Oil Heat vs. Everything Else (Allentown, Reading: houses, heat pump, calculator)

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

You missed my earlier post that there is no gas main in this neighborhood, nor are they planning to install one. Gas should be the first choice if it were available.

Natural gas is cheap right now, not quite as cheap as coal for those paying the lowest prices. NG isn't going to stay like that though. I'll give it about 4 or 5 years and it will start going up again, keep in mind NG prices were spiking right along with oil back in 2007. The only reason it's not expensive right now is because there is glut in the supply but that isn't going to last forever.

If price is greatest concern historically coal is always the best bet. Over the last 3 or 4 decades the price has risen with inflation but there has been a larger increase within the last decade mostly because of the cost of oil.

[blazerj]

What about Geothermal heat?

Geothermal heating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I believe that PA has some incentives to switch, so the cost is reduced. It seems much better and enviornmental than using Oil or coal.

[thecoalman]

Geo thermal is an option too, I don't know if there is nay tax credits. The cost may be reduced for the individual consumer but someone is paying for it through higher taxes. There is big up front costs even if there is tax credit and the larger your house the more it's going to cost. It also has limited use in many areas, you need adequate space. I've had customers with geothermal sytems that installed smaller than required ones and took the edge off the coldest days by supplementing heat with coal.

As far as the environmental concerns one thing to remember is that Northeastern Pennsylvania coal is anthracite which is the highest grade of coal hence the nice blue flame in the following image. It's nearly pure carbon, the blue falme is indication of complete combustion, there is no smoke. It's a local product so emissions overall are far less than oil, there is an enormous amount of energy expended to ship and refine oil which in turn drives up the overall emissions.

[thecoalman]

I forgot to add one other benefit, you keep your dollars here in the local community. Nearly everything you would purchase is produced here. The fuel is from here and the boiler/furnace/stove is produced here. Matter of fact two of the larger boiler manufacturers are in Pottsville. One of them , efm, used to have huge plant in Emmaus and had their sales office located there until recently.

[Kefir King]

Absent a gas line, I'd go with space heaters to keep the options open. And of course, we are talking 1500 Watt heaters here. If you have 220 V. current, larger commercial units are viable.

A 600 Watt unit is extremely impractical for room heating unless the goal is solely to prevent pipes from freezing or with a SUPER SUPER insulated home.

Anyone with central air conditioner will have advantages with a high wattage coil for the forced air. Of couse for your kichen, just leave the electic (presumed) burners on, they are 2,000- 3,000 watts each.

With the exorbitant energy costs of electricity and fuel oil, you get the most bang for your buck with added insulation... LOTS of it.

Is electricity TOTAL cost only $.108 in the Lehigh Valley. Seems much lower than I thought. I'm in Manhattan and the charge is $.29/Kwhr so electrical heat pretty much goes out the window.

[julian17033]

When I lived in the Ashland area (Lavelle) in Schuylkill county my house had coal.

I would load up my truck with 50 pound bags of Reading Anthracite coal.
Honestly I wish at least I had a coal stove in my house here in Allentown.
I love coal. It's inexpensive and heats extremely well.
It's by far my favorite heating method.

[Kefir King]

When I was a kid, we had a coal furnace and antracite coal was delivered into the "coal bin" perhaps twice a season by the "coal man"...about 2 tons per delivery. Dirt cheap fuel it was.

Dirt, dust, overheating (90 degrees all winter because you can't hust turn it off and on), fire going out because someone forgot to "bank" the stove, ashes, dust, a friggen mess. And all this time there was a gas pipe into the house...go figger?

When we switched to gas it opened up a whole new part of the house to us...the basement, now clean.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Kefir King

Dirt, dust,

The dirt and dust van be controlled, for example if you watch the video I posted previously. No dust at all, the only problem with that method is you need more space to store it. There is other things you can do like purchase coal that has been coated with a vegetable oil, lighten dampen it garden type sprayer before shoveling it. You just have to be careful.

overheating (90 degrees all winter because you can't hust turn it off and on),

Certainly you can. I run my boiler all summer because it also makes domestic hot water, it's cheaper. Since it's encased in insulation there is very little ambient heat. With a stoker stove or boiler it's no different than any other system, they are on demand and thermostatically controlled. They even make digital thermostat specifically designed for coal stokers.

With a manual stove that can be a problem especially for the rookies. The heat output can easily be controlled with the amount of air it gets, most people get on schedule of loading it once in the morning and once in the evening. How much the air is set at will determine the heat output. The benefit with a manual stove is you don't need any electric to use it so that may be a consideration.

[Kefir King]

I'm talking the real world////We had some sort of "thermostat" that regualted the air damper, BUT with a boiler capable of heating the World Trade Center (like some of these home units were) it just didn't becaause a bigh BTU fire on a warm Winter, Spring or Fall day was UNBEARABLE. And you couldnt get put the fire out or you'd have Hell to pay the next day, a major production. And the dust from "shaking the coals" was interminable. The "ash man" took away barrels of the stuff every two weeks but the basement was a carcinogen par encellence.


Later, in the fraternity house, a different system... we had an automatic feed of the burner and all the ashes fell automatically into a 10 foot deep pit. Every September the pledges got to EMPTY the PIT (aptly named.) Poor souls dug into the bowels of the Earth removing huge bucketful after buge bucketful of ash for days on end with 15 guys filthy and degraded (probably some dead of lung disease.)
Then the filling of the pit for a season of heating a 30 room mansion began again.

(After my first pit cleanout I should have told the frat to "s%ck my d%$k" and walked away, but like a dope I stayed...the cuese of callow youth.)

My memories of coal heat are NOT good.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Kefir King

I'm talking the real world////

So am I, what you are describing is an older manually operated boiler. There is only one company that still makes them, everthing is automatic in new boiler.... actually most have been automatic for about 50 years now. It's no different than conventioanl heating system except you need to put coal in the hopper and take the ashes out.

My memories of coal heat are NOT good.

I had a house fire about 2 years ago, first and last winter without coal was last year. I really missed the familiar sound of the boiler running, it's back now. Same unit that was in the old house, it's going on 30 years now and probably good for another 40 or 50. The insualting jacket wasn't installed yet in this picture: