How Many Folks Burning Coal in Maine ?

2nd year burning rice coal in North Yarmouth, using a LL Econo and love the heat. Last year we burned about 3 ton.

Chubby in workshop. Currently installing second Chubby in house. Learned to burn coal in workshop last winter. Quite a learning curve. Thanks to all on the forum.

Welcome to the forum! You'll be nice and warm again this winter!

We are starting our third season here in Westbrook. There is a new coal yard just a few miles from us in Windham.

We are using a LL Pocono which is ducted into the Oil Fired Hot Air. We have not had to burn more than two or three gallons of oil in the past three years.

jockel wrote:We are starting our third season here in Westbrook. There is a new coal yard just a few miles from us in Windham.

We are using a LL Pocono which is ducted into the Oil Fired Hot Air. We have not had to burn more than two or three gallons of oil in the past three years.

What are you paying for coal in Windham?

jockel wrote:There is a new coal yard just a few miles from us in Windham.

Is it Southern Maine Renewable Fuels? They delivered three pallets of Blaschak to me (60 miles away) at $300 per ton. Delivery fee was $85 additional for the whole load, which I thought was reasonable considering the distance. They were very pleasant to deal with, came with a motorized fork lift and pallet jack and plunked the pallets right where I wanted them in the garage.

Yep - those are the guys. Very nice rig they have for deliveries. We got two pallets of rice Blackshak. We put in the order over the summer and it was delivered around Labor Day. Our delivery cost was very low because we are only a few miles from the Windham store. I can't seem to find the actual invoice right now. My wife probably has already filed it away. It was a good price especially since the delivery charge was so cheap. So cheap it was not even worth considering the wear and tear of making ten trips to the store to pick up the coal ourselves by the bag.

www.woodpellets4me.com is the site. They have limited hours on Saturdays for pickup in Windham.

Man, it's looking like fuel oil isn't going to be cheap this year. Coal is looking better!

Freddy wrote:Man, it's looking like fuel oil isn't going to be cheap this year. Coal is looking better!

Just filled the tank at $2.549, since oil makes my domestic hot water and is my backup. But barring anything unusual, I should be good until next Fall. Next year I will do the fill in the Summer instead of waiting this long, when the prices start to creep up.

A couple big Portland companies have started delivering here. They are considerably cheaper than the local dealers, even though they all get their oil out of the same spigot at the Portland terminal, and all have to transport it the same distance to my fill pipe. My "local" dealer (now bought out by a big company), that I had been doing business with for almost 40 years, called to find out why I had stopped buying from them. What do they expect, when the difference is 15 to 30 cents a gallon? Even on a pre-pay contract they would not give me their best price unless I called to negotiate every year.

rberq wrote:Just filled the tank at $2.549.

Don't feel bad. It's $.30 higher here.

I used to think my Father in Law was crazy for burning coal but he converted the wife and I last year when we were hunting for a heating source that didn't require power. This is our second year burning and we loved it last year. He burns it in the county and I'm in Bath.

I am in New Gloucester and use a hand fired Godin all winter long to reduce the oil price blues.

Been burning coal for 3 seasons in Weld. I use 6 ton per year been pretty consistant running a keystoker boiler and go from Oct 1 til it runs out early April.
I get heat and domestic hot water from my system. it is coupled to an oil boiler so that if it really gets cold of the demand exceeds the make up the oil will kick in but I typically use less than 100 g oil in the season. The KAA2 stoker is a small unit 83,000btu but it seems to be rather efficient at most temps above 20 degrees the oil is set to kick in at 150 jacket temp and usually is only a boost. The house is about 1900 sq.ft. and comfortably kept at 68 and 70 with multiple zones. I usually get my coal from downeast coal and stoves but have bought smaller qty from paris farmers union. I don't have haul capabilities so delivery is a must and not everyone can provide that. I knew of about 6 other persons burning coal in Dixfield, Peru, Rumford, and some of them bought based on my experience. I would like to see coal heating listing added to the States website for heating possibilitys seems they are only interested in elect and oil, not even much avail for gas.

Hello,we're heating with a Hitzer 50-93 hand fired radiant stove w/hopper. I fired it up early October and have used 2.5 tons to heat a 2 story 1700 sq/ft farmhouse. We have burned 30 gallons of oil just to keep the basement warm. We buy coal at Johnson's Hardware in Calais for $325/ton delivered (bags). This set-up is working great for us!!

Winslow - After doing firewood and / or oil for the 20+ years I've had my Tarm 502, and dabbling with some coal off & on during that time, I bought the Tarm baffle kit a week and a half ago, and have been burning a steady Blaschak nut fire for 8+ days. (Does that make me an expert?)

Must be others around here that also burn it, as the local Agway store has a good supply of bagged, and more on the way. $7 per 40 lb bag ($350/ton), so I'll try to arrange a better deal for next season.[img]