Coalpail.com Forum

I'm averaging about 4.6 tons per heating season. I was just wondering what those of you with similar boilers are typically burning over the course of a heating season.

Edit: I should add that my S130 is heating our homes water also.

Size and "quality" of the house will play a big part in that I would imagine.

My house is about 1,700 sq.ft., poorly insulated with shitty doors and windows - I used to go thru 5 or more tons per season with the hand fed Harman. So far, the new to me stoker boiler is using 47% less, doing the day to day math. We'll see if I truly use half of 5 tons come spring.

Larry, you need to specify the baseline. Size, condition, exposure, age, and updates to the structure. I burn 9 tons, but I heat a large area and use lots of hot water for pressure washing . I'd say 4 to 7 tons is a fair average, assuming whatever average means. I know one customer who burns 18 tons in a 130. Needs the btu's, and is satisfied so he won't go to a bigger boiler; doesn't need to. It's all relative, IMO. 16 here this am. It's coming!

M y house is just over 2,000 sf and I use 5 to 6tons of pea a year(hot water too) ,going to add my garage another 1,500 sf and will burn about 3 more ton ,so 9 ton at 165.00 a ton under 1,500 a year isn't bad by my count ,oil was over 3,000 for just the house when I change to coal my boiler (AA130 paid for its self already )

whistlenut wrote:Larry, you need to specify the baseline. Size, condition, exposure, age, and updates to the structure. I burn 9 tons, but I heat a large area and use lots of hot water for pressure washing . I'd say 4 to 7 tons is a fair average, assuming whatever average means. I know one customer who burns 18 tons in a 130. Needs the btu's, and is satisfied so he won't go to a bigger boiler; doesn't need to. It's all relative, IMO. 16 here this am. It's coming!

Wow, I generally get lightly roasted for being too technical. Now I see that it works both ways.

OK, our house was built in 1964, and it is at an elevation of 1,180 ft., which places it at an elevation that is about as high as it gets around here. It has 1,680 sq-foot upstairs, and 840 sq-ft in our walk out basement that was converted into the family room. If the family room requires only half of the heat of the upstairs, then for heating purposes lets call it 420 sq-ft, and thereby assume I'm '"effectively" heating about 2,100 sq-ft. The house has been insulated and upgraded to about the typical level of a 1980's constructed home.

Our area is exposed to about 6,300 annual heating degree days on average, with about 5,900 of those coming during the months when we are actively heating our home (which means when the T-Stats are turned on).

Combining these, I calculate that we are heating 2,100 sq-ft x 5,900 HDD's = 12,390,000 Sq-ft-HDD's (this being the average heat load requirement for our home)

4.6 tons of coal = 9,200 lbs. of coal, but of this roughly 800 lbs. are burned for the homes hot water over the heating season, so that means home heat by itself is consuming about 8,400 lbs.

8,400 lbs. burned/ 12,390,000 sq-ft-HDD's = 0.00068 pounds of coal burned per square foot per HDD to heat our home during the heating season.

Heating our house therefore requires approximately 0.00068 lbs. of coal burned per square foot per heating degree day.

The usefulness of this method is that if our house was picked up and dropped say near where Rob lives, with what I'm assuming is an exposure to about 7,800 HDD's (with about 7,400 of those coming during the heating season), it would take:

7,400 x 2,100 x 0.00068 = ~10,567 lbs. of coal to heat it up there during the average heating season (as opposed to ~8,400 lbs. down here).

Or if it was dropped into somewhere in Alaska which has about 13,000 typical HDD's it would take:

13,000 x 2,100 x 0.00068 = ~18,564 lbs. of coal to heat it up there during the average heating season (as opposed to ~8,400 lbs. down here).

I live about an hour or maybe a little more east of Larry and use 3.5-4 ton, I also do DHW.

McGiever wrote:I live about an hour or maybe a little more east of Larry and use 3.5-4 ton, I also do DHW.

Wow! You are doing fantastic!

I heat my 1000 sq. ft. two story home,my 1200 sq.ft.two
story shop which is 130 ft. away plus domestic hot water.It
take 5 to 5.5 tons a year no matter what I do.It takes mine
40 to 50 lbs. a day no matter what is going on outside.My
heating cost is almost 1/2 the cost that I would spend on
propane just to heat the house alone 4 years ago.

I burn 5 tons of pea per year. My 1903 house is 2500 sq ft without insulation and old windows and doors. I have 20 old radiators and a zone for the house and basement. I heat my dhw also. It took me less than 2 years to re-coup the cost of the boiler. If it wasn't for the puff backs, burning coal with this boiler was the best decision I have made concerning the old house.

WOW, why are you guys burning so much coal, 5 tons is a lot? Our annual dd is around 6200 my house is over 4000 sq feet and we use 3 tons, house is very well insulated but rite now the living room is 73 degrees because my wife is always cold.... no dhw though but that shouldn't use much coal..

imcloud1 wrote:WOW, why are you guys burning so much coal, 5 tons is a lot? Our annual dd is around 6200 my house is over 4000 sq feet and we use 3 tons, house is very well insulated but rite now the living room is 73 degrees because my wife is always cold.... no dhw though but that shouldn't use much coal..

The insulation and tightness levels of modern construction homes make them extremely efficient by comparison to older homes from only a few decades ago. My son's 3 year old home amazes me with how little it takes to heat it.

Do you have a furnace or boiler (whereby every room in the house is kept warm relatively uniformly 24/7), or a stove which keeps only some of the house at 73 degrees, and that only some of the time? Do you rely 100% upon coal for heat?

I heat 2500 sq/ft log home plus a two car garage to 45 Deg, dhw for a family of 5.
6.5 - 7 tons a year with my AHS S-130.

alively5 wrote:I heat 2500 sq/ft log home plus a two car garage to 45 Deg, dhw for a family of 5.
6.5 - 7 tons a year with my AHS S-130.

That sounds right for a home that size and a family that large in a cold place like NH.

I forgot to mention earlier that our attached garage (of nearly 840 sq-ft,, being the other half of our 'walk-out' downstairs level) is maintained at 46 degrees in the winter months by our AHS S130. I don't want the fin-tube radiator heated zone loop in the garage to freeze and break the pipes.

lsayre wrote:

imcloud1 wrote:WOW, why are you guys burning so much coal, 5 tons is a lot? Our annual dd is around 6200 my house is over 4000 sq feet and we use 3 tons, house is very well insulated but rite now the living room is 73 degrees because my wife is always cold.... no dhw though but that shouldn't use much coal..

The insulation and tightness levels of modern construction homes make them extremely efficient by comparison to older homes from only a few decades ago. My son's 3 year old home amazes me with how little it takes to heat it.

Do you have a furnace or boiler (whereby every room in the house is kept warm relatively uniformly 24/7), or a stove which keeps only some of the house at 73 degrees, and that only some of the time? Do you rely 100% upon coal for heat?

I have a furnace, it heats the entire house, BUT rite now, first level is 73 second is 68, AND if I keep the first floor 70 the second floor will still be around 68, which is the normal practice... I just asked my son and rite now a full hopper is empty after almost 2 weeks {hopper holds 6 bags with some still in the bottom when you fill it, so maybe 6 1/2 bags...}, its the only thing I'm using rite now to heat the house, I am ONLY using coal this winter since I am moving where I have it delivered and no better way to move it than to use it.... plus I am still repiping my central system...

I have a few guys that use cast iron rea ding stokers and they use less than me!!!