Ive been thinking of going to coal for the higher BTU, I know there are some here that went from Coal to pellet, can anyone tell me why they did? what are the advantages and disadvantages you have experienced on both fuels? thank you in advance,
Coal Vs Pellet
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Bioburner
Moderator
To my knowledge.. politicians have not zeroed in on wood pellets as an easy target. Not sure how long people distributing coal.. will think it is worth while.
Mt Bob
Minister of Fire
Bioburner
Moderator
Sure screwed up the propain distribution by letting them pump Bakken crude down the pipe that normally carries up propain.
Mt Bob
Minister of Fire
Gotta go where the money is?Saw a report about the epa putting controls on wood/pellet particulate emmissions,we are talking stack scrubbers!
Bioburner
Moderator
Nothing like taking cheap power source, regulate its use to oblivion and sell it the China to do worse pollution. West coasts pollution is 10% China. Big environmentalist on PBS Saturday was very disappointed in big O in that.
Pete Zahria
Minister of Fire
For just shear, brute heat, coal has it all over pellets.
I use both.
With coal, you get a LOT of ash, though. While you do not need
to spend time cleaning your stove, like pellets, you do have a
lot of ash to deal with.... a lot..... compared to pellets.
Emptying the ash every day, is less time consuming than cleaning
a pellet stove.. leaf blower... blower motors... gaskets etc.
And coal is a lot cheaper..
Dan
I use both.
With coal, you get a LOT of ash, though. While you do not need
to spend time cleaning your stove, like pellets, you do have a
lot of ash to deal with.... a lot..... compared to pellets.
Emptying the ash every day, is less time consuming than cleaning
a pellet stove.. leaf blower... blower motors... gaskets etc.
And coal is a lot cheaper..
Dan
Bioburner
Moderator
My Father was a boiler engineer for the UofM Morris and I can remember the piles of ash it produced. Trying track down a picture of me playing in the kitchen stoves coal bucket. Dirty.
Mt Bob
Minister of Fire
Anthracite very clean,cannot even rub it off onto your skin.The ashes however.Same as any other ashes,throw em in your yard if you have problems with local kids playing there.Have been around people that burn soft coal(some out here) very dirty stuff,but culd be picked up free along railroad tracks.As a general rule big boilers and power plants used to use soft coal,.
My old insert was wood/coal. I tried burning that crap many times and always ended up grabbing my chainsaw and heading for the woods.
The key word there was 'old'. The new generation of coal stoves are NOTHING like what WE used to have. More btu's, easier to operate (especially the stokers that are almost 'idiot proof'. Well, that might be stretching it.....), and priced about the same as a pellet stove but give 3 times more btu's. If anyone has access to coal and is thinking of buying a pellet stove, they should seriously consider a coal stove. IMHO, of course. Unfortunately I'm 700 miles away from any coal. For New England though, I posted a link to a guy who was offering to haul a truck load (not a pickup) of coal to anywhere in NE at a very reasonable price.
But for the rest of us, it's pellets if you can find them!
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
I'm one of the members you speak of who has used both, I burned coal for over 30 years and it was time for a stove upgrade. We went with pellets because of less ash, coal vs pellet availability in our area and in the future. Pellets is in the good graces of the EPA currently and coal under constant attack. Pellets are everywhere and likely to be everywhere for some time to come. Coal, hey the industry could be shut down for US sales tomorrow for all we know. What really needs to go is the EPA !!
In terms of operation, storage and discarding of waste:
First let me just say that coal ash doesn't break down, is sulfur to the taste. I have a mound in the side yard along the woods line that was built up there maybe 10 years ago and is now grown over with leaves, weeds etc and looks like a termite hill. The ash is no good for gardens and no good for pot holes , against popular belief, because anyone walking through it will track it all over your house.. Coal ash travels everywhere, it's not the coal dust , it's the ash. You have to dump coal ash at least once per day, a full ash pan of it ( the equivalent of a months burning of pellets). A ton of coal will produce about 150-200 lbs of ash that you need to discard in 10-15 lb lots daily. Get coal ash in your gloves you are going to get it on your clothing, it's just going to happen regardless of how careful you are. I can clean my entire pellet stove and not get as dirty as I did just tending my coal stove. Those old train operators didn't wear coveralls for nothing !
Coal makes incredible heat for the size stove, so buy the appropriate pellet stove accordingly. That's all I have to say about that. if you really need 105,000 BTU then think about coal but think long and hard and maybe think about a stoker stove. If you live in coal country ( Pa, West Virginia) coal can make some sense. It is less expensive right now than pellets. If you live up here in the NE where I do then coal is all but gone already, you will feel like the Lone Ranger to burn coal.
Daily tending of coal, so called hand fired, is shaking down the ash, raking out the coal, topping off the new load, closing the top door and letting that catch while you discard the ash or better yet get your coffee and discard the ash on the next tending ( hot coals come down with the ash), once there is a blue flame over the top of the new load set the stove for the day, it will slowly come up to temp and hold there for many hours. It become a routine a ritual with it's own little rewarding moments. Coal needs an annual inspection of the venting and inside condition of the stove, replace anything with pin holes ( the sulfur eats metal), clean the chimney, much like pellets but pellet ash doesn't fly nearly as bad..
Pellets, well we all know what we do. Fill the hopper, scrape the pot. Takes about two minutes on average. Once a week clean the stove. Once a month clean more . But I can run down to the hardware store if I'm low on pellets. Or I can travel over two towns if I'm low on coal. So stay more closely on the coal supply.
Storing coal. Yes it can literally be dumped in the yard. If it gets rained on it will be less dusty and burn just as well as dry coal. If a freeze is coming you might want to cover it, because it's silly carrying snow into the house in the middle of your coal load that is all clumped together. Point being, no special storage required. Hoppers are nice for storage though, a convenience item. The big problem around here is there is one supplier up Boston way who gets a delivery fee to travel from Boston, this being for bulk deliveries obviously. Used to be a dozen or more , now it's down to one. Coal is dieing a very real death here. A few places carry bags at an inflated price.
So that's all why I burn pellets now. My house doesn't need 85,000 to 105,000 btu of stove to be heated and I'm plain tired of being all dirty, dusty, hands and clothing. I'm tired of wondering if I will have fuel for my stove tomorrow. And if you miss a refueling, the restart is a groan quite frankly. You clean out the entire stove of unburned fuel and ash and start over building a fire. That's hand fired, can't say the same for a stoker stove. Stokers are the way to go but now try and get rice coal !!
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alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
Yes, I can see that happening. First, a Coal/wood combination stove is an oxymoron. You either have a dedicated wood stove or a dedicated coal stove . The two don't cross link very well. Point being, coal is fired from under and wood through the fuel accordingly. And then there is the whole issue of secondary air to consider, which works at a different ratio for the two fuels. But really all primary, not most but all primary air is fed from the bottom up with a coal burner.
And then there is the art of building a coal fire, you have to understand it's methods and you would have succeeded if using the correct stove. Nothing to it once that combo is met. A complete PITA and probably failure to ignite coal if not. I'm speaking of after hours of fustzing with it. Get it right and in 20 minutes you are burning coal.
I agree that really stokers are the way to burn coal though. Had we the supply of rice coal in our area I may have gone that route instead of pellets. Even though there is still the ash to contend with.
Excellent summary. Your writeup did a great job of telling the pros/cons of coal.
I made the decision to stay away from coal mostly because of the coal dust mess - and now from what I hear it's not so easy to get coal.
I made the decision to stay away from coal mostly because of the coal dust mess - and now from what I hear it's not so easy to get coal.
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
You can still get it, you have to travel for it or pay a delivery fee for bulk. The limited suppliers is more of a concern regarding the bulk deliveries to residantial areas. Bags are around, but you pay for them.
One thing I didn't mention is a 50 lb bag of coal will give you about twice the heat of a 40 lb bag of pellets. Long burning heat in an efficient stove that is. Mine was not so efficient, I built it myself over 30 years ago. Stoves have come a ways since then ! Stokers are great but with that you are really stuck with a limited supply of rice coal.
WOW.....you just changed my mind in one post! thank you for sharing your experience.
Some of this is already mentioned...I burned coal for years in my Harman Mark I. Shaker grate, hand feed.. Availability was easy for me and still is.. even if I purchased the bagged coal there still was dust, the heat output is great, that's what I miss the most. Again you get more ash and have to empty the ash pan more often..like anything else the hardest part was learning how to start the fire...I don't miss the sulfur smell, losing my draft in my chimney when the temp hits 40, coal dust, or how to dispose of the toxic ash..
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
Just telling it like it is , not to influence anyone else. That's how it was for me, and I loved coal for it's heat along those 30 years. We raised the entire family and then some on my, lets say, "personalized" coal stove ( built it myself before they had to have UL listings), the install even passed inspection back then..
It's not so easy to get coal ON CAPE COD and Georgia. Don't know about Mass. but from reading the posts on (broken link removed), there are plenty of suppliers in the area. http://nepacrossroads.com/about32416.html
In my experience, bagged coal is MUCH MORE dusty because it's being thrown around and abused and the dust is contained and then released all at once. The same thing happens with some pellet suppliers. That's why we've concocted all kinds of devices to cut down on pellet dust. You're much better off getting bulk delivery where they wet the coal down to eliminate dust.
Here's what you do with the ash, which could also just be thrown out with the trash >
http://nepacrossroads.com/about1519.html
(broken link removed to http://www.cement.org/think-harder-concrete-/paving/soil-cement)
http://nepacrossroads.com/about1519.html
(broken link removed to http://www.cement.org/think-harder-concrete-/paving/soil-cement)
alternativeheat
Minister of Fire
Yes, bulk is the way to go. Better yet rice coal in bulk and get a new stoker stove. On Cape Cod there are no local suppliers of bulk who deliver and a few of bagged coal. It's just how it is, coal is not coming back to this area me thinks. Even the one dealer who was left delivering bulk sold out his delivery truck. So if you want coal from him, you drive to Hyannis to get it yourself. Other than that it's going to be an off Cape bulk delivery. I have no idea how it is elsewhere but that's how it is here and here is where I live.
I never found the coal itself to be overly dusty, ya it can be in the bag but also may not be. Nothing a quick rinse won't fix. The larger dust problem to me was ash. You learn to shake down with draft going etc. The fact still remains the ash is there, coal ash is different from pellet ash, it's super fly away stuff. One little puff lingers, one touch of your glove then leaves ash on everything you touch for literally day. Through the years you wouldn't have found me complaining about that and really I'm still not. Just now I know that pellet ash is different and that's what I'm pointing out. That's all. Forget cleaning the chimney, that ash you breath, hire someone is my best suggestion though I did it myself. Just cause I'm cheap.
Coal ash is real, not hype.
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jackbean53
Member
we always had 2 harmon coal stoves 1 insert and a free standing , still have the insert sold the other when a nice lady sold us an pdvc-25 . love the pellets ez to feed etc. but for sure heat, coal . when its 0 out house stays a nice 70 or so . the pellet would struggle , then again you must realize its a small unit. also fuel is a consideration pellets are hard to come by lately, even cozy barn running short, coal is everywhere here in nepa. i just enjoy it that on a 20-30 degree day can run pellets and be comfortable and have an option . and yes coal is dirty, every spring is a major cleaning .
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