coal

robert smyth

what are the up's or downs with coal heating?Can it be used in queens ny if so how practical , costly ,safe etc to use ?

Jamie Hall

You can use it, sure...

but there is a good reason why it faded out for residential and even fairly large commercial use: it's very hard to control properly.  From the overall environmental standpoint, too, unless you have some kind of filter or precipitator on the stack, coal is a disaster, even when burning under optimum conditions.  Under less than optimum conditions... argh.  You may find that there are local ordinances or regulations restricting it; I don't know the situation in Queens, NY, but I can tell you that in Edinburgh, Scotland, for example, it is flat out forbidden.

Unknown

Let Me tell You About Coal Heating!

When I was a kid we had a coal hot air furnace with an automatic feed hopper. You had  to have a coal storage bin nearby and you had to shovel coal morning and evening  to fill the hopper and at the same time, morning and evening, cleanout the clinkers (ash) and put them in what were called metal  "ash cans" so they could cool before dumping them in the garbage cans. Every two weeks when new coal was delivered you had to set up a chute so that it could be transferred through a basement window and into the coal bin. After delivery you had to cleanup the basement as there was coal dust all over.   Needless to say when we switched over to an oil, I got on my knees and bowed to the oil tank three times a day! 

Today I think you'd also run into delivery, air quality,and ash disposal problems.



P.S- I forgot to mention that about once a month the auger in the automatic feeder would get jammed on a piece of hard quartz rock that had somehow got mixed in with the coal.(Those quartz rocks are sneaky! They camouflage themselves by rolling in coal dust so you can't see them!)  When the feeder jammed, it broke a shear pin and you had to first unload the coal from the hopper with a bucket and then back the auger out by hand to remove the quartz rock. Needless to say coal dust got everywhere!!!

nicholas bonham-carter

the problem with coal

you would think that the clinkers would have been much lighter than the coal, but not so. a wheelbarrow full of clinkers being wheeled up a plank on a basement stairway was a difficult, and dangerous job. our driveway is probably 24 in. thick with clinkers under the crushed rock.

by the way rod, i think  that was a diamond, not quartz in the stoker!!--nbc