Why Anthracite?

blue83camaro wrote:In order to get the heat output from soft coal you must burn it hot enough to ignite the gases, the same as wood. So if you slow the burn it smokes a lot and the smoke is unburned gas or wasted heat.

That's another good point, many coal customers with large furnaces like mine burn year round. Couldn't do it with soft coal. In the summer you can look in the firebox on my furnace and it doesn't even look like anything is burning.

I can remember as a youngster, my father burned soft coal in an old sears forced air coal furnace. My mother complained constantly about the dirt. It came through the registers and was oily and smelled bad. You could actually see the black soot in the snow outside behind the house and the air smelled of sulfur. When I built my home I installed an Oneida soft coal forced air furnace. My wife complained constantly about the dirt also. The gutters on the house got all black from the soot and it was impossible to get off. [Probably ate into the aluminum]. The air also smelled of sulfur. We used ot buy strip coal and run of the mine coal. Maybe, if I would have been able to find a higher grade of soft coal it would have burned cleaner. I now have a Harman hard coal stove and have very little dirt, and thats right around the stove. The only time I can smell a little sulfur outside is just after I fire the stove. My only complaint about burning hard coal is when the temp outside gets over 45 degrees. It is very hard for me to keep a fire. It gets too warm in the house and we have to shut down the stove. I have an idea as to how to make the fire box size adjustable, but haven't had time to do it. Once I modify the stove, I will be able to adjust the size of the fire box to keep a small fire going on warmer days.

blue83camaro wrote: If I can find the link to the fireman's handbook I will post it. It explained how to get the most heat out of a coal fire. One thing it pointed out was a good fireman would not have black smoke coming from the stack as that was wasted energy. The book was written for firemen on steam locomotives but some of it would apply to home heating.

I'd like to see that if you can find it. I love old technical reference material.

ktm rider wrote: Then again I betting there are 10 other charts that would prove that one wrong. Go figure

Maybe, but I haven't seen even one posted yet : )

Richard wrote:You could actually see the black soot in the snow outside behind the house and the air smelled of sulfur.

I always did like the smell of coal, and I do remember the soot on the snow, too. The houses that burned coal always got rid of their snow first!

Other than that, I wish I did have the hard coal. I can't imagine how coal can burn a beautiful blue, but I am from Illinois and I really have no choice. In fact, unless the demand changes in the near future, I won't even be able to get soft coal much longer. I just tried a ton of stoker coal and the driver told me they had not sold ANY coal in 15 years. They got 20 tons left and they won't restock....

blue83camaro wrote:In order to get the heat output from soft coal you must burn it hot enough to ignite the gases, the same as wood. So if you slow the burn it smokes a lot and the smoke is unburned gas or wasted heat. .

I have learned with the stove I have got, that if you open the top draft damper with soft coal, it burns more completly with almost no smoke. Plus it does burn a long time too. For instance, if I put 10 lbs in it at 4:30 pm, all I have to do is open the ash door and she is lighting up quite vigoursly again at 8:30 in the morning. That makes it so nice not to relight a new fire all over again.

ktm rider wrote: That is why I bought my AHS multi fuel boiler and not the coal stoker. I can heat my 3,400 sq ft. home for around $250 a year.

Can't you see it coming? The oil industry is going to buy out the coal industry. You are just heating TOO cheap!

bjs1779 wrote: Other than that, I wish I did have the hard coal. I can't imagine how coal can burn a beautiful blue, but I am from Illinois and I really have no choice. In fact, unless the demand changes in the near future, I won't even be able to get soft coal much longer. I just tried a ton of stoker coal and the driver told me they had not sold ANY coal in 15 years. They got 20 tons left and they won't restock....

I in some sick way I like the smell of coal too, of course I wouldn't want to stand in a cloud of smoke. The fly ash is the part I really dislike about soft coal. The hard coal doesn't have much smell, which is good for me because I live in the city. My neighbor came over while I was putting coal in the basement and asked if I was going to start burning coal. I told him I had been for two months!

It's a bummer your coal supply is drying up. You could always get a semi full. It would last 5 or 6 years.

bjs1779,

I bet they find a way, if that happens I will switch to wood and start cutting my wood off my own land. They will probably hit me with the imminent domain law then.
I could not even begin to guess how much natural gas would cost me a year. My house is at 3,000 ft and the wind and snow just whips into the side of my house.