hard vs soft coal

Studying for my engineers license, and was surprised to learn that soft coal actually had a higher btu value than hard? Who knew?

that can be very deceiving because of all the volatiles in soft coal its swiftly produces higher BTU's and then all those unburned gasses flow right out your chimney Im sure someone can explain it better and has some more "real"
values as they apply to heating your home... just dont assume soft coal will produce more usable heat for you vs. hard coal.

In the correclty designed appliance, the volitiles are burnt in the stove, and the BTU's are recovered.

A Hotblast designed antique stove is pretty good, for a hand feed, and the stokermatics and Combustioneers are very good too.

Greg L

Yes, some are higher, some are not. There are a lot of variables depending on the source of any coal.

McGiever wrote:Yes, some are higher, some are not. There are a lot of variables depending on the source of any coal.

our good friend McGiever happens to be sitting on some of the best stoves for both hard N soft so everything is just roses N cherries to him

Teasin' McG

I've read that some bit coals have up to 15000 btus per pound. Which I thought was pretty impressive. I'm currently dabbling with some bit coal. It's like trying to tame a wild animal lol. It seems to me that it has a two phase burn. The first few hours while the volatile gases are burning off, it's pretty unstable and can rage with the slightest change of combustion air. The rest of the burn it seems to behave like ant coal. This is my experience so far.

The soft coal I get from new lexington ohio has about 12,500 btus a pound. The thing you need to remember is that soft coal has hydrocarbons in it along with fixed carbon which turns to coke. A underfed stoker will burn just about all of the hydrocarbons up.

What I would like to know, is the volume of a ton of Bit pretty much the same as a ton of Anthracite?

It would depend on what form its in size wise. Nut rice or stove size. I would think the ant coal has a higher density.

Lightning wrote:It would depend on what form its in size wise. Nut rice or stove size. I would think the ant coal has a higher density.

The bit coals I've tried so far (PA and MD coals) seem to be about the same, volume-wise as ant.

I would think they would be so close in volume that if you are sizing a bin to build, it wouldn't matter. Coal size would be a more important factor since a ton of rice would take up less volume than a ton of stove size.

Paulie wrote:Studying for my engineers license, and was surprised to learn that soft coal actually had a higher btu value than hard? Who knew?

The dead men knew. At the turn of the century, the US navy would specify only Pocahantas coal because it was the best and almost smokeless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocahontas_Coalfield

Lightning wrote:I would think they would be so close in volume that if you are sizing a bin to build, it wouldn't matter. Coal size would be a more important factor since a ton of rice would take up less volume than a ton of stove size.

Why would a ton of stove take up more space than a ton of rice? Shouldn't it be the other way around? I was wondering if a ton of Bit takes up somewhere in the neighborhood of 40cubic feet?

The rice coal is packed more tightly together. There is less space between the pieces. Where as with stove size, especially since the pieces are shaped irregularly, there is much more space between the pieces. The difference in volume isn't "huge" but there is some.

I don't think that is the case. A perfect ton of coal would be a square block. As soon as it is broken in half it takes up more room. That keeps going. As the pieces get smaller, they weigh less, have more surface area, and take up more volume. I know a ton of nut in a pickup bed takes up considerably less space than a ton of rice.