Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Is heating coal a thing of the past?

Our local power company is in the process of changing over from coal to natural gas right now.

Many old family residences had fireplaces designed to specifically burn coal. The firebox was smaller than wood burning fireplaces and had a cast iron 'grate' (a sort of basket) that held the lumps of coal while it burned and allowed the ash and cinders to fall out the bottom.

Have the ability to heat with coal but not the inclinations. Grew up with a stoked that I had to shovel

Back in the day before carbon monoxide detectors, coal gas killed my grandmother.

Had weird a thing here once.
Had been keeping a fire, then it got real warm one day.
I came home from work, and the carbon monoxide detector was going off.
Took it outside, it quit.
Came in, back to beeping.

Took a deep breath, ran to the basement and opened the door.

Stayed out awhile, after the beeper quit.

There was a small fire in the furnace still.

I think, the flu reversed due to the outside temps, or else it just
kind of lost draw. The furnace was pushing the exhaust out the intake.
The coal in the fire was past coked. It was burning real clean.

Had an incident burning Pittsburgh Seam coal.
It plugged the pipe.
Wife called me at work, middle of the night.
House was full of smoke.

She had the windows open, that made the furnace burn making it worse.
Had to shut down the draft, pull off the pipes and plug the flu pipe,
And clean the metal pipes to the chimney.

While she was setting up fans to vent the house.

That one could have really went bad.

No I use it every day...65 to 80 a ton once a month.... best thing since ever !

What in the hell are you burning it in, and heating?

Lived as a kid in the North of England, all those chimneys in those rows and rows of houses were for burning coal. We cooked using gas but had no hot water or heat in the house without a fire in the living room fireplace.

In the evening we would all gather in front of it, which I would guess was how living rooms got started. No basements, everybody’s coal shed was out back in the tiny yard next to the toilet, delivered by brawny, sooty guys in hundredweight (112lb) sacks.

Plus we lived next to a rail yard where steam engines were still a thing, coal-fired. The smell of coal smoke and soot sure takes me back.

I was there five years back, all electric now of course, free of soot the houses are much cleaner than I remember.

Switched from a outdoor wood stove to EFM 520 nine years ago I would not switch back if someone gave me the wood for free.

I get 20 tons of rice delivered once every two years got a delivery back in May of this year and it was $145 ton. I have forced hot air for the house and radiant floor heat for the shop total of around 3000 sf. Got tired of my two daughters alway using up the hot water so two years ago I installed a hot water heat exchanger and now have unlimited hot water 24/7 365.

yes they still deliver it in a dump truck in Lee county Kentucky, in eastern Ky,my wife family is from there

There was a remote, farmer near the MD line that had a railroad right through his farm. He had a gate frame type thing built to carry a powerline across the
rail road. Kinda like the thing they put up at a ranch entrance. He had a
cross bar, on an angle to the tracks that he could lower to just above
a coal car's height. He would drop it on a coal train at night and skim some
of the mounded coal off as the train went by.

He finally got caught stealing grain. The old trains went pretty slow up that climb, he would open a car's chute at the end of his property and ride the train through, shutting the chute when he hit the end of his pasture.

He was about 5 miles from Hyndman,, where they had a railyard. He
fell off trying to close the chute one day, the train pulled into Hyndman
and workers saw the grain running out. Wasn't hard to track it back
to the beginning.

People in Hyndman used to gather coal from the roasted.
Some,made sure extra fell off the stopped cars.

yes this what we and a lot of people i know, used when i was growing up in West Virginia in the 70's when we used coal we threw te clinkers and ash in the garden or were we parked dads truck.there was a little private shaft into a hillside1/4 mile down road from our house ,people would go dig coal out of the shaft for free . dad said it to dangerous ,the real coal mine was just a few miles away ,so we would go to the mine tipple and they would fill pick up full