Bagged vs. Bulk

Hi All,

I'm about to jump into coal for the first time and just spoke with a dealer that sells both bags and bulk. He strongly suggested bagged over bulk. What are your thoughts? I'm looking at a Harman SF-150. It will be in a living space, so mess is a concern.

$279 per ton bagged
$249 per ton picked up (I have no way of delivering that much unless I rent a truck or something)

It would seem to me in your situation that going with bagged would be the way to go since "mess is a concern" and you have "no way of delivering that much unless I rent a truck or something"

I personally get my coal in bulk and load it into my pontiac coalfire, 19 five gallon buckets at a time or about 700 lbs a trip. But i get my coal for 150 a ton. Maybe if you can find a dealer that has a better price then 249 a ton on bulk and you could get someone else to deliver it and have a place to store it in bulk then maybe that would be the way to go. But for now with the prices and situation you quoted i personally in your shoes would go with bagged.

Bulk is usually cheaper than bagged because you are not paying for the bagging operation. However, if you want to use bulk you will need a place to store it and a supplier that delivers in bulk. Whether or not you use bagged or bulk you still need to have it delivered. While you can tranport bags in the trunk of your car that will get old after a while, especially if you have to travel some distance to get them.

If I had a coal bin I would take it in bulk because I can save $30-$40 per ton. At 5 tons of consumption it begins to add up.

Where are you located? You may be near other members who have already found the best coal source for the area.

I have a truck, but I'm looking at 5 ton as well (I'm guessing) since I burn 6 cord of wood per year.

I was thinking about building a bin outside and filling buckets or something that would make it easy to shovel out of (tupperware bin or something like that).

I'm just outside Albany NY.

If i had a truck i would most definitely go get my own coal. at five ton your only looking at 5 trips for the year.

i have made 3 trips in one day with my car before and only got 2100 lbs of coal. Build a bin and drive that truck to a breaker

They say that coal is the heat source that warms you twice, once when you go get it from the breaker and then shovel it into your 5 gallon containers so you can easily bring inside to the stove and once when you actually burn it. Using bagged takes away all that. I make 4 trips a year to get the bagged coal I need, 2.5 tons. Buying it throughout the year also helps with my budget. I don't have to come up with all the coal money at one time. I store the pallets outside on my patio under a tarp. My son brings in one bag a day on the coldest days and puts it in a "muck" bucket near the stove. As someone said, bagged coal is more expensive but it's a lot less work; with my back issues that a huge consideration. I think it all comes down to how much work do you want to do to heat your house. If I had accessibility to bulk coal and had a bin that all I had to do was open the "chute" and gravity filled up my 5 gallon drums, I'd probably do that. But I don't. Have you looked in the archives at the various things people are doing for coal bins. Some of them are pretty amazing. Lisa

I did look at the pics on others bins - amazing what some people built!!! I was thinking about going with a bin and still might if I can get the coal to it - bringing it inside is not going to be more difficult than the firewood that I have been dealing with for years.

With the truck that I have I can only get roughly 1/2 ton and its 40 miles to this particular dealer. I'm researching and trying to find others as well to compare. He has a dump truck and would charge me for delivery and shoveling it into the bin.

I could do the bags and just dump them into buckets or whatever to store some inside - each weekend do enough for the week, but then again I'm adding more work, which I was hoping to reduce instead. The bin with a chute that I can just let gravity fill it seemed the most logical to me - put the bucket under it and fill it up. Still not as easy as turning the dial on the wall, but a lot less expensive and I get to play with fire

So here's a 1-year supply for Han and a 2-year supply for Lisa that you can put where you want, and IMO, is way more photogenic than a pile of bags on pallets on the patio.

Mike

Pacowy wrote:So here's a 1-year supply for Han and a 2-year supply for Lisa that you can put where you want, and IMO, is way more photogenic than a pile of bags on pallets on the patio.

Mike

Hey! That's what I have for a coal bin. Made a shoot to fit 5 gallon pail.

For people who are too lazy to make chutes, you can sometimes get away with using a loose piece of sheet metal as a funnel, or using something like a bushel basket instead of a 5-gallon pail.

Mike

OK so I'm a slacker I was going to build a wooden bin with a roof on hinges and a 'knife' shut-off system and I thought that it would work well, but now you put me to shame with that darn picture

Can I get 1 or 2 depending on how much they hold?

You can get more than 1, or, as Chief Brodie suggested in "Jaws", you can just get a bigger one. This one holds 8 tons.

Mike

P.S. The bigger ones can be a little harder to move.

How much does your hold and where can I get one?

Pacowy wrote:So here's a 1-year supply for Han and a 2-year supply for Lisa that you can put where you want, and IMO, is way more photogenic than a pile of bags on pallets on the patio.

Mike

I'm so tight here in suburbia that I can't even get that nifty little trailer between the houses. Putting it out front wouldn't work either due to the home owners rules - no parking of trailers or RVs in the street or driveways. Since we only buy 25 to 30 bags at a time my son and I use the Arm Strong method and a garden wagon to get it around back. No unfortunately, I'm stuck with using bags until I retire and move out into the country. Lisa

My dad has his pallets of bagged coal set at the back of his garage, and he brings one bag inside when he comes home from work each day. He only handles it once, and has no problem paying for the convenience of bagged coal.