Coalpail.com Forum

Fireplace coal is a different bit coal called Cannel Coal. Doutbful you could ever locate any.
You can do a Search for Cannel Coal, it has been discussed here before.

Cannel coal is excellent fireplace coal, but, almost impossible to find. Bituminous coal however works just fine in the large, lump, sizes for fireplaces. Used in a fireplace it burns decently well (ample oxygen) so large amounts of smoke aren't produced. I wouldn't recommend it in a hand-fired stove if you have very close neighbors.

I remember as a kid my dad had about 50 pounds of channel coal. He played with it in the fire place. I can still "dis stinkly" remember the, shall we say, aroma! Lol! I guess I'll stick to wood in the fireplace. Usually loose a tree or two a year to storms. Plenty of firewood on the hoof.

Make that "lose" a tree. Lol!

carbon, I don't think you'd have any issues with smell (inside you wouldn't have any smell regardless because your chimney should be drafting properly) burning coal in a fireplace, I know lots of people that do it, there's not the smoke or smell outside like you have with an enclosed coal stove (reducing the air causes the fire to smoulder and smoke/smell more). In a fireplace lump coal is great because you don't have to tend it constantly like wood, it burns for a long time without attention; generally people around here do it because it creates less mess inside.

Thanks Berlin! LDPosse PM'd me. He burns Bit and is nearby. Offered to let me see Bit burning. I'll have to give it a try.

Detroit wrote:

Berlin wrote:@100/ton I still save a substantial amount of money heating my 100 yr. old home in buffalo NY with bituminous stoker coal over natural gas.

Detroit, I'd look for a stoker and put a squirrel cage blower on the furnace(s) to get decent efficiency. A bituminous coal stoker will allow you to burn inexpensive bituminous stoker coal (~100/ton)

That sounds like good advice. What is a squirrel cage blower? And is a stoker a device that feeds coal into the furnace automatically per temperature or time?

Can I hook those up myself? What about grates for the furnaces?

Do I need to post pictures of the furnaces?

Cheers!

Do you, or anyone else here have a picture of an Octopus furnace with a squirrel cage blower and a bottom stoker attached.
I'd like to see the construction. I'm not sure what the squirrel cage is doing: is it intended to pull the smoke out of the furnace?