Reading Coal Coated in...Diesel Fuel?

I'm only an occasional coal burner. I feed my stove wood most of the time. Due to the impending cold snap and some longer days at work, I wanted a bit more heat that lasts longer, so I picked up 600 pounds of Reading anthracite from a local feed mill.

I've heard of oiled coal, and everyone says that it's vegetable oil. My coal feels oily and smells like diesel fuel. I noticed that it let off some smoke and sizzled when I tossed it in the stove to get it started (not my experience from the previous bags I had from someone who was going to toss them). I went outside to empty my ash pan (since I had been burning wood) and there was blackish smoke coming out of my chimney and it smelled like a cross between oil and diesel burning.

Is this a normal practice? Was this the local feed mill's decision, or do some coal suppliers do this?

Diesel is a poor choice, as whomever did it could never know ahead of time if that coal was going to be sitting in someones living room.

Mineral oil has no noticeable odor and peanut oil isn't too bad other than it's price.

Peanut oil is my choice, when I spray my coal with a Wagner Power painter. 3 gallons does about 6 tons of coal.

I don't know if I could recommend burning coal with diesel in my stove. Its not designed to burn such.

Oils have much higher boiling points and are totally different animals.

I would return the coal and get it from another place.

I have heard from an old coal hauler that they would spray the dump trailer with fuel to keep the coal from freezing to it in cold weather. He was doing large trailer load deliveries. If bagged coal has fuel on it I would suspect someone screwed up.

+1----my supplier does that w/ his dump body delivering bulk--but bagged????????????????

If as said it is for freezing weather, there's a good case for buying all the coal you might need before freezing weather is upon us.

I wonder if the dealer bagged the coal and called it reading? I had five TT's of the same stuff several years ago. And it wasn't from Reading.

Diesel is pretty stinky, does the coal smell like diesel?

when I burned kentucky bit. the ole hillbilly I got mine from ,mind you these were split loads I got lump and friend got stoker coal the stoker was sprayed down some for dust control, and it helped lubricate the auger and as did the shut for dropping it down to the bin and the ole gent HB, did the same with his set up ,and had no problems at all , well mine was lump so I cant speek for them cept I seen first hand how well it worked and it did ,just some thoughts guys ,hope this helps .and by the way that ole hillbilly was a dam good man and gentlemen he has passed but knew his coal god rest him ..........

Yeah. The coal is pretty smelly. Smells like diesel fuel to me. Feels like it too. I don't have experience with kerosene and heating oil, I think they're all pretty similar. But it's certainly something like that. Luckily the bags keep in the smell pretty good, as my remaining supply (still about 500 pounds) resides in my basement.

This coal is dealer bagged. They bag it into feed sacks upon customer request. This is a perk, for me, as I don't have a coal bin, and the place I would throw a bulk load currently has wood stacked there. They say their coal is Reading anthracite, so that's what I go by. I have heard of suppliers spraying down their load to keep the dust down. This is sprayed more heavily than that, every piece is coated.

I'm still not too far into the learning curve of my stove, as I didn't know this was a coal stove until about October (it was formerly my grandfather's, he always burned wood in it), however, this load seems to burn pretty well. It burns just about as good as the two days that I used coal that I had washed off and separated out the fines and even the smaller (dime sized and under) chunks.

Slightly OT, however, I might try stove sized coal in it and see how that goes; I will probably go through another 500 pounds or so before I get to the shoulder season and return to wood. I'll probably do some calling to see if I can find a local place that I can either get bagged or bag myself that's not coated in diesel or something similar. There are two other coal sellers that I know of that's are pretty close to me. Any dust doesn't bother me, my stove is in the basement, and I'm used to the dirt that comes with wood.

venator260 wrote: I have heard of suppliers spraying down their load to keep the dust down.

Generally speaking this is only done upon request. Most of the coal is not oiled. It's either going to be mineral or vegetable oil.

Slightly OT, however, I might try stove sized coal in it and see how that goes;

It's counter intuitive but the larger sizes allow more air flow thus producing more heat but will burn faster. You will want to adjust the size based on your heating needs and other variables like how strong your draft is. Most of my customers burned nut, some pea and some a mixture of pea and nut. The mixture is commonly called range. I only had handful of stove customers, the stove usually cost more.

Richard S. wrote:I only had handful of stove customers, the stove usually cost more.

Why is that? Because of the low volume of sales or something else?

Richard S. wrote:

venator260 wrote: I have heard of suppliers spraying down their load to keep the dust down.

Generally speaking this is only done upon request. Most of the coal is not oiled. It's either going to be mineral or vegetable oil.

Slightly OT, however, I might try stove sized coal in it and see how that goes;

It's counter intuitive but the larger sizes allow more air flow thus producing more heat but will burn faster. You will want to adjust the size based on your heating needs and other variables like how strong your draft is. Most of my customers burned nut, some pea and some a mixture of pea and nut. The mixture is commonly called range. I only had handful of stove customers, the stove usually cost more.

Yeah. I'm liking this stuff less and less. I toss it on and it sizzles and pops and seems not to catch as quick because it has to burn off the diesel before it lights the coal.

I got a suggestion to burn stove size because the grates on my stove are far from ideal, being a wood/coal combo stove. I have occasional troubles with air flow. I came home from work today to find just the center of my coal bed burning. Some poking and scraping of the edges around the grates improved the airflow, and the fire spread back out. I figured that I may try a few hundred pounds. The place I got this stuff charges 250.00 a ton for everything, and they have stove size, but I don't know that I want more diesel soaked coal. I can shut the air down more if it burns too hot.

Richard S. wrote:

venator260 wrote: I have heard of suppliers spraying down their load to keep the dust down.

Generally speaking this is only done upon request. Most of the coal is not oiled. It's either going to be mineral or vegetable oil.

Slightly OT, however, I might try stove sized coal in it and see how that goes;

It's counter intuitive but the larger sizes allow more air flow thus producing more heat but will burn faster. You will want to adjust the size based on your heating needs and other variables like how strong your draft is. Most of my customers burned nut, some pea and some a mixture of pea and nut. The mixture is commonly called range. I only had handful of stove customers, the stove usually cost more.

Yeah. I'm liking this stuff less and less. I toss it on and it sizzles and pops and seems not to catch as quick because it has to burn off the diesel before it lights the coal.

I got a suggestion to burn stove size because the grates on my stove are far from ideal, being a wood/coal combo stove. I have occasional troubles with air flow. I came home from work today to find just the center of my coal bed burning. Some poking and scraping of the edges around the grates improved the airflow, and the fire spread back out. I figured that I may try a few hundred pounds. The place I got this stuff charges 250.00 a ton for everything, and they have stove size, but I don't know that I want more diesel soaked coal. I can shut the air down more if it burns too hot.