Considering converting and lots of questions

 
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lsayre
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Post by lsayre » Fri. Aug. 10, 2018 12:46 pm

sbwyo wrote:
Fri. Aug. 10, 2018 10:24 am
What I've gathered is that everyone has a pretty low opinion of bit coal. It requires twice as much to produce the same amount of heat as anthr. and you have to clean out a lot more. I'm not sure of the quality of our local coal. Anyone from the powder river area? Website says it's "low-sulfur, high quality, subbituminous". Our old ranch house has a coal room in the basement suggesting there used to be a coal furnace but our plan, if anything, is to keep the forced air propane furnace as a secondary source of heat and heat what we can out of the living room with coal. The cottonwood we had been burning was a mess anyway and a pain to keep from going out. We have access to pine, the Big Horn Mtns are right here but our ranch has a bunch of fallen cottonwood and setting aside the time in the fall(our busy season) to get up to the mtns for a full day has never worked out. Does anyone have any brand they'd recommend looking into that burns Bit?
Some bituminous coal has more BTU's per pound than anthracite. But since yours is sub-bit, you need to give one of the companies that mine and/or process it a call and get hold of the "as delivered" analyticals.

 
hank2
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Post by hank2 » Fri. Aug. 10, 2018 11:58 pm

The Wyoming Mining Assoc. website says that most Wyoming coal is sub bit. at 8400 to 8800 btu per lb.
There was a fellow in Alaska that used to post here, Short Bus. He burned Sub bit C in some sort of stoker boiler, I believe.

Here's a post from member stoker-man that burned some Alaskan sub bit C in comparison to Wyoming sub bit. He seemed to like some of the Alaskan qualities better.

Post by stoker-man - Alaskan Soft Coal Experiment

 
charlesosborne2002
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Post by charlesosborne2002 » Tue. Aug. 14, 2018 10:46 pm

My new Vermont Castings Vigilant II burns either coal, but the manual says it comes ready for bituminous. To burn anthracite, you remove a plate over the air input (in the stove) that allows much more air in, and you put a sign on the ash door saying it is converted to anthracite only. If you then burn bit coal, it could overfire the stove and void the warranty--bit takes less air, and too much air makes it rage. Without all that air, the anthracite would go out.

I had a contractor install mine, and the room where the stove is is maybe 85 or 90 degrees around the ceiling. So we put registers near the ceiling like transoms that let that hot air drift down the hall to the back rooms, with another register to the bedroom. My house is small (1000 sq ft), so that is enough. The living areas (kitchen, dining, living room, den) all have wide openings between them, with the stove near the middle. As the warm air moves to the back of the house, it pushes cool air back along the floor to the stove area.

I had propane before, and it was horribly expensive. Now I have natural gas central heating (plus the stove), and I can turn on the furnace to just fan, to circulate the stove's heat. If you really want all the rooms warm in WY with a long house on one floor, you will have to have either a central system (these can be coal, too), or heating in each room (also can be coal). I have seen quite small stoves in pictures in Europe, for just one room, but each will have to have a chimney (masonry or stainless steel). In your case you might have two smaller stoves--one in the living room and one back in the hall, using both only when it is really cold.
Your bit coal would be cheaper than anything else, anywhere. Wood is a lot more work and not as hot.



Some brands of anthracite coal stoves will void your warranty if you burn bit. Don't quote me on this, but I initially believe DS Machine may be in this camp.

Do you know the BTU's per pound for "as delivered" bit coal in your area? You must critically specify "as delivered" when asking this question of the supplier(s). Otherwise you are likely to get a highly inflated DAF (dry and ash free) BTU figure.

Be prepared to remove lots of ashes daily to perhaps twice daily.
[/quote]

 
Max2012
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Post by Max2012 » Fri. Aug. 24, 2018 1:49 am

Back in the 80's and 90's when we lived in Colorado at 10,000 ft we had electric as our back up(which we never had to use) and burned wood and bit sourced out of Utah in a Travis Avalon. We used Ceiling fans to circulate the heat and it was comfortable 90% of the time and when it wasn't comfortable I was motivated to make it so and we enjoyed the living ... what was great was that in the morning I used the grate to clean the stove and empty the ash pan, almost always there was enough hot coals to throw some pine on and then throw in the coal ... it would burn all day while I was at work and the house was still comfortable when I got home in the evening and repeated the process ... on the coldest days of winter my wife would shake the grate and throw some more wood and coal in the stove ... god bless her she never complained ... now all these years later after having moved to Oregon and nearing retirement we decided to move to a rural area again and renovate a Manufactured Home and use coal again ... however, I just today received a quote to purchase rice anthracite from Blaschak in Pennsylvania and have it shipped to Oregon. Unfortunately the $3000+ shipping cost is cost prohibitive for 6 tons to get started ... so, we're changing our plan and going back to a hand fed stove and burning bit ... we were initially really excited at the prospect of burning anthracite in a fully automatic Keystoker 90 or 105 ... but life throws lots of curve balls and the need to be flexible is always with us ... we'll again use ceiling fans and the return air ducting of our electric furnace to circulate the heat.

 
Qtown1835
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Post by Qtown1835 » Fri. Aug. 24, 2018 9:56 am

Max2012 wrote:
Fri. Aug. 24, 2018 1:49 am
Back in the 80's and 90's when we lived in Colorado at 10,000 ft we had electric as our back up(which we never had to use) and burned wood and bit sourced out of Utah in a Travis Avalon. We used Ceiling fans to circulate the heat and it was comfortable 90% of the time and when it wasn't comfortable I was motivated to make it so and we enjoyed the living ... what was great was that in the morning I used the grate to clean the stove and empty the ash pan, almost always there was enough hot coals to throw some pine on and then throw in the coal ... it would burn all day while I was at work and the house was still comfortable when I got home in the evening and repeated the process ... on the coldest days of winter my wife would shake the grate and throw some more wood and coal in the stove ... god bless her she never complained ... now all these years later after having moved to Oregon and nearing retirement we decided to move to a rural area again and renovate a Manufactured Home and use coal again ... however, I just today received a quote to purchase rice anthracite from Blaschak in Pennsylvania and have it shipped to Oregon. Unfortunately the $3000+ shipping cost is cost prohibitive for 6 tons to get started ... so, we're changing our plan and going back to a hand fed stove and burning bit ... we were initially really excited at the prospect of burning anthracite in a fully automatic Keystoker 90 or 105 ... but life throws lots of curve balls and the need to be flexible is always with us ... we'll again use ceiling fans and the return air ducting of our electric furnace to circulate the heat.
Check with Matt from Lehigh Anthracite, he may be able to do better. Not to long ago he made a shipment to California


 
Max2012
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Post by Max2012 » Fri. Aug. 24, 2018 10:11 am

Cool ... will do ... Thank you for the lead. :)

 
Max2012
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Post by Max2012 » Fri. Aug. 24, 2018 10:36 am

Qtown,

Just got off the phone with Matt from Lehigh ... he confirmed the California shipment and is looking into the Shipping for us.

Thank you again.

Best Regards,
Garth

 
Qtown1835
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Post by Qtown1835 » Fri. Aug. 24, 2018 8:14 pm

Max2012 wrote:
Fri. Aug. 24, 2018 10:36 am
Qtown,

Just got off the phone with Matt from Lehigh ... he confirmed the California shipment and is looking into the Shipping for us.

Thank you again.

Best Regards,
Garth
Cool let us know how you make out

 
Odyknuck
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Post by Odyknuck » Sat. Aug. 25, 2018 6:49 am

"Last time we filled our propane tank it was 1.85/gallon"

WoW if I could get propane for that I would not need a coal stove. I'm paying over 3 bucks a gallon here in Ohio!

 
Qtown1835
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Post by Qtown1835 » Mon. Sep. 24, 2018 7:21 pm

Any update on this?


 
coalnewbie
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Post by coalnewbie » Sun. Sep. 30, 2018 5:30 am

So you guys me get this straight. You expect Matt to earnestly chase an order for 6 tons to OR and arrange shipping. At 10,000 ft that hypoxia is devastating. Combine with all that pot smoke and you have a potent combination of dreams that will not be realized. You need to ask the government of OR how current energy policy of powering the state with sunshine lollipops and roses is working out.

http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-in ... -west.html

If they got serious about energy costs, then modern heat pumps would be an interesting choice.

 
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warminmn
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Post by warminmn » Sun. Sep. 30, 2018 9:00 am

coalnewbie wrote:
Sun. Sep. 30, 2018 5:30 am
So you guys me get this straight. You expect Matt to earnestly chase an order for 6 tons to OR and arrange shipping. At 10,000 ft that hypoxia is devastating. Combine with all that pot smoke and you have a potent combination of dreams that will not be realized. You need to ask the government of OR how current energy policy of powering the state with sunshine lollipops and roses is working out.

http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-in ... -west.html

If they got serious about energy costs, then modern heat pumps would be an interesting choice.
Every time an article talks about ridding a state from coal, they always mention low NG costs. Sure, and NG will stay that way too :lol: Theres gonna be some long faces and empty wallets when NG spikes.

 
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lsayre
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Post by lsayre » Sun. Sep. 30, 2018 11:23 am

The original big boys of fracking/horizontal drilling like Eagle Ford and Baaken are already in terminal decline. For Marcellus and Utica this fate is only a matter of time. And I'm confident that the time for terminal decline will come much sooner than the present overly optimistic pipe-line-dream forecasts. My guess is this coming catastrophe will occur right around when most all of the remaining coal burning electrical power plants have been leveled to the ground.

 
coalnewbie
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Post by coalnewbie » Sun. Sep. 30, 2018 12:52 pm

So CN says again. Find out which way the crowd is running and race as fast as you can the other way.

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