or how to convert your car to a wood-burning engine like they do in Cuba? Which insects and rodents are tasty?
We came very close to buying a coal stove this year. We did go with a pellet stove and use a oil furnace as an adjunct when it gets around 0.
We are still considering a coal furnace but we are waiting to see what O is going to do with coal.