heating with backyard coal

 
Ttkrouse
Member
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun. Nov. 11, 2018 8:08 pm

Post by Ttkrouse » Tue. Jan. 22, 2019 11:00 pm

Bubba Lowe you might want to take a ride through cambria county Pa and Somerset county Pa. There are deep mines with men mining it manually. Very small mines a dozen or two men in there working .there is a few mines you wouldn't know where the shaft is if they didn't show you. The coal is shoveled onto the belt to be carried out. No continues miner the seam is to small. We repair all types of machinery in mines from the big ones at Bailey mine to the small ones in Somerset county PA. It seems the small ones are working no matter what the demand for coal is. So they must make a profit.

 
Bubbalowe
Member
Posts: 205
Joined: Fri. Sep. 08, 2017 12:54 pm
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Vigilant II 2310
Baseburners & Antiques: Grodin Petite
Other Heating: electric radiators until used boiler hook up

Post by Bubbalowe » Wed. Jan. 23, 2019 9:56 am

I was referencing IUP histories of R&P mines Indiana County where they mention a shortage of men at beginning of WW2 and switch to mechanization. Saying manually I think a miner on his knees armed with nothing more than a pickaxe. Fact is with drills, saws, miners, etc. it is still hard "manual" labor which I respect.
Thanks

 
LDillon
New Member
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed. Jan. 09, 2019 7:25 am

Post by LDillon » Wed. Jan. 23, 2019 10:39 pm

Thank you all for your replies. I've learned so much from just reading these posts and these forums. There might not be nearly as much 'free coal' as I hoped, but there is a lot more good people here than I would ever have imagined. Each and every one of you on here, just want to say 'thank you'. Coalpail has some great thoughtful and knowledgable people posting and is a lot different, a lot better, than most online posting places.

 
AllanD
Member
Posts: 62
Joined: Sun. Feb. 10, 2019 5:16 pm
Hand Fed Coal Stove: HAND FIRED HARMON
Coal Size/Type: STOVE
Other Heating: Oil fired hotwater baseboard

Post by AllanD » Mon. Feb. 11, 2019 2:44 am

If you buy a house on a wood lot of 80acres or so of hardwoods. You would find it impossible to cut, haul, split and burn it as fast as it grows back even if you are in prime health AND built like a Pro football lineman and have two determined equally built sons....

I used to burn 10-12 cords of hard maple a year just to heat my garage, sadly somebody else owns that garage & house now. (It was in New Jersey, so good luck to them!)

But for the issue of coal seams you can see several along the shoulders and center median of I-81 which runs the length of the Pennsylvania anthracite region. a 12" or 18" thick coal seam is economically not worth mining, but there are people with their own "Coal Hole"... just remember coal seams are sedimentary rock and ALWAYS have unstable overburden sedimentary rock is a fickle bitch to dig through.


As a note it isn't always "Bad" coal and there is one significant event where a surface outcrop under a town dump caught fire and the fire is still burning underground to this day. And it ruined a going underground mining operation in the process. Research: Centralia, Pennsylvania


 
User avatar
bambooboy
Member
Posts: 2399
Joined: Wed. May. 20, 2015 6:16 am
Location: joppa maryland
Baseburners & Antiques: imperial ringgold
Other Heating: woodstock soapstone,comfort,fisher,federal,fairy oak

Post by bambooboy » Mon. Feb. 11, 2019 9:45 am

"As a note it isn't always "Bad" coal and there is one significant event where a surface outcrop under a town dump caught fire and the fire is still burning underground to this day. And it ruined a going underground mining operation in the process. Research: Centralia, Pennsylvania"
Top
seems like i heard this about 40 years ago. (wonder whose shaking the grates) ;)

 
drader
New Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed. May. 13, 2020 10:17 am
Location: W.Va. , USA
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: *

Post by drader » Wed. May. 13, 2020 10:41 am

Mining my own...
I live in W.Va. and have farm out in the country mostly used as a hunting camp. Out at the farm I started using bituminous coal in a modified stove to heat the cabin in the Autumn and Winter. On the farm is an exposed outcrop of the Eagle BT Seam in the Kanawha Group. It about 38" thick, above drainage, and declines into the hillside at about 20 degrees. After the outcrop was exposed a few years back in a landslide I drove a drift four foot wide into the seam. I've mined about 12 feet straight back into the hillside and timbered the inside for roof support. The timbers and lagging aren't taking much weight yet but getting back in there admittedly makes me a little nervous. I've amassed a mighty stock of coal from the endeavor. Planning to back fill it soon or box it in like a cellar. I'd also like to note that the mineral rights were granted along with the surface rights and because I'm not mining for commercial purposes many of the regulatory authorities would have little interest in my activities.
I became interested in mining several years ago in college where I had studied coal extraction. After spending so much time thinking about coal mining, I just had to try it myself. Putting what I had learned into practice really improved my understanding and I learned a lot of valuable skills you can only get from experience.

Message me if you'd like to know more or if you've got any advice.

 
User avatar
Lightning
Site Moderator
Posts: 14659
Joined: Wed. Nov. 16, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Olean, NY
Stoker Coal Boiler: Modified AA 130
Coal Size/Type: Pea Size - Anthracite

Post by Lightning » Wed. May. 13, 2020 11:39 am

Nice.. we'd love to see pics of that :)

Post Reply

Return to “Coal News & General Coal Discussions”