I’m curious as well. Maybe a comparison to a cord of wood. How does coal come? By the pallet? What’s the cost and how would say a pallet compare to a cord of a good hardwood? When dumping in the coal is it dusty? Can you have a coal stove in a living area?
Coal is sold in bulk by the pound, weighed on a scale, delivered (weighed on the truck) or by the bag.
Cheapest picked up in bulk, even cheaper if you live near a breaker to get it direct. Many people without an open back truck for loading with a loader will shovel their own if they have a cap on their truck (me) or pick up with buckets and weigh vehicle on the way in and on the way out. I just picked up 12 five gallon buckets full for $40.00 with an SUV. Figure about one of those buckets a day when cold, some days less.
Every coal burning parlor and cookstove has been used in living areas before the advent of central heating systems that took the fire to the basement in a boiler or furnace. Coal stoves today are installed in homes where a wood stove would go. Oil or gas burners were added to those coal furnaces, and later boilers and furnaces were designed for oil or gas only. Some coal burners with retrofitted oil burners re still in use. Oil burners were added to kitchen cook stoves as well. I remember them in use in the 70's around here. Coal was not only used in living areas, the glowing coals were taken to bed in warming pans, sealed with a cover at your feet, and even used on the floor of vehicles. Wooden Model T floors. That was your only heat. Most homes had a kitchen stove, parlor (front living room), dining room, and bedroom stoves. You would take some coals from one to start another. Many homes had only one or two chimneys for all those stoves, so you had to know to close off the air on the stoves not in use. Before motor vehicles, you would leave your front door open for travelers on horseback or carriage to come in during the night to warm up. They would take care of your stove before leaving, and you would have a fire in the morning. People lived to be 100 and never had a CO or smoke detector. Amazing huh? Of course houses that caught fire would usually burn down.
Another tidbit that I guess has been forgotten is "putt'in up the stove". Stoves in living areas were put away in closets with their pipes for the summer to save room. Houses were smaller back then, and it was best to heat from the center of a room if possible. So the stove was set up for winter and put away over the summer in some homes. Others would move their cookstove to the back porch for summer cooking when the heat wasn't welcome in the house.
If you don't know what you're doing, they can be dusty from ash. Most people that claim coal is "dirty" are doing something wrong. You will get slightly more dust in the home from coal than wood. Coal ash is finer. It becomes airborne very easily. Most falls into the collection pan when shaking the grate. You don't shake violently when the chimney is cool in the morning. With little draft, this is when only slow rocking dumps the ash from overnight into the pan. Then let it get going with plenty of air. Once the chimney is hotter and drafting (it will only be 150 to 200* surface temp on the pipe with coal) you can shake more violently to clean all ash from the fire until glowing coals start to drop. This allows the intake air rushing in to not allow the fly ash (airborne ash) into the home. Those that don't know what they are doing may open the ash pan door and shake until they see coals drop. Without the chimney acting as your vacuum cleaner, with an established draft, they have a mess.
Coal ash outside is not an issue. (except on Mondays when towns had laundry day ordinances - I won't even get into that. They were called clean stack days) It absorbs moisture from the atmosphere even in a closed container, becoming hard like cement.
Difficult to compare to wood use since I will burn 6 or 7 cords in older stoves compared to 2 tons of coal in no matter what coal stove I've used. The main advantage is a very steady even heat. No chimney cleaning, no bugs or wood mess. No saws, splitter, or exercise.
If you buy coal dry and handle it, be aware of coal dust you can create. Deaths from black lung in mines was a major issue. Stoking a stove (loading through door) is not an issue since the warm chimney doesn't allow the coal dust back into the house. Most in the industry handle it wet, and stored outside where you buy it is mostly only dry on top, wetter towards the bottom. I personally skim it off the top buying it by weight, but I know how to handle it. My member name coaly is from firing steam locomotives, an engineer being a Hogger, running the Hog, and fireman being a Coaly. Firing in a locomotive is done dry or wet depending on what kind of fire you need. Asbestos was our issue more than coal dust. That was mainly people in the mines. Coal stores very well and won't catch fire in a bin since it needs lots of air moving up through it to burn. It does degrade over time when in direct sunlight and wind which decreases the BTU slightly.
I should look around, I have receipts from my parents when coal was $2.50 and $3 a ton.
I also have a Peoples Coal Co. shovel they gave to customers with a 3 digit phone number on it!
One hangs on the wall where I pick up my coal now. They are still in business.
The local trains would stop in our town to take on water, being 100 coal cars long. Town people would go through the woods to the middle of the train and quickly shovel off coal from the cars. (each car holds 100 tons) After the train left, they came back with wheelbarrows for the coal! Railroad wouldn't miss much from a 10,000 ton load.
