''You'Er Burning COAL'' Are We the Last Ones ?

hotblast1357 wrote:It also depends on people themselves though and how they think, we are a young couple, I'm 24 and my wife is 22, and we are fortunate to have great paying jobs, we make around 70-80,000 a year, I could pay for oil, but I refuse too! Coal is the only Way well heat. its the way the world is turning though, it's a *censored* show and people are just getting lazy. I hate too see it when I retire at 55.

I'm here with you. I'm 26 and my girlfriend is 27. We just bought a house last fall. Both grew up in big farm house that heated with oil or wood. I remember as a kid when the wood fire wasn't going the house was cold and my parents still complained about the price of oil. I will never go back to heating with anything but coal. (besides the wood fire place in the living room). I have also convinced 2 different sets of friends to switch to coal for next year. One has already put a down payment on my current stove for when I put the new on in the house this summer.

Don't discount all of the younger generation. There are some that like hard work and making something for ourselves that doesn't involve ordering it with a phone call or off the internet.

How many others on here are in there 20's, on there own and burning coal?

Well have to start a poll lol

I turned 33 last month, got into our first house with my wife at 27 and after paying for oil to have a cold house and $200 electric bills for hot H2O I was done. Grew up dirt poor in a wood burning house, after looking into everything under the sun for alternative heat I stumbled on this forum and installed the stoker boiler the following summer and haven't looked back.

The wife and I make pretty decent $ for our age, she is a grammer school teacher with principal certification (mandated higher salary based on education), and I have a BS & MS in engineering. Both of our parents are relatively poor, we Eloped in Hawaii because I refused to dump out 20-30 k for a wedding. We never buy anything new w/out relentless research that it is the absolutely lowest price, we own both of our vehicles (7 & 11 yrs old) and I can't remember the last time I paid for auto maintenance. I fix everything around the house just the same. I don't even tell anyone I meet my age anymore that I burn coal, they just think I'm crazy and can't relate to doing real physical work.

I think my generation (beginning Millennial) was very privileged overall and bombarded w/ trophy's and constant gratifications so that dropping $1500 on the gaming laptop is no big deal. I don't want to post a dissertation on generation differences, but I think in General your motivation to do the extra work to save $ burning coal comes from appreciation of the value of a buck. I don't think one gains that appreciation unless they know what it's like to not have that buck in the first place at some point in their life.

I would burn coal if my salary went up 5x, because it still saves me $. $ that I can re-purpose for my daughters college fund, for an earlier retirement, or for creating memorable family experiences, and in all honestly after sitting behind a PC all day at my job or talking in worthless meetings its good to get off my A$% and do some real work.

Doby wrote: do you think todays 20 year olds with there phones they pay 50 to 100 bucks a month for are going to put the time and effort into coal let alone take the time to learn how to use and service a coal stove, I don't. They will work longer hours and get deeper in debt to pay for easy. Plus the younger generation don't like to get there hands dirty, they like big bucks and easy jobs so who's going to work in the breakers, I don't think there's a school for that.

I agree to an extent, but they'll smarten up when they have to start scraping to pay the mortgage.

[quote="qbwebb"]...I think in General your motivation to do the extra work to save $ burning coal comes from appreciation of the value of a buck. I don't think one gains that appreciation unless they know what it's like to not have that buck in the first place at some point in their life.

That is one excellent observation! No matter if you came from a low, medium or high income family. If you had to work for most or all you got from early on, you will have a different perspective.

My earlier post about the post Boomer generations was too general and maybe not accurate. There are plenty of people in their teens to 40's that are responsible and hard working. I do apologize if I offended anyone meeting that description.

My two step kids are late 20's and early 30's. Both work hard. Both will occasionally spend large sums on a toy before they would replace the bald tires on their cars. It is their money, though. There's always been some that, at least since the people that came up in the Great Depression. I do think that the idea of deferred gratification is getting less common in general. When I was a young guy and when I had money, I spent too much on motorcycles, girls and booze. That rest I just wasted.

I'm 45 now and have been burning coal for the past 10 years. Not looking back. I do have an oil gun on the stoker though, only for emergency use (when we're both away for extended periods and such). We haven't had to use the oil burner for anything yet, and I expect that to hold true for a long time (fingers crossed).

I believe we "more mature " people didn't have the luxuries our children or grandchildren have. Not saying it is easier now, but it seems to be from what I observe. That being said, don't you think that the younger generation will "discover coal" at some point as we all did. I have been burning coal off and on for close 40 years. Originally it was a Axeman Anderson we heated our shop with at a considerable saving, and stayed warm to boot! Now I have regressed to a hand fed stove to heat my 1865 farmhouse. Still warmer and cheaper than oil or wood, and warmer.
I have helped some friends convert to coal, and I get thanked quite often for the cost savings. So we need to just wait and see where they go in the future. And if they don't, well that lets more coal for us old farts!

hotblast1357 wrote:It also depends on people themselves though and how they think, we are a young couple, I'm 24 and my wife is 22, and we are fortunate to have great paying jobs, we make around 70-80,000 a year, I could pay for oil, but I refuse too! Coal is the only Way well heat. its the way the world is turning though, it's a *censored* show and people are just getting lazy. I hate too see it when I retire at 55.

You are a very smart young man and obviously not lazy, maybe thats why you see retirement at 55, keep up the hard work

Thank you I plan on it, I got into the state early so I do my 30 years and I'm done at 55

I meant no disrespect to hard working people in there 20's, recently my wife asked me why I spent 10 hours repairing a computer and charged 40 bucks. I said because its a working mom in her 20's that needs the computer to complete her online studies toward a degree, she deserves a break and I respect her. I only do computer repair part time in addition to my full time job so 10 hours is a big deal

I went to the old UAE site today to get my weekly supply of coal. I buy it by the bucket. I decided to switch from nut to pea since the weather was moderating now. While I was there I noticed a gentlemen also filling buckets with nut. I said hello and we started talking. He burned wood and heated his house the last 13 years with wood. He told me they finally ran out of free wood and ordered a tank of fuel oil. Since it had been 13 years since they burned any oil he said his wife pitched a holy fit when he told her how much the oil cost. Since it was in the tank they decided to burn it this winter.

He was at a friends house who had switched to oil about 15 years ago. He had taken his old Peerless coal/wood burning cast iron sectional boiler, disconnected it and shoved it into a corner. He asked him what he was going to do with it and the guy was going to bust it up and take it to scrap. He asked if he could have it instead. He told me that he disassembled that beast and got it to his house and spent several days reassembling it. His wife told him "You are not going to bring that stinky old coal burner in my house." He reminded her of the cost of oil and told her he wasn't going to cut, split and stack wood anymore at 67 years old. The had burned about 1/2 the tank when he disconnected the oil burner, opened the valves and lit off the Peerless on wood and then switched to nut coal.

She is now a believer and has learned how to stoke the fire, shake the grates and "read" the fire correctly. If we look to the government to push it that ain't gonna happen. We have to be the ones to sing the praises of coal heat to get people to break their addiction to oil. I gave him my card, told him about the forum and he said he had lots of questions and he would check it out.

Two more converts to the black rocks!!! As long as there is a market, stores will supply it and yard owners will dig it, scrape it, or scoop it from the ground.

32 here, ex-Navy. I'll be burning this coming heating season once I plumb the boiler in. I'd rather have the money and the freedom that coal brings.

blrman07 wrote:Two more converts to the black rocks!!! As long as there is a market, stores will supply it and yard owners will dig it, scrape it, or scoop it from the ground.

Rev. Larry, fantastic story I went thru a similar debacle with my wife.. It's tough to get people to buy into coal.

Lightning wrote: I went thru a similar debacle with my wife.. It's tough to get people to buy into coal.

On a cold night in February 2004 I got a few "you must be nuts" looks when I took a sawzall to the base of our old oil-fired boiler (in a "well-ventilated" 1890 Victorian) and converted it to a stoker boiler. The next morning they were replaced by "ohhh, now I understand". No problems since then.

Mike

Being in the business, I have to say that there are quite a few young people using coal. It runs across all age brackets.

Many people hope it does not get too popular as they are afraid of the Gov't looking at it. Well, they already are , unfortunately. From what I've been told, New York will be first. They will come after ash disposal.

The state and local governments are totally against truck delivered energy. This would be heating oil, propane, coal ,pellet and wood. They want everyone on utility systems. I'm sure we all know why. I don't want anyone thinking I'm wearing a tin hat or something, but I think they want everyone on remote control meters so they can shut off gas or power when they want, or all sorts of dastardly reasons.