Coal quality from various sources

I was so desparate, I was thinking about going to 7-11 for a bag of Kingsford briquettes.

That's OK, I still have a wood burner connected in this place. Once you burn decent coal-wood becomes more of a pain...
I still like having the 1 wood burner, though.

First of all let me thank all the people here on giving such good advice on this fourm.
Well I got some superior coal(nut) late last week.I have a hotblast furnace(when you stop laughing at me you can read the rest of the post).Anyway I burned the furnace way down and loaded the beast up,75#s.The first thing I noticed was that it lit right up,then I noticed it made a LOT of heat.The next morning I pulled out the biggest clinkers I ever seen.Soft ball size or better.So I thought maybe it's from the old coal so I cleaned it out and started from scratch.This morning I shook it down and no clinkers,but a lot of ash,thats OK.This is what I see different about this coal.Lights up fast,makes a lot of heat and it seems to give you a lot of warning(3 or 4 hours) when it's going out.I don't know what type of coal I've been burning in the past because when I ask they give me a song and a dance answer.I know I've burned reading.hudson and blaschak,but most of it was unknown.Blaschak aint bad but I can't get it around here any more.I just found a guy who is starting to sell coal on the side so I told him about superior coal and he made a trip down there for me to try it.I'll post more when I know more but,it seems like great coal so far.

THANKS DON

BIG BEAM wrote:First of all let me thank all the people here on giving such good advice on this fourm.
Well I got some superior coal(nut) late last week.I have a hotblast furnace(when you stop laughing at me you can read the rest of the post).Anyway I burned the furnace way down and loaded the beast up,75#s.The first thing I noticed was that it lit right up,then I noticed it made a LOT of heat.The next morning I pulled out the biggest clinkers I ever seen.Soft ball size or better.So I thought maybe it's from the old coal so I cleaned it out and started from scratch.This morning I shook it down and no clinkers,but a lot of ash,thats OK.This is what I see different about this coal.Lights up fast,makes a lot of heat and it seems to give you a lot of warning(3 or 4 hours) when it's going out.I don't know what type of coal I've been burning in the past because when I ask they give me a song and a dance answer.I know I've burned reading.hudson and blaschak,but most of it was unknown.Blaschak aint bad but I can't get it around here any more.I just found a guy who is starting to sell coal on the side so I told him about superior coal and he made a trip down there for me to try it.I'll post more when I know more but,it seems like great coal so far.

THANKS DON

Hi Don the ash content for Superior coal for PEA Nut & Stove size is 14% There Barley Rice & Buck is
12.4 % The only thing's that I can tell you is it will be the hottest burning coal you will get down here in the area and the other is you will not need alot of air to keep it going you can cut your air back once you have the fire going good you will get a long burn time with alot of heat if you cut back on the air I have been burning Superior since 1997 By far it is my Favorite coal And I have burned coal from over 20 breaker's / mines over the years around my area witch is over a 40
mile Area One more thing you will be able to light it with cardbord and Paper you do not need any wood Most People laugh at me when I tell them that but it is true it will light easy I am sure you will like it and it will Probably become you favorite aswell Oh keep a eye on your hotblast when burning it you might have a meltdown Take care

Yeah it does take less air to.65F today so I didn't learn much today but it's going down to 30F tonight so I'll play more.
DON

I just have to post again.This superior coal is great.It is the best coal I've got from anywhere.The cost to me in 50# bags is 250.00 per ton and when I buy coal I look at the value and not just the cost per ton.I have to thank everone on this fourm again.The info I got here of what to burn and how to burn it has been invaluble.It also makes me feel good that my money for heating the house is staying in the good old US of A
DON

Now if I can figure out how to burn this stuff in my truck!!

I will be making another run to Superior shortly. Almost out of coal but I'm through with crap strip-mined garbage, a waste of money. Nothing burns like Superior.

Has anyone used Penn Keystone Coal? They seem to be willing to deliver to me in Maine.

Freddy wrote:Has anyone used Penn Keystone Coal? They seem to be willing to deliver to me in Maine.

There are a coal broker they will buy from anybody that gives them the best Price unless you get a coal breaker sales slip
I would use caution when buying from any Broker The Quality and Consistent will vary from good coal to bad coal even
with a sales slip I would call the coal breaker and make sure that the coal that you are getting is coming from that breaker or you might end up with several tons of Mystery coal

Freddy wrote:Has anyone used Penn Keystone Coal? They seem to be willing to deliver to me in Maine.

See my post at: Anyone buy from Penn Coal?

I've attached the PA government specs for coal purchase. I suggest you use it as a template for your purchase specification.

Thank you for the replies. The Spec sheet might be handy. Other than Penn Keystone I'm having trouble finding people willing to ship bulk to Maine thathave their own trucks. If I hire the truck it cannot be bulk, it can only be bagged.

Freddy wrote:Thank you for the replies. The Spec sheet might be handy. Other than Penn Keystone I'm having trouble finding people willing to ship bulk to Maine thathave their own trucks. If I hire the truck it cannot be bulk, it can only be bagged.

There are few others you could try. http://www.jeddocoal.com/ http://www.centraliacoal.com/

Apparently there is a new member who works for Lehigh Valley Coal Co, you could try contacting him. This is his post from the "introduce youself forum":

My name is Gary J. and I currently work with Lehigh Coal and Navigation in Coaldale, PA. I am new to the coal industry, as a sales rep., yet I was raised with a coal furnace in our house. I am very exicted to be working at LCN. We have some of the best anthracite coal. We are currently producing large quantities of all sizes of anthracite. The quality has been very good and if anyone is looking for bulk or bags of anthracite please feel free to contact me at gjohnson@lcncoal.com. Thank you for your interest and I look forward to hearing from you.

markviii wrote:

Freddy wrote:Thank you for the replies. The Spec sheet might be handy. Other than Penn Keystone I'm having trouble finding people willing to ship bulk to Maine thathave their own trucks. If I hire the truck it cannot be bulk, it can only be bagged.

There are few others you could try. http://www.jeddocoal.com/ http://www.centraliacoal.com/

Apparently there is a new member who works for Lehigh Valley Coal Co, you could try contacting him. This is his post from the "introduce youself forum":

My name is Gary J. and I currently work with Lehigh Coal and Navigation in Coaldale, PA. I am new to the coal industry, as a sales rep., yet I was raised with a coal furnace in our house. I am very exicted to be working at LCN. We have some of the best anthracite coal. We are currently producing large quantities of all sizes of anthracite. The quality has been very good and if anyone is looking for bulk or bags of anthracite please feel free to contact me at gjohnson@lcncoal.com. Thank you for your interest and I look forward to hearing from you.

Centralia Coal Company is a broker, I noticed on their website that they represent UAE Harmony mine, which is good deep mined coal, but they also represent South Tamaqua Coal Pockets, which sells refuse coal. I guess it's the luck of the draw if you buy from them. I'd rather deal directly with the individual breaker so I know what I'm getting.

I noticed a lot of talk about refuse coal lately. You'll see on DEP's website listings of whose processing it. They don't sell that to the general consumer. They sell the refuse to the cogen plants around the region. All the banks that had culm that could be run through a breaker again and get a decent amount of anthracite out of for the most part are gone.

Don't believe it... there are too many instances where people get coal that has 15-20% unburnt coal in the ashpan, but when they burn fresh deepmined coal, the ashpan contains nothing but ash..

Those culm piles are being sold as good coal,, and at best it is marginal.

I bought 5 tons of rice, from a breaker south of Scranton,, and it was pretty bad stuff.. the ash was heavily peppered with unburnt 'coal'.. I could pick out the unburnt,, it looked like coal.. but even when run through the fire a second time,, it came out black, unburnt..

Why pay for 80% burnable per ton??? why not get all burnable coal?? You always have ash, I'm not refering to ash content, but rather unburnable reclaimed culm coal.

Greg L

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