Well...

davemich · Post by **davemich** » Sat. Aug. 26, 2006 7:47 am

...the season lies before us. Getting ready to buy a load of anthracite. He is everyone??

AL-53 · Post by **AL-53** » Sat. Aug. 26, 2006 5:51 pm

The coal burning season will be upon us soon and I hope this forum will buzz like a bee hive..we had alot of fun here last year helping out each other and hope for the same this year...

nothing like a cold nite and reading posts here and learning...

Hope to see you all come the cold season...I like the company here..great people...

Al

Post by **Richard S.** » Sun. Aug. 27, 2006 11:51 am

Hello Al and hello Dave. Glad to see you stuck around. 8)

Looks good so far as there is 70 posts for this month so far and last year it was only 20 for August. I did a lot search engine optimization since the spring and much of it is just starting to take affect.

BTW, I merged your topic with Al's because theywere basically the same.

You post was chronologically first which is why it appears first.

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Sun. Aug. 27, 2006 5:40 pm

Just unloaded 4 tons of bagged anthracite by hand, yesterday & today.

My back is killing me, but when the cold weather hits (& coal prices go thru the roof...) I'll be sittin' pretty!

homeguy · Post by **homeguy** » Wed. Aug. 30, 2006 8:56 pm

NEPA: I did a search for other coal forums and your came up about 6th in google. That is awesome. Smitty: I have 4 tons delivered and noticed they closed the bags with stell twists. The twists were rusting pretty bad so I covered all the bags with a tarp tonight. Next time I'll request plastic ties even if I have to supply them. The bags are stacked horizontally so if those ties fail there will be coal everywhere. How are your bags closed?

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Wed. Aug. 30, 2006 9:36 pm

Mine are in poly-bags (a woven mesh of criss-crossed plastic strands), and they are sewn closed with a string stitched thru the top of the bag.

Out of the 160 bags I bought, only 4 had holes....2 of them were from the wheel-wells on my trailer -- with all that weight on, the springs compressed enough to make the tires rub on the tops of the metal wheel-wells, and then generated enough heat to melt holes thru 2 of the bags!!:lol: The other 2 tears were from me dragging them across nails in the pallet.

The polybags are very strong. They never come un-done on their own, no matter how long they've sat in the sun & rain.

LsFarm · Post by **LsFarm** » Thu. Aug. 31, 2006 10:25 am

Greetings everyone!! Winter is definitly on the way, getting down to the 50's overnight. [I'm gonna come back and read that line again in January].

I'm on the search for coal for this season, it looks like about $250 a ton bulk or bagged here in Michigan. Maybe a bit less if I make a pilgramage to Pa with a trailer after I factor in my transportation costs.

I'm planning on burying another insulated pipe-pair to feed the shop, it usually burns about $12-1500 in a season, so the pipes will be pay for themselves in about one season.

Way too much on the list right now, I need to hire help for the next month or two. But.. I don't know of anyone with the skills. Or that I know enough to trust with free access to the whole farm/home. SIGH....

I did some math, even if I have to pay $250/ton for coal, I will burn about a ton and a half per month, times four cold months, I'm still about half the cost of propane @ $1.70/gal. Last year my pre-buy for propane was $5600, I got back $2600, and this included the fill-up at the end of the summer in prep for winter of '05/06. So my actual use was about $1500, I should be able to cut that about in half, can't wait to tell the propane supplier.

I'm looking forward to another educational season keeping the house and shop warm.

Hope all is well with everyone.
Greg L

FedFire47 · Post by **FedFire47** » Thu. Aug. 31, 2006 4:28 pm

I just had 7 tons and I never even touched it. Thanks Coalman LOL. I gotta tell ya'll if I lived anywhere else coal would be a tough choice to make. I don't know that I could go through all the trouble of bags and transportation and all the other stuff. Good luck to everyone this year and happy burning.

Mike Wilson · Post by **Mike Wilson** » Fri. Sep. 01, 2006 8:17 am

I just wish I could find an easy way to get rid of the ash. Can't spread it around the driveway, the wife wouldn't go for that. No trash pick-up in these parts, so bagging it and bringing it to the dumps seems like a pain. I guess I'll be burning those logs again this year in the Jotul Kennebec.

-- Mike

BinghamtonNY · Post by **BinghamtonNY** » Fri. Sep. 01, 2006 4:25 pm

I can't wait to fire up my stove for another heating season. I got 2 tons in July and will get 2 more next week.

Pap · Post by **Pap** » Mon. Sep. 04, 2006 8:57 pm

I just built a coal bin last week end. Thanks for the tips I got here it turned out good. I just got one ton of coal (hauled it my self) this past week. Will have to get two more ton and that should be enough for the winter. I used a little over two ton last year but it was kinda mild.
It is good to be back on the board again, I am sure I will learn more this year. This will be my second season burning coal and I am looking forward to it.
Pap

wmitz · Post by **wmitz** » Tue. Sep. 05, 2006 4:35 pm

Although I've been heating with a nice Coalbrookdale coal stove for about 20 years, the last company delivery coal to residential homes has been bought out by an oil company who has no need for coal.
Will I have to get rid of the stove, or does anyone know of any company that will deliver coal to northern Maryland?
Thanks.
wayne

wenchris · Post by **wenchris** » Tue. Sep. 05, 2006 6:56 pm

Glad to see some of the posters from last year. Getting ready for three tons to be delivered if the rain would stop. Has to go across the lawn, don't want him sinking in. Still kicking around the ss water coil, I better decide soon. Welcome back to all!!!!! Jimmy

crmoores · Post by **crmoores** » Tue. Sep. 05, 2006 8:03 pm

I'm new to this site this year and this is my first year with my Keystoker K-6. Looking forward to a warmer house, plenty of hot water, and no $300 NYSEG gas bills!!!!!

Toted 3 tons of bagged coal into the basement Sunday, will definitely have a bin next year

Looking forward to my continuing education here.

Ron

Post by **Richard S.** » Wed. Sep. 06, 2006 7:42 am

homeguy wrote:NEPA: I did a search for other coal forums and your came up about 6th in google. That is awesome.

Thanks, this forum and my other site have been on online for quite some time which is one reason. I just did a major overhaul in late April or May and some of the changes are just starting to take affect now.

One of the issues with forums are that they are dynamic with URL's like (the id tag is for someone moving between pages) :

<removed link>

Google doesn't like pages that appear to be the same and won't include them in in many search results. The problem with the first URL is that every time the bot comes around it ends up going to pages it has already indexed plus the fact it thinks they are duplicate content. There's also many other URL's it can find through other links on this site such as if you search the posts someone has made... in the end you can have 100" URL's it will index all pointing to the same page.

Ideally you want just one page indexed:

<removed link>

I took it a step further, each URL is rewritten dynamically for someone not logged in or for a search engine bot. Each one is unique and appears to be static content instead of dynamic content which takes more precedence in a search engine.

<removed link>

As far as the search engine is concerned there is one
URL for each page on this site, no other. Currently Google has over 5,000 indexed but most are duplicate content that will never show up in a search result. As it reindexes and revisits they'll be removed since any dynamic URL is now excluded from search engines.

There's a few other things I have done but I don't want to give it all away.

It's been adding about 4 or 5 a week now to the main results, once you get to 7 it stops with the omitted results...

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.nepadigit ... art=0&sa=N