Smitty's burnin' bitty!

Well thanks to Dungeon Master, I got my hands on some fine PA bituminous! Just tossed a few chunks on top of the anthracite this morning -- I wanted to be able to see the smoke ... and that it did! This is my kind of coal! If only there were some treehuggers around ...

all you need now is some weels and a whistle Happy st paddy's day

does the bit cause a lot of soot to build up inside the stove? i think i remember reading a thread a few months back that someone used bit and it made a huge sticky mess inside of their stove

brock, there's nothing sticky about it, bit coal only makes powdery soot, if anyone found "a sticky mess" inside of their stove, well, some people just get too excited when they try bit coal i guess. bit coal produces only powdery soot that will easily burn off the inside of the firebox, if you're burning very low, you may have to burn hotter from time to time to keep any buildup off the stove walls (soot buildup on stove walls will reduce heat output). the only place where there will be any measureable soot buildup is in the chimney, if you have an 8 " flue and burn hot once in a while, this won't buildup to where it requires more than annual cleaning of the horzontal sections of pipe.

Looks like it's some of the load of cannel coal dungonmaster picked up in CT last year. It's been making it's way around the north east.

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:Looks like it's some of the load of cannel coal dungonmaster picked up in CT last year. It's been making it's way around the north east.

No It's the stuff I get off the side of the Pa. turnpike. I'm glad that you like it Smitty, It's too bad i was unable to get more this time. The cannel coal I got last year,I got from Cokehead. He got it from someone in Conn.

OH BOY!!!! Now Smitty is gonna be sending up the smoke signals! Whats the code?
White smoke, we have a new Pope?
Red smoke, no decision yet?

Duengeon master is making the rounds. I got some of that Canal Coal too!

Good to see you guys trying soft coal You will get some smoke/soot but less ashes, easy to light....easy to relight if fire goes out. Soft coal in hand fired stove will smoke some but stokers using soft coal smoke very little.
Soft coal is cheap in areas where it's readily available compared to other fuels.

Duengeon master wrote:

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:Looks like it's some of the load of cannel coal dungonmaster picked up in CT last year. It's been making it's way around the north east.

No It's the stuff I get off the side of the Pa. turnpike. I'm glad that you like it Smitty, It's too bad i was unable to get more this time. The cannel coal I got last year,I got from Cokehead. He got it from someone in Conn.

The cannel coal was stored in a basement for about 20+ years in Old Lyme, CT. There was no extra charge for the petrified rodents. It was purchased when oil was in short supply but they NEVER burned it. They were able to get oil and wood to get them through. The coal was back-up. He had some anthracite as well which I put to good use.

I think I need some of that for my Harman, since I switched from wood to coal for most of my heating the air has been too clear around here...
Seriously, I'd give it a try if I had some.

Chimney looks a lot like a wood fire. How does it smell, outdoors? If you have a rainy warm night (maybe you haven't had one yet) does it accumulate all over the neighborhood like with wood smoke?

Wood'nCoal wrote:I think I need some of that for my Harman, since I switched from wood to coal for most of my heating the air has been too clear around here...
Seriously, I'd give it a try if I had some.

The closest place to you that has bit is Kresge's coal in Saylorsburg, Pa west of Stroudsburg off rt. 33. Also Fairclough in patterson has some Or Fairclough in Newton MAY have it. I do know that Kresge's has bit from the Bradford, Pa. area. It burns o.k. but if you have a hand fired, the pieces of bit is for blacksmith coal. Blacksmith bit coal sizes are about halfway between anthracite pea and nut coal. My experience with bit in a hand fired stove is the bigger the better. but if u wanna see smoke, any bit will do.

Thanks man! This stuff is great ... lots of smoke & smell ... & some of it is still burning 12 hours+ later. I threw all the biggest chunks right on top of the anthracite that was already burning from the night before. Didn't take long for that stuff to light off & start belching thick grey smoke. What I noticed is that smell is familiar ...... I had a few pieces that smelled just like that mixed in with the Kimmels I had last year. Hmmm...

For about 3 hours, smoke poured off the roof & into the street ... like fog! The wife said she had the smell in the Jimmy the whole way to work. I told her I could fix that with some gasoline & just one well placed flare, but she needed to get to work & back ...

I did take one big chunk out of the bag for a souvenir though ... stuff is pretty rare in these parts.

I noticed my coils looked wet, oily black after burning for a while ..... but only one corner of the glass was black. I'm sure one hot fire will burn that right off anyway .. not worried about it - just commenting. Good way to find all the leaks in my chimney & connector piping! Turns out, all the leaks are in the basement! I figured that rickety chimney in the attic would leak like a sieve ... I was wrong.

Good stuff though. I think if I burned it on a regular basis I'd be busy cleaning the chimney quite a bit though ..... but for the money savings, I wouldn't mind cleaning. $60 a ton ... or $300+ a ton .. hmmmmm!

Smitty is smitten by bitty!

The smokier, the better!