"Little Inch" Bituminous in an Open Fireplace

This weekend, I'm staying with some friends in a vacation house in Deep Creek, MD. Of course, I had to stop by the Georges Creek area and pick up some bitty! The house has a fireplace with a nice draft, and a log rack with an expanded metal base. It took a little effort to get 'er going, but it's making some nice heat now! The smell of FREEDOM hangs thick in the air amongst the high $ vacation homes!!

LD, I don't wanna get ya in any kinda trouble,BUT, you haven't thrown one of your friends IN the fireplace have ya????????????? Looks nice & toasty my friend

They have the nut coal again?

I recall when property was still fairly reasonable around there but those days are long gone. Is the lake frozen, that water always seemed cold even in the middle of summer.

SWPaDon wrote:They have the nut coal again?

I went to another outfit called Tri Star Mining, on the other side of the valley, almost due west of Cobra. I didnt know what I was getting until I got there to look at the coal. I told the loader operator I'd bought from Cobra before. He asked me "What did they call that coal you bought?" And I replied "They said it was called Little Inch". The operator told me that this was the same stuff. They had a storage building with several very large piles of the coal prepped, it had to be at least several hundred tons, if not more. It's $90/ton.

They also had ROM and you can hand-pick thru a pile for lump coal. They had some nice big pieces in there.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to trying this stuff in my DS Kozy King!

samhill wrote:I recall when property was still fairly reasonable around there but those days are long gone. Is the lake frozen, that water always seemed cold even in the middle of summer.

The money that people have in these properties is ridicuous. There are still relics of that by-gone era, though... Just behind this mega $$ house, there's a vintage single wide sitting on a little patch of ground.

Let me know how it works in your Kozy King please.

You must be made of asbestos sitting inside the fireplace...you da man.

SWPaDon wrote:Let me know how it works in your Kozy King please.

This coal is a little more work than anthracite in my Kozy King. It seems to be making good heat and barely any soot, and its easy to keep the burn controlled. The downside, is the coal fuses into massive clumps that are extremely hard. I think a sharp pointed and strong poker is needed to break them up. I bent mine trying to break the clumps up. In contrast, the high vol bituminous I've burned from Valier's, it fuses together as well, but it's easy to break it up.

I had been banking the fire with anthracite, pulling the hot coals up towards the door and putting the new in the back. That won't work with this stuff. So far, it seems that leveling out the existing coal bed, and putting a pile of fresh coal in the center works best.

Thanks for the update.