Institute of Anthracite or Bituminous University ?

How do we break coal use in Ohio back open? Do we open the above mentioned schools of higher coal learning?..

A Common Sense need for an abundant,reasonably priced fuel for heat,coupled with supply and pricing security,should be filled by Coal. What is stopping that need from becoming a simple reality? Is it the memories and stories of someone from the Family being a "slave" to the old hand-fired furnace downstairs? The coal-black soot,dust and smoke? The clinkers? (Ref. to the movie "A Christmas Story" for that one)...Did Bituminous get or cause a bad rap for coal? We're sitting on a pile of it starting in Southern Ohio. We're also fortunate as heck that to our east is the promised land of Anthracite. How do you want to get the Coal Movement going??

As Always,Take Care,Gang!......Hambden Bob...

that indeed is a common mis conception of coal being too dirty. a friend of mine burns those dang pellets and i keep telling him he is wasting his money but says coal is too messy. a lot of people say that, but anthracite is a total different animal from bitty

Here's one small example of what we know is a common misconception:
I recently upgraded our satellite service to Hi-Def. The technician had a need to go through our basement to work on a connection. He spotted my Koker and asked if I had a supplemental wood burner. I said "no, it's the coal furnace I use to heat the house". He immediately came back with"you burn coal? how could the basement be so clean?

So "coal" automatically means "dirty".

The other hurdle is simply that many people haven't wanted to get into doing anything that requires effort. They want to just turn something on (gas/electric/oil/propane furnace) and sit and watch TV. I may be getting too old but I believe the society we live in today is fast becoming completely helpless and is happy to be going that way. Coal burners are one of the exceptions. (climbs down off soapbox)

I do have some friends and relatives that are wood burners and they go that way because the wood is "free". I think they just haven't thought things through. They may yet see the light and enroll in your university.

Lastly is the Amish who quietly burn a lot of Anthracite in hand fed stoves. There are a lot of them around here and I would imagine if they saw this forum they'd wonder what all the fuss is about.

So we do burn our fair share of hard coal in NE Ohio, but we've been doing it quietly. And you're right; we're lucky to be as close as we are to the "epicenter of warmth".

Epicenter of warmth. I like that!

cheap gas and oil killed coal (of any variety) use in homes back when it was king for residential heating. Why pay the same price for heating fuel and do more work? One of the main problems with coal is dust, from either anthracite or bituminous; most of the tales of "soot" being throughout peoples homes was not "soot" but rather coal dust, bituminous smoke in a proper system is produced external to the home and not much of an issue, especially back then. The thing that specifically reduced residential use of ohio coal in ohio was that when these other fuels were coming online, hand-fired stoves/boilers were being used - you had three choices: keep doing what you were doing, switch to oil or gas, or switch to bit coal in a stoker for more automatic operation. If you wanted any kind of automatic heat it required you to spend big $$. You could spend lots of cash and buy a stoker to retrofit your current furnace/boiler (and you'd STILL have to do some work - fill the hopper/ take out ash) or retrofit your furnace/install new packaged unit at comperable cost to a stoker, have slighly increased fuel costs (at that time gas/oil was only slightly more $$) and have FULLY automatic heat; guess which choice most people made! At the time when people switched the technology was relatively poor (outside of stokers) and furnaces/boilers were messy dusty dirty operations- this is where coal got it's bad reputation for home heating - stories they've heard from parents and grandparents. Heating with bituminous coal is still very popular in the coal mining areas of ohio where people know about it, there are many stokers and hand-fired stoves in operation. The problem with expanding this use of local, ohio coal is that there are currently no hand-fired stoves designed for its use that provide an efficient burn, and only one company still in business that produces stokers (and they only produce "add-on" units, not complete engineered sets such as stoker/furnace or stoker/boiler combo). Designing good bituminous burning equiptment with modern technology is very possible- there is just noone doing it in the USA. Bituminous stoker units are the ideal low cost heating solution - no smoke, cheap/local fuel, and relative easy/automated operation.

And that,Berlin,was why I referred a guy to you by pm. He was looking for some bit,and I told him to try you. You have a wealth of info and knowledge on bit burning. It's a shame,but there is no one in Ohio Government that I personally know of that is leading any type of charge toward stokerizing bit on a residential /small commercial level. Probably figuring there's no money in it. Also just not a popular concept,working to heat your home. Maybe this place gives hope toward using an American Product turned out by Americans.