Smoke/Soot

I just burned two tons of Reading Antracite coal in my 3-yr old econoline stoker from Leisure Line Stoves. I love this stoker and it really puts out the heat. I live in Western PA and the anthracite rice from Reading Coal is a two hour drive. So I purchased a ton of a larger type anthracite coal from a local dealer in my area not wanting to make another trip to Washington, Pa for the bagged rice. I'm breaking up the coal in my garage with a tamper to get it resemble the rice size coal that is recommended for my stove.($ 70.00 a ton) I threw a few handfuls into the hopper and as it started to burn there was alot of smoke and soot coming from this coal. I even tried washing the next load off with water to clean the coal. I'm a freak about safety and wanted to ask if anyone had any comments or suggestions as to why there could be so much black smoke burning off this coal. Thanks

That's because its not anthracite. The lowest consumer price for anthracite is going to be around $120-$130 per ton if you pick it up at the processing plant yourself. It's only mined and proccessed in a few laces in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it all has to be shipped to Western Pennsylvania which FYI has a very abundant supply of bituminous coal. This shipping of course is going to add to the cost,off the top of my head $200 plus. Anyone selling you "anthracite" for less than that is giving you line of crap.

Jerry will have so more info for you on using bit coal in your stove but i'm pretty sure he's going to tell you that you can't. Add to that it should be properly sized no matter the type.

Thanks for the quick reply. The local dealer told me that he gets the coal from a dealer on the eastern part of the state. It does resemble anthracite though a little softer. It certainly is producing alot of smoke and soot inside my stoker stove as we speak and I am not going to use anymore of it. My brother can use it in his outside multifuel burner. I believe you and that the price was also too good to be true. Thanks

I also did speak to Jerry about this though he was under the impression it was a larger ANTHRACITE coal.

Price and your description (soft, sooty burn) makes this sound like Bituminous or semi-bit coal. I'm no expert, but I've read enough here to jump to that conclusion.

70 bucks a ton sound too cheap to me lol......when i moved up here fall 2005 we were paying 110 a ton for nut coal

About 4/5 years ago i was burning a alaska kodiak hand fire. local coal dealer ran out of hard nut, so i bought a 1/2 ton of hard stove and tried to break it up with a sledge hammer on my garage floor. i had a H--- of a time.VERY VERY hard. i did get enough broke up to get by with. if your coal is breaking up pretty easy good chance it is bitu good luck.