Author Topic: Heating with coal (Read 1220 times)

MillCreek · « **on:** March 03, 2019, 05:18:35 PM »

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/03/699325560/for-the-few-who-heat-homes-with-coal-its-still-king?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20190303&fbclid=IwAR2E53rydAu_yOimMtfCP8NjCmpurJZa4rvZaeNZkDEq4FQGirp9OwNyJ50

I had not realized that so few people still used coal for heating. At one time, coal was used in this area; there were several active coal mines in south King County.

grampster · « **Reply #1 on:** March 03, 2019, 05:25:21 PM »

When I was a kid, nearly everyone heated with coal. In the winter time there was a constant smoky mist, like low hanging clouds. I remember the big day when the furnace company came over and converted our big, coal fired octopus furnace to natural gas.

Kingcreek · « **Reply #2 on:** March 03, 2019, 05:36:02 PM »

Years ago we had a mayor that won election by going door to door with a bucket of coal. Got him in the door and he gave out a few ton without spending a lot.
I also remember elementary school class being disrupted by the coal truck pulling up to the the chute and unloading coal right outside our window (that building is still there but was only used for classrooms until about 1966.
Illinois had a lot of coal mines. My great grandfather and his brother owned some drift mines and my grandmothers brothers as boys used to walk the mules round the turnstiles to winch the carts out. Many strip mines in the 50s 60s and into the 70s. The best legacy of which are the “reclaimed” strip mine lakes now good fishing- many state owned and publicly available.

dm1333 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 03, 2019, 05:39:02 PM »

Quote

But burning anthracite coal does emit more carbon dioxide per unit of heat than just about any other fuel, according to the Energy Information Administration. That makes it a contributor to climate change.

Without knowing the carbon expenditure of getting that coal from mine to stove vs. heating oil from well to furnace you can't claim it contributes to climate change.

RoadKingLarry · « **Reply #4 on:** March 03, 2019, 06:30:51 PM »

A friend of mine has an exposed vein on his place. Its not the good stuff but they use it to heat their shop.

RocketMan · « **Reply #5 on:** March 03, 2019, 08:01:33 PM »

Quote from: MillCreek on March 03, 2019, 05:18:35 PM

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/03/699325560/for-the-few-who-heat-homes-with-coal-its-still-king?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20190303&fbclid=IwAR2E53rydAu_yOimMtfCP8NjCmpurJZa4rvZaeNZkDEq4FQGirp9OwNyJ50

I had not realized that so few people still used coal for heating. At one time, coal was used in this area; there were several active coal mines in south King County.

In my Jr. and Sr. high school days we used to hike a trail over Squak Mountain in Issaquah. One of the trail's branches ended at a played out coal strip mine on the back side of the mountain.
And there was a town nearby called Black Diamond. I don't know if it still exists.

Hawkmoon · « **Reply #6 on:** March 03, 2019, 08:08:04 PM »

I'm old enough that my grandparent's house was heated with coal when my mother was staying there (with me in tow) during WW2 when my father was overseas. I did Army Basic Training and AIT at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in the late 1960s ... our barracks were heated with coal.

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #7 on:** March 03, 2019, 08:36:30 PM »

Aunt and Uncle lived in an old farmhouse outside Clayton, NM, until about ten years ago. It had a coal furnace in the basement. They got coal from Raton, a couple hours west.

The system was ancient and seemed to have two temperatures... off and "surface of the sun".

Brad

230RN · « **Reply #8 on:** March 03, 2019, 08:44:01 PM »

Late 1940s to mid '50s...

By the time I was ~9 or 10, I was already the stationary engineer for our house. We'd get deliveries of a ton (bituminous) about once a month, depending on weather, but guess who got the responsibility for knowing when we should order, etc.

Of course all this with Pop checking up on me every once in a while. I still remember banking the fire at night and shaking it down and re-coaling it in the mornings. Regulation wasn't all that difficult since there were air ports both above and below the grates, by partial banking by throwing ashes on the fire, by not shaking down the grates for a while, and partially closing the valves on the room radiators.

We converted to oil, with a spinner in the center of the firebox that centrifugally sprayed the oil against hot ignition plates arranged in a circle, so the combustion was against the actual wall of the firebox.

Terry, 230RN

French G. · « **Reply #9 on:** March 03, 2019, 11:03:12 PM »

My dad tells me stories, by age six he had moved his bed into the furnace room and had the job of keeping the furnace stoked. And it kept him away from his mean drunk dad. People here still toss some coal in their outdoor wood furnaces. I put a little in my fireplace from time to time. I still have about three hundred pounds here, just rescued my forge blower so time to get more.

K Frame · « **Reply #10 on:** March 04, 2019, 07:33:43 AM »

I grew up in Pennsylvania in the 1970s and 1980s, and a lot of people there were still heating with coal furnaces and coal stoves. Friends of mine had a couple of combo wood/coal stoves.

The newest technology is power vented stoker stoves that burn "rice coal," anthracite that is finely ground. Operate a lot like my pellet stove, but they put out a lot more heat.

Ron · « **Reply #11 on:** March 04, 2019, 09:27:14 AM »

I’ve read it burns so much hotter than wood that folks have damaged their cast iron stoves using coal instead of wood.

Not having any experience with coal myself, maybe the brain trust here knows whether that is true or not.

K Frame · « **Reply #12 on:** March 04, 2019, 09:34:48 AM »

The problem is people trying to burn coal in a cast iron wood stove. That's a recipe for disaster.

Coal and wood burn fundamentally differently, and yes, coal burns MUCH hotter.

Wood burns from the top down, whereas coal burns from the bottom up. You MUST have an airflow grate under the coal to allow it to burn properly. If you don't, and try to build a coal fire on the bottom of a cast iron stove, it will either simply refuse to burn or it will burn so hot that it will destroy the bottom of the stove.

So yes, it's true.

K Frame · « **Reply #13 on:** March 04, 2019, 09:37:36 AM »

Quote from: Brad Johnson on March 03, 2019, 08:36:30 PM

Aunt and Uncle lived in an old farmhouse outside Clayton, NM, until about ten years ago. It had a coal furnace in the basement. They got coal from Raton, a couple hours west.

The system was ancient and seemed to have two temperatures... off and "surface of the sun".

Brad

On what is now the NRA Whittington Center in Raton there's a fairly substantial ghost town that supported the coal mines that were also on Whittington Center property.

Apparently the one mine worked into the 1950s.

https://www.nrawc.org/wc-experience/landmarks/

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #14 on:** March 04, 2019, 09:43:38 AM »

Quote from: Ron on March 04, 2019, 09:27:14 AM

I’ve read it burns so much hotter than wood that folks have damaged their cast iron stoves using coal instead of wood.

Not having any experience with coal myself, maybe the brain trust here knows whether that is true or not.

That's correct, though a lot of cast iron stove cracks are due to improper pre-heating rather than what's being burned. You can do the same thing with wood by building too big a fire right off the bat. A solid cast iron stove, properly preheated, will withstand pretty much anything you can shove through the stoking door.

Using coal in a fireplace ostensibly designed for wood can ruin seals and gaskets. Even properly preheated, the seal and gasket material can't take the intense heat of a coal fire. Same goes for many catalytic fireplaces. The catalyst isn't designed for that kind of heat.

Brad

K Frame · « **Reply #15 on:** March 04, 2019, 09:52:08 AM »

"thought a lot of cast iron stove cracks are due to improper pre-heating rather than what's being burned."

A body crack is one thing.

Blowing out the bottom of the stove because some numbnuts built a coal fire without a grate is another entirely.

When the glowing nookulur gopher escapes its cage, you've got a problem...

When I was first learning how to use a cast iron stove while staying with friends his Dad had a rule of thumb that you start it small, then increase it by half every 30 minutes until you have the sized fire you want.

As far as I know they're still heating with the same stove they bought in 1972.

lupinus · « **Reply #16 on:** March 04, 2019, 09:52:33 AM »

There are plenty of stoves that can do both wood and coal, I don't know if that's simply all coal stoves or if it's ones specifically designed for both, but coal in something designed for wood is a no go.

And as for using coal, hell growing up in the 90s one house we lived in we burned a coal stove during the winter. And my Grandfather owned several houses in/around PA coal country that either still had their coal bins in the basement or it was pretty obvious where the coal bin used to be.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

K Frame · « **Reply #17 on:** March 04, 2019, 10:25:27 AM »

"I don't know if that's simply all coal stoves or if it's ones specifically designed for both"

Most coal stoves can burn wood, but some won't do it gracefully and it's best not to try. There's a class of anthracite (hard coal) stoves that are gravity fed (first ones were designed in the 1830s, IIRC), as opposed to batch fed (most wood stoves and many coal stoves are batch fed).

Coal is loaded into a hopper and gravity takes it to the grate. Trying to burn wood in this kind of stove can be an issue as you have a big, empty hopper that's now part of the equation.

As I understand it, the only time you should burn wood in a gravity fed stove is when you're starting the fire and need the coals to ignite the hard coal.

And, as far as I know, gravity fed coal stoves are only for burning hard coal, not soft coal.

Larry Ashcraft · « **Reply #18 on:** March 04, 2019, 12:38:18 PM »

Quote from: Mike Irwin on March 04, 2019, 09:37:36 AM

On what is now the NRA Whittington Center in Raton there's a fairly substantial ghost town that supported the coal mines that were also on Whittington Center property.

Apparently the one mine worked into the 1950s.

https://www.nrawc.org/wc-experience/landmarks/

We go to the WC about very spring, and we always visit Van Houten. The kids love it. It shouldn't be missed if you have the opportunity to get to the WC. There are also some old photos of the town from its heyday in the Whittington Museum, which is another must see. Robbie has done an outstanding job on the museum in the last ten or so years, and it gets better with every visit.

BobR · « **Reply #19 on:** March 04, 2019, 01:03:01 PM »

I wonder if coal is still used in Europe, that is my experience with from when we lived on the economy in Germany. I was about 6 or 7 and that was my job, keeping the coal box for the bathroom heater full so we could add to it on those cold mornings. Other than that I lived mostly in Oklahoma where natural gas was king. We even had a natural gas air conditioning unit for the central air. Strangest thing, using gas to cool the house.

bob

K Frame · « **Reply #20 on:** March 04, 2019, 01:03:10 PM »

Only time I was out to the Whittington Center was in September 1992 to cover the BPCR matches for American Rifleman. Fantastic time. The site manager gave me a tour of the property. I told him I couldn't wait to poke around the ruins of Van Houten.

He looked at me and said that it wasn't a good idea...

I asked why....

Rattlesnakes!

OK, point made!

K Frame · « **Reply #21 on:** March 04, 2019, 01:04:04 PM »

Apparently coal is still used for heating in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, but not nearly as much as it used to be.

HankB · « **Reply #22 on:** March 04, 2019, 01:18:20 PM »

When I was a kid I used to daydream about setting a big nuke off in a deep coal mine and later - after things cooled down - sending in a crew to harvest the diamonds.

Larry Ashcraft · « **Reply #23 on:** March 04, 2019, 01:35:05 PM »

Quote

Rattlesnakes!

I imagine so, in the summer. It's the perfect place for them. We always go on Memorial Day, which is too early for snakes at that elevation.

K Frame · « **Reply #24 on:** March 04, 2019, 01:59:05 PM »

Here we go! I've been wracking my brain trying to remember the name of the first (maybe) popular gravity fed coal stove in the United States...

The Latrobe Heater, aka the Baltimore Parlor Stove.

http://historichomeshowardcounty.blogspot.com/2016/10/john-h-b-latrobes-patented-heating.html

They were a fireplace insert and were MUCH better at heating homes of the time, than open fireplaces.

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Author Topic: Heating with coal (Read 1220 times)