Hauling some Anthracite Coal this morning!

[JeepinPete]

Quite a bit more out west. I'm just south of the coal seams, can still get it for $200/ton. Go through 8 tons a year, four trips in total. First year towing with my Jeep, it is handling it great.

Cost is half that of heating oil, 1/3 that of propane. Quite a bit more work of course.

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[biodiesel]

I was born and raised in Kansas. We burned wood, but there were some farmers that burned corn. You don't see very many corn burning stoves, but you also don't see many coal burning stoves either. I now live in New Mexico in which most people burn wood, but some still burn coal. Even though our coal is good quality, it's not as good as the anthracite. Our coal is subbituminous which is low sulfur but also has a lower BTU.

 

[NC_Overland]

Quite a bit more out west. I'm just south of the coal seams, can still get it for $200/ton. Go through 8 tons a year, four trips in total. First year towing with my Jeep, it is handling it great.

Cost is half that of heating oil, 1/3 that of propane. Quite a bit more work of course.

Yeah. Oil cost is outrageous now. Thankfully, we have natural gas here.

 

[JeepinPete]

If I had NG I would use it. Considering PA is the third highest producer of NG is the USA, it is a rather sad situation.

 

[biodiesel]

New Mexico is ranked #2 in oil and #5 in natural gas. Thankfully, our heating bill is very affordable. If we supplement with wood, then it's even that much cheaper.

 

[JTdiRtyD]

I keep waiting for natty gas to come into my neighborhood, but the propane companies have us locked down. Natty gas is literally less than a mile away on the other side of the highway.

 

[mac68]

My only option was oil and I switched 20 years ago when Penn power offered a all electric rate of 3 cents a kilowatt but those rates are long gone and I couldn’t stand the heat from electric so that’s why I switched. It was 180.00 a ton until Covid hit

 

[NC_Overland]

My only option was oil and I switched 20 years ago when Penn power offered a all electric rate of 3 cents a kilowatt but those rates are long gone and I couldn’t stand the heat from electric so that’s why I switched. It was 180.00 a ton until Covid hit

Yeah. It feels dry. In the south a lot of homes have electric heat pumps. Whenever I’ve had that, I had to use a humidifier to keep the house from being too dry.

 

[Lost1wing]

The house that I grew up in, used oil lamps and coal heating. The oil lamps were replaced with gas lighting and gas heaters.

I never burned coal, but I have been to a few homes with a coal fireplace. I bet the modern coal heaters are more efficient than the old style fireplace.

 

[JeepinPete]

Depends on your definition of "modern". I'm running a coal boiler made in the '50s. They still sell it (EFM), so I guess you could say its modern? My place is an old stone farmhouse, 18" thick walls, zero insulation in the walls. I need cheap btu's

 

[Lost1wing]

Depends on your definition of "modern". I'm running a coal boiler made in the '50s. They still sell it (EFM), so I guess you could say its modern? My place is an old stone farmhouse, 18" thick walls, zero insulation in the walls. I need cheap btu's

My home was 1875, so 1950's would be considered modern.

 

[biodiesel]

My place is an old stone farmhouse, 18" thick walls, zero insulation in the walls.

I learned about thermal mass when I moved to New Mexico. Log homes and Adobe are impressive in terms of efficiency. Nobody has air conditioning in homes with 18" thick adobe walls or 10" - 12" logs. Once you heat up adobe (or stone), it holds and radiates heat in the winter. Likewise, it stays cool in the summer. Log homes aren't as efficient as adobe, but 10" - 12" logs (thermal mass) do much better than a stick-built home. As long as the windows and doors are high quality, then log, stone, and adobe are some of the most efficient homes.

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