Oil Man and now the Neighbor

So last Sunday morning at 8 am I'm coming back home from getting a Valentine for the wife and she's pretty much hanging out the 2nd floor, yelling to the oil man that we don't need any oil right now . Seems he was in the area for an "automatic" delivery and I kinda had to break the news that I only used 50 gallons from last fill up mostly for hot water telling him I'm using "alternate heating". He asked what kind and I said coal. WELL, this guy's eyes lit up. telling me that it was nice to see someone that is independent of foreign oil and helping to keep American jobs. Anyways, I "JUST" happen to have a couple dozen full color LL flyers lying around and before he left he was holding one. Then last night my 70 year old neighbor who is a woody dude for 40 years calls me, and wants to know what model I have. Another LL flyer gone.

I'm finding a big thing about this coal stuff is that they all think it's smelly and dirty, with the oil guy I stuck my hand in a bag of Blasak and pulled it out, clean hand. This convinced him.

Matt, I'll need more flyers next year.

b

Know what you mean. I get a lot of interest when I mention how I'm beating the high price of heat by using coal. No real takers yet. I think it will take the next price shock to convince them. Maybe you should go into sales?

Just convincing folks to look at a coal unit is a tough sell.....however if you can show them, you have the 'hook' set.
Hand-fired, small stokers or automatic stokers sell themselves when people feel the comfort level, don't get a blast of smoke out the door when you open it, and can see a constant fire with little need to touch it for hours or even days. The cost savings are easily documented, and that is a very good place to start. Show them a chart with comparable costs per BTU for many other popular fuels, not much to say, the facts speak for themselves.
A 20 year old oil or gas boiler will not be rebuild-able, and the cost to replace an old gas or oil burner is coal's biggest advantage.
I burn in 1953 model daily (up to 1998 boilers); have a 1926 Glenwood Model 16 and a Warm Morning 460 in my garage to play with.....and I do see old boiler carcasses at the salvage dealer when I take in the scrap copper. Not everything in our world need to be a throw-away.
Quality stills wins every race.....it's payback never ends. Keep on reeducating those who want to keep our dollars here in this country.

Uglysquirrel wrote:snip... Matt, I'll need more flyers next year.b

b, we will keep you supplied no worries. Sounds like you are doing a great job in spreading the word, we'll give you some coal supplier brochures as well, they explain the Anthracite advantage very well. We are very happy any time anyone is convinced to burn coal, regardless of which stove they buy (well OK I would always rather see an LL product purchased, but would rather one of our other team mates get the sale than none at all! ).

Keep up the good work and as Whistlenut said keep reminding folks to keep our dollars here by burning American fuel and buying American made products!