Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Rocky, y'all say you're in a development....better check with zoning and getting a permit before doing anything.......
Anthracite coal produces no visible smoke, I won't call it odorless but unless you're power venting at street level at most you *might* get a faint odor on really warm and humid mornings. In other words if you install one these into your home your neighbors will be quite surprised to find out you're burning coal even after many years of use.
There should be absolutely no issues with local ordinances because they are simply not much different than using gas or oil.
Note that's anthracite, does not apply tho bituminous. Bituminous can be as bad or worse than wood.
Ahhh, coalman! The memories that picture brings back.
When I was a really little kid (back when we drew on the cave walls with charcoal ), we had a big, ole' coal furnace in the basement. I remember the coal truck coming to the house and sending the coal down the chute into the bin. The chute had a way of 'turning' to get the coal into the basement from the street.
I went down with my daddy every night when he fed the furnace before bed. I sat on the steps, he'd shovel, and we'd sing...."When the moon hits your eyes like a biga pizza pie..............".
My grandparents had one too. There was a big floor grate between the kitchen and the dining room. I was running one day and fell face first on it. Ouch!!
I got a bunch of peeps from my uncle for Easter. Some folks might remember when you could by them at a local 5&10. The poor little things were dyed different colors. Well, one fell down the grate. One sobbin', little kid.
But I've gone off down memory lane here. Back to work!
Either coal or wood are going to give you the most heat for your buck, I personally burn a lot of wood but we live near fruit orchards and I can get the wood really cheap. That and I think I'm on the wrong side of the country to get anthracite coal.
I did burn bagged coal in a big old-tech woodstove back when I lived in Idaho, come to think of it it was black, hard coal so probably anthracite. It certainly did keep the fire going overnight!
Unless propane is way cheaper on the East Coast than it is here, it's not competitive, price-wise, with anything except fuel oil. Burning petroleum products for space heat IMHO only makes sense if the petroleum product in question is used lube oil (which you can sometimes get paid to take away). But that is mostly for garages, where the charachteristic smell of lube oils won't be offensive.
Yeah, that recycled oil can be a blessing in the right place. A friend of mine has a construction business. They built a new facility a couple of years ago. The have heating units under the concrete floor of the maintenance garage (large square footage) that are run on the oil that is taken from the equipment.
Keep the ideas comin'. I haven't ripped out the fireplace yet!
I did burn bagged coal in a big old-tech woodstove back when I lived in Idaho, come to think of it it was black, hard coal so probably anthracite. It certainly did keep the fire going overnight!
Bit coal and anthracite produce roughly same amount of BTU's per ton and both will last very long in a fire, some bit. coal is actually higher in BTU's. The difference is the way it burns. Bit. coal has two distinct issues firstly you get some to a lot of black smoke and a powerful sulfury odor. How much depends on where it was mined as it varies widely from one region to the next. The other issue is if has a lot of volatile matter it will fuse together when it's burning and create what they call a clinker. This is a solid almost metal like substance and it has to be removed by hand. Since anthracite has neither of these issues it's quite suitable for use in a home even in a very urban setting.
Having anthracite in Idaho is quite a stretch, it gets into the $350 range as far away as Michigan, Maine etc. The transportation costs to anywhere farther relly start to make it impractical as a heat source.
EFM one of the leading stoker boiler manufacturers in the area have test fired a stoker they made for bit coal this past summer and were quite successful with it burning coal from Wyoming and a few other places in the country. Matter of fact its heating someones house in Wyoming right now. The trouble is making sure they only sell it in places where the coal is suitable or they are going to have a mess on their hands. It should be available in limited quantities out west this next year but the cost is not cheap. A new EFM anthracite boiler goes for about $9K and I can only assume it will be more out West because of shipping. The coal is only about $50 a ton there, you could heat a 2000 sq. ft home and hot water for $250 for the entire winter with prices like that.
It's an expensive investment but you can burn it for 50+ years with proper maintenance.
Coal-to-Liquids -- that is, the conversion of coal to liquid transport fuels -- is in fact not new a technology and has been practiced for a number of decades in countries such as South Africa and Germany and will soon be adopted in China.
Yeah, that recycled oil can be a blessing in the right place. A friend of mine has a construction business. They built a new facility a couple of years ago. The have heating units under the concrete floor of the maintenance garage (large square footage) that are run on the oil that is taken from the equipment.
Keep the ideas comin'. I haven't ripped out the fireplace yet!
we've burned wood for almost 20 years, and one stove that has really, really worked well (and priced right) is the Dutch West catalytic model. I've had both the large and extra large sized before (also comes in a small). They are well built, time-tested, very clean burning and easy to use.
We had a 2,200 cape-cod with a great room and that extra large kept the house TOASTY warm in the winter. 72deg no problemo! Burned overnight too. We lived in the woods, and I had plenty areas to cut so we provided our own. Usually took me 2 days to fell and drag a winters worth of wood, another week of evenings splitting it. Since we heated the whole house, we burned 4-5 cords a year.
We had the stove hooked up to the chimney like this- but we didn;t have a rigid stainless steel liner, we went to the first flue tile:
Here's the greatroom w/stove: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/Threerun533/ZachandTenika.jpg (broken link)
Here's my woodbins I made- each held 1.5 cords of wood: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/Threerun533/woodrack.jpg (broken link)
I viewed burning wood as a form of excercise, so it was never a 'chore' for me. If you wanted to buy wood, it costs (in our area) about $130 a cord- not $200. Additionally if you have the room and where you live allows it, you can usually buy log length wood, have it delivered and dumped and you cut, split and stack it. Saves a lot over buying pre-split stuff.
Anyway- we are installing a large model Dutch West in our new 'old' house. Same set-up as before, flex-pipe into the first terracotta flue tile, block of the damper opening and enjoy the benefit of REAL HEAT, lol!
If you wanted to buy wood, it costs (in our area) about $130 a cord- not $200.
I see wood prices all over the place, some as high as $220+ I've seen quoted this last fall when everyone was going nuts before the oil/natural gas dropped. You need about 1.4 cords of wood to equal the BTU value of one ton of coal so locally here the wood would need to cost about $100 a cord.
I may have posted this already in this thread but there's an excellent fuel comparison calculator you can download here that is provided by the DOE/EIA that will allow you to get a fair comparison of different fuels based on raw BTU's:
One of my old neighbors has a magnum stoker stove by Harmon. It was nice, but I prefer wood. Actually he was the only person I know that burned coal. Everyone where I lived burned wood. It was a lot cheaper for me. Plus anthracite (or coal) is subject to market volatility, and I remember him bitching relentlessly about it.
And we burned oak, sugar maple, and other high heat Btu content wood, so that has to be taken into account.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
), we had a big, ole' coal furnace in the basement. I remember the coal truck coming to the house and sending the coal down the chute into the bin. The chute had a way of 'turning' to get the coal into the basement from the street.
Coal Development Costs
