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ICC
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# Posted: 31 Jan 2022 22:30
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Anybody grow up in a house heated with coal?
The old ranch house had a coal burning boiler with a pump that circulated water through cast iron radiators. That was used in the coldest part of the winter.
Wood burning kiva fireplaces too. Wood burning kitchen stove used mostly in cold weather and an electric range that came some time after I was born.
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darz5150
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# Posted: 1 Feb 2022 00:37
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Didn't grow up with one. But my grandparents had one. As a kid I used to be intrigued with the "Coal room" in the basement, with the Coal shoot door by the driveway, and the holes in the second floor rooms to let the warm air rise for heating.
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Brettny
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# Posted: 1 Feb 2022 06:22
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I had a coal vermont castings stove. I mostly burned wood in it but did try 2 bags of coal once. Didnt really see a benefit but 2 bags prob isnt enough to get a hang of it.
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jsahara24
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# Posted: 1 Feb 2022 10:01
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I live in one of the coal regions of PA. Most houses have been converted away from coal, but almost every basement has remnants of the coal bin with a shoot out to the street.
I purchased several rentals and looked through a lot of houses, the setup i am used to seeing is a 55 gallon drum with an auger feeding the coal boiler. The owner would need to fill up the drum and the rest took care of itself. I stayed away from the homes that weren't converted to oil or natural gas bc most tenants don't want to deal with it. But the BTU output and heat is hard to beat.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 1 Feb 2022 10:27 - Edited by: gcrank1
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Dad bought and we moved into an old Wisconsin 'sand county' 120ac farm in the summer 1960 (south central Wi, about 10mi from where Aldo Leopold had his place that became his famous 'Sand County Almanac').
The leaky old two-story farmhouse was heated with a sizable cylindrical wood & coal hot air furnace in the basement. It was big because the inner part was the stove', the outer was a jacket making for a hot air plenum in between.
I was 7 yo at the time, and as I aged more 'responsibilities' became mine, like feeding the furnace. I remember we would have some coal in reserve and cut wood about every two weekends in winter when we kids we off of school. Of course we 'made wood' ahead of season but it was never enough. And it was rare the load of oak lasted all night so somewhere in the night, if I woke up, Id go down from my cold upstairs bedroom to feed it again while there was hopefully still fire, or at least a good glowing bed.
In deep winter dad would load in coal and it would go all night. My job then became 1st thing of a morning go down and shake the grate, pull the clinkers, expose the deep hot coals and try to get some heat going. Then it would be the oak again for the day.
Mom would have the kitchen doors hung with blankets and it became the warm room with making of breakfast and the furnace just starting to kick some heat. Lots of times she would have the lp kitchen range door open, oven going, and Id sit in a chair in front with my stockinged feet up on the open door while eating a bowl of cereal. Then we'd get ready for the schoolbus, a last trip to the furnace to check it and throw in more wood (Never coal!, it was too expensive) and as the house was just starting to get warm we went the 100ish yds to where the bus stopped.  It did Not come to our driveway....
And it was rare that we ever had 'snow days' and never 'cold days' where they canceled school like they often do now. Those old school buses didnt really have heaters in them either and it was a cold hour ride.
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travellerw
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# Posted: 1 Feb 2022 13:37
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gcrank1... You paint a great mental picture.. Your story sounds so much like the stories my father tells..
I'm guessing you might have some stories of doing a "coal run" before the season. My father tells stories of that as they would never pay for delivery (again too expensive). Instead fire up the truck and make the trek to the nearest mine (about 3 hours away).
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Fanman
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# Posted: 1 Feb 2022 19:36
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I didn't grow up with it, but we have a coal stove (a 1920s vintage cylinder stove) in our cabin. It's great, it burns all night long though if I do get up during the night I'll usually add a scoop or two.
The coal stove is in the bedroom, the only other heat is an inefficient old wood stove in the living room. The routine is to get up in the morning and relight the wood stove, then have coffee and breakfast in the warm bedroom while the living room heats back up.
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ICC
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# Posted: 1 Feb 2022 23:45
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Quoting: Brettny I had a coal vermont castings stove.
A Vigilant? We had one in the old machine shed. Shaker grate? One thing really different about a coal fire compared to wood fire, is that coal needs the air supply directed to the bottom, right where the fire is. Wood will burn even with a top inlet draft. So the grate in a Vigilant can be rocked or shaken to help ashes drop. Not doing that can affect the burn.
Coal generally has a lot more BTU's per pound than wood. But coal varies in BTU's just like wood. If the coal was cheaper soft coal it might seem about the same as well dried hardwoods.
The real attractive thing about coal compared to wood was that a coal burning furnace could be fitted with a stoker. A bin with an auger that pushed coal into the fire box as the thermostat called for more heat. I think the one my dad had installed in the old ranch house held about 100 pounds of coal and would last for days with little to no intervention. Much better than having to hand shovel 2 to 3 times a day.
Local coal was/is semi-bituminous. Soft real dirty dusty crap. There was a small mine north of us that had some anthracite. I liked it. More costly but more energy dense; almost 95% carbon in each pound of anthracite. Small amount of ash. Dried wood is not quite 50% carbon for comparison.. Cheap low grade coal can be about the same as wood. But any coal can be run through a stoker. Modern pellet stoves sort of are today's coal stoker replacements.
I don't really miss coal. The smoke odor bothered me at times; more than wood smoke. There used to be a lot of cheap coal burned around here when I was a kid.
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Aklogcabin
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# Posted: 2 Feb 2022 12:55
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Good old coal bins. They came with some very ornate moldings. I've seen a few used as root cellers.
My dad's older brothers would shovel coal from the train cars n deliver it to homes with huge horse drawn sleighs. And hauled ice in the summer.
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Fanman
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# Posted: 3 Feb 2022 17:33
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For a stoker you need electricity, no? How does it handle shaking, is that motorized too?
We've always used anthracite (hard) coal, never seen anything else offered around here (CT and NY).
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snobdds
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# Posted: 4 Feb 2022 12:20
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My only experience with Coal is when Elk Hunting. We would buy a bag for the over night burns. Our stove had draft vents on the bottom so it worked ok as a dual purpose stove. It makes elk hunting in the cold a lot better when you don't have to wake up in the night to stoke the stove.
There is nothing like waking up and there still being coals to get a fire going quickly.
The problem is, today, I can't find bags of coal anymore. I live in the biggest coal producing state, and I can't find coal. Crazy.
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NorthRick
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# Posted: 4 Feb 2022 16:49
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Meh, one of our in town neighbors used to burn coal. The stuff stinks. Doesn't smell anything like wood smoke. I'm glad coal is on its way out.
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