Oil Heat vs. Everything Else (fit in, homes, buy)

[Kefir King]

It's no different than conventioanl heating system except you need to put coal in the hopper and take the ashes out.

That is one BIG EXCEPT.
Putting the fuel in and taking the ashes out defines the precise reason that almost no homes are heated that way anymore. Same applies to chopping down wood and stoking a fireplace.


But to change the subject, what are the practical cost comparisons between anthracite, bituminous and natural gas or fuel oil as commonly used in home heating and hot water generation...considering reality based efficiency estimates. Is home heating with coal economical enough to justify hauling out bushels of ash?

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Kefir King

That is one BIG EXCEPT.

It takes a few minutes each day, depending on the setup and during cold weather on average it's a 5 minute job once a day. I have a 55 gallon drum in the coal bin. I fill that up and the auger from the boiler takes care of the rest. This time of the year I'm good for four or five days at a time. Dead of winter when it's 0 out I'll have do it once day, I'll go through about 1/3 the drum of coal and fill one tub of ashes which is why I have to mess with it every day when it's that cold. That's for 4000 sq. ft..

The auger setup would be similar to this but instead of that little pail it's 55 gallon drum:

Same applies to chopping down wood and stoking a fireplace.

That's not a good comparison, coal is lot easier to use. You don't have to stoke the fire every four or five hours for starters. To quote the one customer I had the second year I took him coal that had previously burned wood for 20 years "I wish I knew that 20 years ago!" I've never met a person that has used wood and switched to coal that regretted it.

Is home heating with coal economical enough to justify hauling out bushels of ash?

Depends on your local rates. The NG is so cheap now even anthracite at it's lowest price your're not saving much. NG isn't going to stay like that, I'll give it 4 or 5 years and of course you need it available where you live. What I can tell you is in late 2007 when both oil and NG was spiking there a 1 year wait for a coal boiler and a 6 month wait for most other units.

When you get into soft coal since it's half the price of anthracite you can save a tremendous amount of money..... but.... it's not really suitable for home heating for a variety of reasons. It smokes, it stinks, automation is iffy because it "clinkers".

There is a calculator here, note the default prices are not up to date, the coal will probably start around $180 per ton delivered and be sure to adjust the efficiency of the unit accordingly. FYI the 80% for coal is not a mistake. Most coal fired units will be around 80% with some almost in the 90% range.

Fuel Comparison Calculator for Home Heating

[julian17033]

Strange that you say almost no homes are heated with coal any longer.
Most of Schuylkill County heats with coal and or oil.

I know of three homes here in my neighborhood in far south Allentown that heat with coal.

Reading Anthracite sells coal in 50 LB bags for a reason and that is to sell to mostly residential customers that heat with coal.
If they didn't have customer demand for smaller bags they wouldn't be selling it that way.

Dealing with ash really wasn't an issue for me.

Coal is viable for many many people either by default or design.

Originally Posted by Kefir King

That is one BIG EXCEPT.
Putting the fuel in and taking the ashes out defines the precise reason that almost no homes are heated that way anymore. Same applies to chopping down wood and stoking a fireplace.


But to change the subject, what are the practical cost comparisons between anthracite, bituminous and natural gas or fuel oil as commonly used in home heating and hot water generation...considering reality based efficiency estimates. Is home heating with coal economical enough to justify hauling out bushels of ash?

[thecoalman]

Strange that you say almost no homes are heated with coal any longer.
Most of Schuylkill County heats with coal and or oil.

Relatively speaking it's small niche even compared to wood pellets which is strange because wood pellets are much more. Having said that I have forum members all over the Northeast US that use coal for heat. There was one that lived in NJ and moved to NC that took his boiler with him. LOL.

Originally Posted by julian17033

Reading Anthracite sells coal in 50 LB bags for a reason and that is to sell to mostly residential customers that heat with coal.

The bagged coal is very expensive even locally, if you're going to heat with coal look into bulk delivery.

[Kefir King]

I can't see the stoker mechanism? But from that perfectly formed fire bed I assume there is one. (This is exactly what the coal bed looked like in the frat house.)

Home fire was just a rectangular box with coal in it...we shovelled it into a coal bucket and the carried the bucket to the furnace and dumped it in through the open door...then opened the draft (or closed it, I forget) until we say a "blue flame" shook the ashpit a bit...and then we did something else. Thermostat controlled only a motorized lever that opened and closed a flue damper. This SUPPOSEDLY allowed one to have a blazingly hot fire or the fires of Hell. Basically the thermostatic control did NOTHING.

Don't expect a forever thing with your furnace. Our home furnace didn't last 20 years before the exchanger started leaking water into the coal...a DANGEROUS situation....welding estimates were enormous and couldn't be guaranteed. That's when the behemoth was replaced with a dainty little CLEAN gas burner...that went on and on and on like the Energizer battery. Probably the new owners are still using it.


What are the economics of coal today for home use? I haven't crunched those numbers in a LONG time. Is it anything liike HALF the price of gas per useful BTU?


(That Blue cladding makes for a very pretty unit...ours was a pale blue-gray.)

YOI, a 50 pound bag???? We went through that in a couple days. My mother bought 2 tons (of pea coal) at a time.No wonder it was HOT all the time. I was Lehigh County incidentally.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Kefir King

I can't see the stoker mechanism? But from that perfectly formed fire bed I assume there is one. (This is exactly what the coal bed looked like in the frat house.)

In that design it's from underfed pot, mine is Van Wert and another company that uses it is efm which is the blue one depicted above. These use auger and the coal is forced up from the bottom of the pot and air is blown through the coal. This image is from an efm, the connection you see on the bottom left is where the coal enters the pot.




Here's video with it in operation:


EFM 520 STOKER BURN TEST.stoker test.avi - YouTube

The benefit of the auger is the pipe is ground level. The more common type is a bed design, this uses a hopper. There is paddle that pushes the coal out onto the bed.

Thermostat controlled only a motorized lever that opened and closed a flue damper. This SUPPOSEDLY allowed one to have a blazingly hot fire or the fires of Hell. Basically the thermostatic control did NOTHING.

Either you had a lot of air infiltration or it wasn't set up correctly. Also keep in mind coal doesn't react instantly like wood. The amount of air is what controls the amount of heat. If you fill a firebed with coal and turn the air all the way down on one of these units you can two days out of it. If you open up the ash door which is not a good idea you'll have it cherry red and the coal will gone in a short time

Don't expect a forever thing with your furnace.

These are time tested designs, with proper maintenance and running them 24/7/365 a boiler like efm or Van Wert like mine will last 50 years without any major issues. I can say that with certainty, it's common. They are removing old ones now 40 and 50 years old which they refurbish. Here's an efm boiler that is hand fired, anybody in the industry that see this will tell you "That's impressive":

What are the economics of coal today for home use?

As I said above it depends on the local rates. I listed the calculator above. in my previous post.

[docb51]

In Fogelsville (zip 18051) just west of Allentown there are a lot of one acre houses with heat pump and either oil or propane back-up. these give you a good system that actually keeps you warm at a reasonable price. Nat gas would be cheaper but there are few nat gas lines to acre lots. The heat pump works well down to about 32F and gives good energy efficiency from the electricity. The oil back-up kisks in below 32F and is poretty good for efficiency, better than pure electric heat for sure.

[Rosanne]

Hey everyone, thanks for all the valuable information. We actually found a house that has natural gas heat in Forks Township on 1/2 acre and put an offer on it. We'll see if we get it or not.

[blazerj]

Originally Posted by docb51

In Fogelsville (zip 18051) just west of Allentown there are a lot of one acre houses with heat pump and either oil or propane back-up. these give you a good system that actually keeps you warm at a reasonable price. Nat gas would be cheaper but there are few nat gas lines to acre lots. The heat pump works well down to about 32F and gives good energy efficiency from the electricity. The oil back-up kisks in below 32F and is poretty good for efficiency, better than pure electric heat for sure.

Would you suggest heat pump with a propane or oil backup? I guess the advantage of propane is that it can be used to run fireplaces too. I assume propane is cheaper and if it fails, the tank is outside and the gas just escapes. With oil, it could ruin your basement. Is that correct?

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by blazerj

With oil, it could ruin your basement. Is that correct?

Or the delivery guy could go to the next door neighbors house and deliver the oil into an oil pipe with no tank on the the other end. True story.

If an oil tank is going to fail generally that's not a fast process, the biggest issues most people have is if they have old ones in the ground and they start leaking. If DEP gets involved........ $$$.

It's probably a toss up as far as safety is concerned. If I had to choose either and was considering safety I'd probably pick the flammable liquid over the explosive gas.

FYI you could use coal in this situation too, I had a few customers with ground sourced heat pumps that used coal for backup. Coal is the safest when comparing to wood or other fossil fuels as far as the fuel itself is concerned. You need a specific environment to get it to light, you could dump a gallon of gas on coal and once the gas burns off it still won't be lit. It can be stored anywhere including outside on the ground if necessary but I'd recommend a tarp to keep crap out of it and for easy cleanup.

As with any fuel CO is a concern but it's of greater concern with coal which is really the only safety concern. Coal produces fly ash when it burns and this will settle on any horizontal surfaces inside a flue pipe or inside the bottom of the chimney/clean out. Conditions vary but most people clean this out once a year. If you're not going to burn year round you have to disconnect the flue pipes anyway.