Truck for picking up coal from NEPA

buffalo bob wrote:hell from what i read on here some one from conn. got a truck load for 183.00 ton from lehigh call lehigh see what they can do for u ask for terry...oh yeah u got to buy 20 ton min.

I assume that was loose coal not bagged at $183.00 a ton.

NWBuilder wrote:

buffalo bob wrote:hell from what i read on here some one from conn. got a truck load for 183.00 ton from lehigh call lehigh see what they can do for u ask for terry...oh yeah u got to buy 20 ton min.

I assume that was loose coal not bagged at $183.00 a ton.

$183/ton delivered is a bargain to me

loxety wrote:

NWBuilder wrote:

buffalo bob wrote:hell from what i read on here some one from conn. got a truck load for 183.00 ton from lehigh call lehigh see what they can do for u ask for terry...oh yeah u got to buy 20 ton min.

I assume that was loose coal not bagged at $183.00 a ton.

$183/ton delivered is a bargain to me

It is I paid $80 a ton more but it was for bagged coal

Did you get a tractor trailer load of 24 tons bagged?

I live in the downtown area in a small (25k population) town. I have a coal chute that goes to the 30ft x 15ft basement.. doubt that would work well with a TT with 20 tons unless they shoot it down a chute. Hrrm or get bagged and move 1000 bags .

On the forums here folks say that for 20 tons you need a 12ftx12ftx6ft bin, thats half the basement.. I am fine with that. Just trying to think of how it will end up in the basement from a TT, I dont have a place they can just dump it, I dont have a driveway or large area of land.

For those that are wondering, a TT full of coal dumped onto flat ground (use a tarp!) makes a pile approximately 18 to 20 feet wide and 30 feet long. When they dump it, as the dump it, they either have to pull forward a little, or the box itself moves as they dump so you get semi-rectangular shaped pile.

I'll throw my experiance in here.
I thought I could save some money and get better coal by taking a road trip. Local prices are $325/ ton delivered, I picked up 6 tons at $170/ ton. Sounds like a huge savings! Well add my fuel, a night in the hotel, new tires on the trailer every three years, registration and taxes on the trailer, it brings it up to $295 per ton. Damn! I'm not saving a lot of money, and now I have to shovel all this coal and spend all sorts of time on it that I never had to with delivered bags. All this work for $15 per month savings. This of course does not figure in wear and tear on my truck, and God forbid something breaks. Not to mention my ride home was scary! Legal, but scary.
Now on top of this, I'm sick and can't shovel coal now. My wife could handle the bags, but not the shoveling. I'm pulling favors from friends to shovel coal for me until I'm well. I'll be ordering bags in the summer!
On another note, I'll have a real nice coal bin/ hauling trailer for sale in a month or so when it's empty!

plumber wrote:My wife could handle the bags, but not the shoveling.

She can lug around 40-50 pound bags but she can't fill a small bucket with 20 pounds at a time? I'm missing the logic here.

I have a piss poor method. My trailer is on the far side of the yard about 400 feet from the house. You have to get in the trailer (after getting the snow and ice off the tarp) break up the frozen coal, 5 gallon buckets to fill the 40 gallon barrels then drag it into the basement to thaw and dry. I never got to building a cover for the trailer. A bucket at a time would be a real PITA, and because its wet and frozen, it needs to be inside a while before it gets in the boiler. I usually get about 1,200 lbs inside at a time so that goes about 2 weeks.

I'll throw my experiance in here.
I thought I could save some money and get better coal by taking a road trip. Local prices are $325/ ton delivered, I picked up 6 tons at $170/ ton. Sounds like a huge savings! Well add my fuel, a night in the hotel, new tires on the trailer every three years, registration and taxes on the trailer, it brings it up to $295 per ton. Damn! I'm not saving a lot of money, and now I have to shovel all this coal and spend all sorts of time on it that I never had to with delivered bags. All this work for $15 per month savings. This of course does not figure in wear and tear on my truck, and God forbid something breaks. Not to mention my ride home was scary! Legal, but scary.
Now on top of this, I'm sick and can't shovel coal now. My wife could handle the bags, but not the shoveling. I'm pulling favors from friends to shovel coal for me until I'm well. I'll be ordering bags in the summer!
On another note, I'll have a real nice coal bin/ hauling trailer for sale in a month or so when it's empty!

I also did the math. I was only looking at ordering a TT load and having it delivered, to Eastern Maine. I found that after buying the load and paying shipping, and getting it off the truck here, I was not better off by enough to make it worth it. This was buying bagged as opposed to buying bagged here. Buying bulk would have saved more, but I would have had to get it off the ground and into some sort of storage. It is do able, Freddy does it, but you have to build a bin with access, keep it dry, and have a bucket loader(I had 2), The cost of this did not justify the extra few dollars a month for just buying it from the local dealer. Unless his prices got crazy.
I didn't even consider the road trip, 700 miles to NEPA.

Kevin

If I was to go back to my youth, I would have built my house with coal in mind and had a bin built into the house with an auger feed. I would have saved enough over the years to more then justify it.

As far as the truck goes, justify it with the wife as being able to get coal from the source if need be. As mostly men on this forum we know you just want a truck.

I have a single rear wheel, reg. cab, 8' bed, F350 with a GVWR of 9000lbs. 5500lbs empty. This leaves me almost two tons of payload and the truck drives like a caddy loaded. Two ton also fills the bed to what I consider the max. I'm not sure you could get anymore Nut sized coal in the back of the ol' ford.

F250's of the same vintage (1997) have a GVWR of 8800lbs so there is very little difference in capacity. Most have a 351 and can get a whopping 10mpg. I have the PSD and get in the mid teens (even loaded) if I stay off the highway. Most of this is due to the very steep axle ratio and diesels wanting to run at low RPMs.

3000lbs of coal per trip would make for an easy day IMHO

If you do decide to get a truck, get a truck. Hauling weight with a half ton is not sane, especially on a long trip.
I have an F-350 diesel, and can get about two tons in the bed, but it is sagging. This is a newer one with the 12,000 rating. When I went to NEPA in the fall, I took back six tons. I left the scale at 23,750. I'm rated for 24,000. I was legal, but had some sag on the truck and some swaying issues at speed. What impressed me was the 13 MPG on the way home! I get 14-15 empty! The 6.0 does like to work.
Just add up EVERYTHING to decide if the trip is worth it, and take into account the cost of the convienance of bags. You may find that getting it local may be worth it after its all added up. Mind you my round trip is double yours. I about break even ( save $15 per month) going to NEPA getting six tons. If I went for less, it would cost me more.

Wanna Bee wrote:As far as the truck goes, justify it with the wife as being able to get coal from the source if need be. As mostly men on this forum we know you just want a truck.

I have a single rear wheel, reg. cab, 8' bed, F350 with a GVWR of 9000lbs. 5500lbs empty. This leaves me almost two tons of payload and the truck drives like a caddy loaded. Two ton also fills the bed to what I consider the max. I'm not sure you could get anymore Nut sized coal in the back of the ol' ford.

F250's of the same vintage (1997) have a GVWR of 8800lbs so there is very little difference in capacity. Most have a 351 and can get a whopping 10mpg. I have the PSD and get in the mid teens (even loaded) if I stay off the highway. Most of this is due to the very steep axle ratio and diesels wanting to run at low RPMs.

3000lbs of coal per trip would make for an easy day IMHO

With your rig and a 14,000 dump trailer tagging along behind, you'd nearly triple your capacity and hardly notice the difference save for a bit more fuel. My friend has borrowed my 10K dump trailer and pulled it, both loaded with soil, with his F350 PSD duelly and you could hardly tell. I've traveled with him pulling a load on a car trailer from NW NJ to SoCentral MO. You actually had to look to see if the trailer was there. We had an outside rear tire go midway on the return trip (empty) and didn't even know it until we noticed flapping rubber in the sideview mirror. Torque is for pulling. It's what PSDs're for His truck mostly sits waiting for work and he drives a diesel Passat for his day runner @ ~40mpg. Nice to have that option, but I don't have that. My puppy truck fits the midway bill with the dump trailer sitting in waiting. Also,those of us lucky enough to live close enough to the anthracite coal fields make the extra costs less of an impact. There's a lot of valid reasoning in this thread.

Did the math on this a long time ago. Not worth the b/s & expense. At least at the distance I am from the breakers.

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:

Wanna Bee wrote:As far as the truck goes, justify it with the wife as being able to get coal from the source if need be. As mostly men on this forum we know you just want a truck.

I have a single rear wheel, reg. cab, 8' bed, F350 with a GVWR of 9000lbs. 5500lbs empty. This leaves me almost two tons of payload and the truck drives like a caddy loaded. Two ton also fills the bed to what I consider the max. I'm not sure you could get anymore Nut sized coal in the back of the ol' ford.

F250's of the same vintage (1997) have a GVWR of 8800lbs so there is very little difference in capacity. Most have a 351 and can get a whopping 10mpg. I have the PSD and get in the mid teens (even loaded) if I stay off the highway. Most of this is due to the very steep axle ratio and diesels wanting to run at low RPMs.

3000lbs of coal per trip would make for an easy day IMHO

With your rig and a 14,000 dump trailer tagging along behind, you'd nearly triple your capacity and hardly notice the difference save for a bit more fuel. My friend has borrowed my 10K dump trailer and pulled it, both loaded with soil, with his F350 PSD duelly and you could hardly tell. I've traveled with him pulling a load on a car trailer from NW NJ to SoCentral MO. You actually had to look to see if the trailer was there. We had an outside rear tire go midway on the return trip (empty) and didn't even know it until we noticed flapping rubber in the sideview mirror. Torque is for pulling. It's what PSDs're for His truck mostly sits waiting for work and he drives a diesel Passat for his day runner @ ~40mpg. Nice to have that option, but I don't have that. My puppy truck fits the midway bill with the dump trailer sitting in waiting. Also,those of us lucky enough to live close enough to the anthracite coal fields make the extra costs less of an impact. There's a lot of valid reasoning in this thread.

I have a dump trailer as well. Being a half hour from Pottsville doesn't even make it worth hooking it up though.