Mine Run Coal

I saw an ad for "mine run coal"... Is mine run a mix of miscellaneous sizes?? What would any advantages be for it?

Mine run coal is coal as it was produced at the mine,meaning it is raw,uncleaned and not prepared or sized.It would still have impurities like rock or dirt and will be virtually impossible to burn as is.Mine run is what the prep plant buys,prepares,and then sells to the end user.

I bought some mine run bituminous. I won't be doing that again! Picking out all of the slate, then crushing and screening the coal by hand is very time consuming. If you have lots of spare time, and a place to dump the waste material, go for it, but I wouldn't consider mine run unless it's less than half the price of good, clean sized coal.

The retailer I get coal from was advertising it... I can't imagine anyone would wanna deal with that lol...

The mine run coal I'm familiar with in Maryland is the unsorted very soft coal from surface mines. Most people in Garrett & Allegany Counties that use it have large furnaces that can burn it ok. It is pretty cheap in these areas because the strip mines are usually only a few miles away. It is soft enough that you can usually crush it with your hand. Lots of ash & smoke. You can tell when somone is feeding the furnace as yellow smoke billows from the chimneys. The pieces delivered or pick up in at the mine range from dust to chunks probably about 20 lbs+ in size. Pretty nasty stuff actually but a lot cheaper than oil.

Kevin

I get ROM bit coal from oxford they let you hand pick it it burns great there is a lot of fines in the pile there and some shale in it but, I don't get those peices.