Ill effects of burning coal

[EastwoodGang4]

The "pro's" to burning coal seem to be common sense. What are if any, the "cons" of burning coal or mixing coal in a wood stove. I have a USSC 1557M that IS rated for coal, and I'm curious about it"s corrosiveness, soot, and any other issues that go along with it. My chimney is a Simpson Duravent brand triple wall stainless, and I'm also curious about what happens to the chimney liner and what maintenance differences there are between burning wood and coal. I read a link on another thread called The Anthracite Coal forum, which was very interesting, but the topic of the thread was based more towards the OWB crowd, so I just wanted to hear it from you STOVE guys.

Thanks,
Adam

 

[ansehnlich1]

I burned Reading Anthracite for 6 years, nut size. No creosote The two main things I did not like were ash disposal, 3 ton of coal equals a pretty good amount of ash, and it ain't like wood ash. I read somewhere once that coal ash has some pretty nasty stuff in it. Oh, and it ain't good for the garden either.

The other thing that I didn't like was the fine black coal dust that accumulates on walls, floors, heck, anything vertical or horizontal. Now maybe a rice stoker would minimize that, but I swore I'd never do coal again unless the stove was outside. That being said, many folk likely don't mind, but I didn't like the coal dust.

As for corrosiveness, I've seen under the proper conditions coal ash and condnesation combine to start eating through 1/4 inch plate steel.

And it's hard to maintain draft above 55 or 60 degrees, so ya can't burn coal when the temp's begin to climb.

Overall, it was the best heat for the money I've ever had, but I'm burnin' wood now, oak, hickory, cherry, walnut, and such. I'd rather sweep bark than watch the walls slowly turn a shade of grey.

There's my rant!

 

[Al Smith]

I grew up in a big old northern Ohio farm house that used a stoker fed huge coal furnace.That thing would burn about 9 tons of pea coal per year.It was certainly warm but did dust up the house a great deal.

My grandmother,rest her soul, burned wood for perhaps 85 of her 94 years on this earth.She would get about two tons of Ohio lump coal from the mines in Coshocton to bank the fire at night.That two tons would last around two years heating that large farm house in Knox county Ohio.

Most people are not familiar with setting the draft to burn coal.Once the fire is going good you should just see a slight tinge of brown in the flue smoke.Black is not enough air,clear or white is too much.

Coal has different stages of combustion just like wood,the solid,gasious and finally coke,which is the equivelant of charcoal in a wood fire.In the burning of coal in a non self feed stoker type stove you have to be able to "read" the fire,just like burning wood.I have never heard of coal causing a creosote problem.I don't think the component for making creosote is in the coal.

 

[beelsr]

Living in PA, I burn coal. Stoker-fed unit (the ONLY way to go) burning rice coal. I love this thing. :biggrinbounce2:

I've used nat gas, oil, wood and coal over the years. Coal is the cheapest $ per BTU. Nat gas is the easiest but most expensive. Wood is cheaper if you cut yourself but the time is the killer there.

The dust is a problem, as ansehnlich1 says. The only place I really have this problem is in the hopper feed. When I moved in, there was no door. I put in a simple plywood door and plumbed in an exhaust fan with a switch that turns it on whenever the door is opened (closet light switch). This puts enough backpressure so when I rake down the coal to the screw I get virtually no dust into the room. And I really can't see any "smudges" on the brick outside either.

Emptying the ashes is the only "unsolvable" problem. You could build a huge pit and have outside access to empty it. This would be IDEAL for new construction but it's too late for me. I get a bucket a day in the winter and (I use this to do my hot water year round about every 3-4 days in the summer. If you're careful, don't get an overflow and don't bang into things, you can pull the bucket and put a new one in without making any dust. If the bucket overflows, you're going to need a little scoop shovel and shop vac to clean up. What you do is turn on the shop vac and use it to grab as much of the dust cloud as possible while you scoop and place (don't drop, just makes more dust) the scoops in the bucket.

I have maybe 1/3 mile driveway that has maybe 80 feet of slope so I keep a few 55 gallon barrels full of ashes for ice. The rest of the ashes get dumped into a couple piles and spread out in a little parking lot. If I didn't have the land to dump the ashes, that would be something else to think about. No grass or wees grow through the coal ashes but I don't know of anythign toxic in the ashes, ph is probably too acid for growth.

As stated above, coal burns fine in the summer, you just need to change the feed (coal and air) and creamer settings. In the winter, you need a higher feed rate since the output demand is higher for water and heat than water alone. And since the heat is aways getting kicked on, the creamer can be set longer. In the summer, you don't need as much output to just do the water but the creamer needs to kick on more often so the fire doesn't go out.

Regardless of what you burn, you need a CO detector. If you lose the fire with coal though, you'll smell it soon enough.

I clean the chimney out myself every year but don't really need to since it's pretty clean. triple-wall stainless, no problems. do "oils" in the coal so no creosote.

Things to keep handy: mapp gas cylinder for relights, a pair of insulating gloves to pull the buckets out, can of oil to lube the reciprocating gears if you have a stoker-fed unit, a rake to rake down the pile to the screw feed, a little shovel and shop vac for cleanups.

I heat the garage with wood and I think it's dirtier than the coal but then I don't use a shopvac out there when shovelling ashes out and they go everywhere. If I used a vac, it would probably be about the same...

Here's the obligatory picture of the beast. Needs a cleaning, that's for sure. Note that it's just regular dust on top, not coal dust.

Wooo-hoooo, post #500!

 

[jhellwig]

I can't speak for burning coal for personal use, only where I work. Coal puts off nasty emissions especially when smothered. It needs a good draft and a hot fire to burn properly and get the most out of it. More of the smell of it is from sulfer. Very corrosive also.

I wouldn't want coal in a house. Nasty stuff.

 

[ktm rider]

You need a stove designed for burning coal for the full performance to be acheived. If you try to burn coal in a wood stove you will most likely be disappointed. You absolutely need the draft to come from BELOW the grates and the it really helps for the grates to be shaker grates.

 

[EastwoodGang4]

dust

Thanks for all the helpful info fellas. The dust is definatley something to keep in mind. I've heard of people wetting the coal to keep the dust down...more for flare ups than the dust itself. they say it burns fine when damp. that would probably make a mess of the feed systems that some of you have refered to. what I was wanting to do was exactly what Al Smith wrote about.... Lump coal mixed in with the wood fire to keep things going good all night. Problem is that I live in a rather residential area, non rural if you like, and the smoke smell and soot all over the nighbor's new car would be a bad thing. So I guess i'll keep kicking it around.... thanks again for everyone's input!!!!

 

[Al Smith]

I forgot to mention that granny had a "Warm morning stove " that was designed to burn coal,shaker grates,ash pan,the whole nine yards.Fact is the old gal burned a bunch of corn cobs in it also.A btu,is a btu,ya know.

In a former life,with a former wife,I had a homebuilt stove that would also burn anything.It was designed like a Vermont down drafter,under fire air,secondary air,ash pan,bi metal damper control,forced air to the duct work.It worked like a charm,I was about half proud of myself building the thing.During the coldest months I burned petroleum coke from a local refinery that I got for $27.35 per ton.Half the cost of coal,twice the btu's,no smoke,little ash,pure hot heat.I could heat the house on 3 ton per year,cheap.

The draw back of coke,tricky to burn,that stuff will make it's own draft and you can't choke down a "run away".It was learning curve but luckily I didn't burn the house down.I once saw over 700 degrees of stack temperature,part of the flue was light orange,egads.Orange is over 1400 degrees,steel melts at 2200.Coke,by the way,is what they used in open hearth furnaces to make steel.That is,way back when they used to make steel in this country.