Coal Furnace Explodes!

The details are not available yet but here is a reminder that we all need to be careful with making sure our coal fired appliances are operating properly!

http://www.wnep.com/Global/story.asp?S=7440591

hmmmm... a oil, gas boiler exploded in NY a couple weeks ago.. remember to check your PSV's

Just what I need-more stuff to worry about!

Matthaus, you could probably get a good deal on the furnace.

gambler wrote:Matthaus, you could probably get a good deal on the furnace.

Uh, that would be a furnace kit.

how can a coal furnace explode? Maybe the 5 gallon can of gasoline next to it exploded? Or maybe they meant to say "boiler"

As usual the media has no clue! Based on the pictures it looks like the explosion happened inside the house, so it was probably a coal stove in the living area and the explosion was most likely from other sources as suggested. Probably tried to light the stove with road flares and picked up the dynamite instead.

If it was a boiler explosion it seems the floor would have been out on the lawn! Or maybe they reached that magic pyrometric ratio of coal dust to air and boom!

Whatever the case it is certainly no cause for worry, just use common sense and follow manufacturers recommendations when operating your particular coal appliance of choice.

I wondered why there wasn't a resulting fire. I would think if a coal "furnace" exploded there would be a fire as a result of the blast and resulting distribution of burning coal.
Sounds more like someone used some kind of petroleum-based product to light the fire (gasoline, lacquer thinner, bug and tar remover, or maybe nail polish remover (acetone)).
I use charcoal lighter fluid, but only when I am lighting a cold stove. A little newspaper and kindling, a large coffee can of charcoal, soak in a little lighter fluid, dump it in and then ignite.
If you use any solvents on a fire, no matter how low, flammable vapors will accumulate, a flash fire will be the result.

Maybe he didn't have a PRV. Somehow pressure built up and a bomb was created. Could you imagine if you were in that house. I guarantee they were changing their draws after that. It'll be interesting to see if they replace their coal applicance of convert to electricity.

traderfjp wrote:Maybe he didn't have a PRV.

On a boiler maybe, not a furnace.

yeah the media doesn't know the difference between a stove, furnace and boiler, so who knows what it was!

I think this is one for MythBusters

"CO vapors are highly flammable, and can also create a fire and explosion hazard. The explosion hazards are at certain concentrations."

Quoted from http://www.safety-council.org/info/OSH/carbon.htm

"Stability
Stable. May react violently with oxidants; readily forms an explosive mixture with air. Extremely flammable. Note the wide explosion limits."

Quoted from http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/msds/CA/carbon_monoxide.html

For the recor I have never heard od coal furnace exploding except for boilers and that is completely different situtation and would apply to any heating unit heating water. This is easily prevented. My guess is as suggested above they tried to light it with some kind oif very flammable liquid or had a very flammable liquid, trouble is we wll probably never no because this is one of those sensationalism stories, great for headlines but ceratainly isn't going to make the news when the reason is found out unless of course it was the manufacturers fault ....

There is one other possibility, I did find half of a spent blasting cap once that made it all the way to the truck. Although possible for full one to make it to a house the chances are nil especially if it was delivered during the warmer weather and loaded from a hopper, it's very easy to spot such things.

The only problem with the theory of a CO explosion is that humans are dead at way less than 1000 ppm (which I believe is .1%). With the ELL set at 12.5% on the low end, the people in the house would have been dead before the concentrations of gas would have resulted in an explosion. If I remember correctly the ppm of CO in a coal stove flue with the worst conditions possible wouldn't be more than 20,000 ppm (2%).

I'm no expert but I don't think one of the inherent failure modes of a coal stove is explosion from an explosive level of CO in the stove or chimney. Just some food for thought and further discussion.