Coal for heat.

There have been several post about burning coal for hear.

You guys all have access to a computer. Look this stuff up. Areas of interest should focus on problems related to air inversions over and around large city areas in the late 1800's, early 1900's through WWII. Everyone and their brother were burning coal for heat, electricity, trains and factories. It was bad. They were killing a lot of people because of this. I seldom get on the environmental band wagon. And I have no problem with modern systems like the newer power plants.

So the 2 big questions about home heating with coal are: Does anyone make a home heating unit designed to burn coal with the filters/scrubbers? And what would the cost be to install one and maintain it? I know you are thinking well it's only me. But if it caught on it could be millions. That could be bad.

Rick

Guess if I had to choose between staying warm, or "harming the environment" answer is pretty clear!!
Pretty amazing how history repeats its self.

The house I grew up in was heated by coal. I'd do it again.

I would be heating with coal right now if I had an easier way to get it to the basement!

A simple scrubber does not take out the mercury and other harmful metals, that is a complicated process.

My inlaws heat with a coal
stoker(Stokermatic),Warmest heat I've ever
experienced.This is at 8000ft GunnisonCo.(America's
Icebox).There used to be lots of stokers around
here,they are gradully deing replaced with
cleaner,eaisier to maintain,more modern systems
that are lots more expencive to operate

Height of the industrial revolution, railroads here thrived on transporting coal, or seems to be evident given historical information. I looked back at a 1952 aerial photo of this farm, and it was barren, no trees, one area that is 11 acres of hardwood now, was still young, maybe viable to produce some wood for heat then but the land was clear, even the most formidable, now seemingly useless land on side hills above swamp was cleared, probably pasture so better land was used for crops. When I was a kid, the hedgerows provided some, but there was just not much wood available, now with it all overgrown, I could heat with wood until I'm gone, asking price is owning a tractor to tow it in and necessary equipment to process it, which is not all that much, I probably have 2k invested with everything + labor until you can't perform the work anymore, hate to think about that. The old victorian house that was here, a very large home with 10' high ceilings, and no insulation, one fire place, no amount of wood would have heated it, it had a coal fired boiler converted to fuel oil at some point, likely in the 50's. When '73 hit and that embargo was going strong, big time game changer. I can remember living in this house, bitter cold, snow blowing and drifting when winter was really winter, fire place was nice, but the only warm cozy place was near that boiler. The coal bin was huge, they loaded in in through a chute and someone had to keep that boiler going all winter.

You can't see it as much in the photos, lots of us like to relegate the past, being better times, but the you look at some color photos, lots of pollution, the trains in this area were no different, even when they switched over to diesel, all kinds of pollution on the buildings, when they took down what was a beautiful grand central station here, the roof over the platform was loaded with soot from the coal days, I posted a you tube video of this some time back, showing the demo. Rivers and air were highly polluted here, different times with different means and methods, none of which were as clean or efficient. That part can't be denied, the rest y'all can debate, I'll kindly stay out of that LOL !

Yep Coal is bad for you. A lot of us old guys were raised around Coal and that is what made us OLD. LOL.

I burn Coal, and have for a few years. I found a 'Deal' on it, guy has 300+ tons, and I get it for $60 a ton, Hazzard Stoker Coal, I use it in my Wondercoal, 2827 built by US Stove Company, and love it. Our total cost this year to heat 1800 sq ft, on the Ohio River, will be $550.

I don't know anything about modern coal furnaces. I was just pointing out that unfiltered coal exhaust isn't good. I know a lot of people, who if they could get/make the grates to burn coal in their wood stoves and had a source would do so. I'm sure that many more that I don't know would do it too. All without any filtration. It could be a bad thing. If a modern coal furnace has the filters/scrubbers I have no problem with it.

But like in London, when every building was heating with coal, plus the out put from the factories an air inversion was a very dangerous situation. The people most affected were the very young and the old.

Any of you actually experienced acid rain? I'd heard about. Was in the news a lot while I was in Germany in the mid 80's. When I got back and left here to go to Ft Knox I drove through acid rain in the Chicago area. I was watching my new wipers blades dissolve in it. Up to that point I was a nonbeliever.

I really don't care what anyone burns for heat and long as in the long run it's safe. I don't even care about unfiltered wood smoke.

This really wasn't an anti coal post. More like being a wake up if too many people went back to coal without having proper protections.

Rick

Stokermatic! We heated with one fifty years ago. They were a first class heating unit. I'm surprised to hear that some are still in operation.

Rick, I don't think you will find a residential coal heating unit with any sort of emission control system. Any such thing would be expensive and labor intensive, and require a lot of electricity to run. The acid gas emissions combine with water to form a very corrosive product, acid rain is an example. Chemically it is SO2+H20=H2S04. The water in the scrubber would have to he highly caustic (chemically the opposite of acid) something that presents its own danger (think anhydrous ammonnia) and a Electostatic Precipitator (ESP)to knock out an residual particulates. Then, if we could even get it to work, we turned our air quality problem in to a solid hazardous waste one. All of this stuff would have to be built with highly crossive resistant materials. None of this is going to be cheap or easy. That, and the cost of natural gas is why all theas old coal fired plants are being shut down. (career tip for youngsters: become a wizzard at asbestos, hazardous waste, industrial demmolition and metal recycling, it is going to be a growth industry for the next 30 years) And as others mentioned it would do nothing to knock out heavy metals like mercury.

We have natural gas here as we have wells on the property. If it weren't for that, I would be burning wood and coal. It is a great source of heat.

I do suppose that the government will eventually make it too expensive to use or fine it out of use but, I would use it in a heartbeat if my situation was different.

I was the "stokermatic" at our house 'til I bought my place with ...coal heat and a coal hot water system. Changed that for natural gas atmy wifes demand second winter we were in the house.

Harman Stove Co. offers 4 coal burning stoves that meet EPA standards for emissions. They are much the same as wood pellet stoves and burn "pea coal". There is some dust like wood pellet stoves when loading however.
The coal units deliver more BTU's per dollar spent, but there is also more waste/ashes to deal with.
Loren, the Acg.

That's how China is now the use coal for every thing Google
some pics. Where I live though within the last couple years
there was a coal refiney plant built, two piplines a third on the
way and now a lp gas plant.

I burn coal. There are some new units on the market that are pretty efficent. I am talking about automatic coal stoker, boiler units.
I can't think of their names right now. I live in the coal region of Pennsylvania. Hard coal, anthracite.
I believe the power plants burn the soft coal, Bituminus, which has more pollution.

That's how China is now the use coal for every thing Google
some pics. Where I live though within the last couple years
there was a coal refiney plant built, two piplines a third on the
way and now a lp gas plant.

(quoted from post at 22:15:20 01/30/14) I burn coal. There are some new units on the market that are pretty efficent. I am talking about automatic coal stoker, boiler units.
I can't think of their names right now. I live in the coal region of Pennsylvania. Hard coal, anthracite.
I believe the power plants burn the soft coal, Bituminus, which has more pollution.

Click to expand...

Soft coal such a Powder River Basin has less emissions per btu than hard coal.