New guy

Have you checked to see what the cost of coal is in your area? Even if you had to pay $300 per ton for bagged coal, it would cost you about half as much as propane.

I think rice coal is going for $200-225 a ton around here . The lady at Suburban propane said that most people in the area use around 800 gal a year that heat solely with propane . At 3.25 a gal.that's $2600 a year ,

I thought propane was down to as low as $1.95/gal.

Propane is as cheap as the dealer will sell it.

wjamesm wrote: Right now my electric rates with First Energy are .03 cents a KW hr. for the winter and go back to .07 cents a KW hour in the summer strange i know .

3 cents per KWH delivered???? I didn't think rates like that existed these days.
I don't think coal can compete with that, price-wise.

Where I live anthracite competes favorably with $0.07 per KWH (but not favorably by much), and if I could get $0.03 per KWH my coal boiler would go silent.

rberq wrote:

wjamesm wrote: Right now my electric rates with First Energy are .03 cents a KW hr. for the winter and go back to .07 cents a KW hour in the summer strange i know .

3 cents per KWH delivered???? I didn't think rates like that existed these days.
I don't think coal can compete with that, price-wise.

I'm betting that is price per KW from the power company and the supply charge isn't factored in.. Thats usually an additional $.05 per KW but some or most suppliers have a variable rate. Iv'e seen my supplier cost go from $.035 up to $.065 per KW Electric is the most expensive way to heat anything, usually

The only way to get a somewhat "TRUE" cost per KW is to divide your total bill by the total Kilowatts used for the month..

Just checked my last bill and the charges from West Penn Power- Current Consumption Charges $14.85 and the charges from FirstEnergy Solutions Basic Charge 441 KWH used X 0.032494 cents per KWH $14.33 . I am on there average payment plan so my bill has been $50 for awhile . Don't know if the plan that i am on now will carry over to my new place or not . On the left side of my bill under the Message column it says Domestic Service 0006907957-5.36 cents per KWH , Don't know what that means and why it's on the left side of the bill .

I'm a power hog lol.. My last bill was $211 I used 1581 Kilowatts..
Thats 13.3 cents per kilowatt.

Thank God I've installed water coils in my furnace for domestic hot water and
to heat my hot tub lol. They will be coming to investigate once I fire up I'm sure of it

Since you are on an average type bill, I don't know how often they check your meter or what your actual charges are.

Just paid $1.74/gal for propane, our price since we own our tank. Price for leased tanks was $2.59 / gal. First we filled our 1000 g tank in two years, we also use it for cooktop, HW & dryer. I also use the propane furnace this time of year until it is cold enough to run the stoker regularly. Coal is definitely cheaper for me even at that price / gal.

I would not get a DVC from Harman due to the customer service / dealer aspect. I don't own one of those, nor have I worked on one, but from a few threads on here there are some circuit boards and sensors related to the direct vent operation that seem to be fussy sometimes and pricey to replace. Search out those threads and read through them to make sure you know what you could be in for.

Wow, $1.74/gal. for propane is amazing!

lsayre wrote:Wow, $1.74/gal. for propane is amazing!

Yeah I'd say so!! It was $2.99 two years ago when the propane company pulled their tank out of my yard

Well, there are two choices in coal. Stokers are nice, burn the smaller sized coal. (I do not have this type of stove, so I am not the expert). The other type are the hand feeds, depending on what kind you buy, you can burn both wood and coal. I typically burn wood in the start and then the end of the heating season, a good coal fire sometimes is too much for a warmer night, where as a wood fire can be just burned over night and then easily burned out. Hand fires burn pea, nut and stove coal.

Regardless of which kind you go with, your stove shold have enough btu's to heat your house. You stated that you have 1500 sq ft. and have average insultaton and double pane windows, I would say, 30-45 btu's per sq feet, so 45,000 - 67,500 btu's. I would opt to always go bigger than needed.

Also, stokers typically have a better blower systems, where as hand fires have more of a radiant heat, but most do have blowers.

Hopefully this helps and you are not still totally confused.

Dan

Defiantly want a stoker stove of some kind . the home has a heat pump that i'll probably run till it's cold enough to burn coal all the time . I was looking at a stoves around 85K btu's .11 more days till i sign the paperwork on the house and then the fun of moving in and a couple of days after that i'll get some pic's of the house and a layout of it on here so i can get some more informed idea's from the experts on here .