Fumes From Coal& Babies

We are heating with (anthracite) coal for the first time this season, thanks to soaring oil costs.
We have an infant in the house, and now we're scared about the effect of smoke/gases on him.
Does anyone know the risks? We have multiple CO and smoke detectors, but are there other
fumes to worry about?

No, actually most children with asthma, or other allergy and respriratory problems seem to do better in a coal heated house..

Greg l

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I always like to see concerned parents sometimes when I see the news I feel we have lost them, but anyways I have a 2 1/2 year old daughter and she was 1 1/2 when we moved in. I can tell you she has no ill health due to heating with coal and she even checks on the coal boiler at times when I take her down (her name for the boiler is grimy). the only thing you may want to watch heating with coal is the humidy in the house you may end up with a dry house and just a small humidier in the babies room at night would help cure any dry air problems but all in all dry air is better then humid air for health reasons. I can tell you that there are a lot of MYTHS out there of bad health and coal but they are to scare people from coal weather it be heating a home or power plants.

When I saw the title of this thread I rolled on the floor laughing, almost. I can tell you from much experience that the fumes from babies are MUCH worse.

I have asthma and my list of what I am not allegric is smaller than what I am. I have no issues with the coal, dust or ashes.

coalkirk wrote:When I saw the title of this thread I rolled on the floor laughing, almost. I can tell you from much experience that the fumes from babies are MUCH worse.

That's funny right there, I don't care who you are!

studies done in eastern europe/germany showed that children who grew up in homes heated by solid fuels, coal specifically, had substantially lower rates of asthma and many other ailments later on. there was even a study showing children who grew up in homes heated with solid fuels were less likely to have autism, but the findings in that case were dismissed as coincidence because none of the authors could come up with a hypothesis as to the possible relationship between the two.

Not really sure on the question since any burning heat source can emit fumes if it's not properly vented.

That said, I'm a lifelong asthmatic and no problems around raw coal or a properly vented coal burning appliance.

Wood drove my allergies nuts from both the smoke and mold.

Just like anything that produces dust and ashes, just got to be "smarter" about how you do things. I am really carefully about how I take the ash can out of the stove not to distrub any of the ashes, also I use a little shovel to dump it into my ash bin before I dump the remaining in to simple cut down on the dust. Heck, I am even careful when empting our two vacuums out since they are canister types that you have to dump out the "nasties" on occasion, and go figure my wife wanted it, but it seems to be my job to empty them both.

O well....

Dan

Berlin wrote:studies done in eastern europe/germany showed that children who grew up in homes heated by solid fuels, coal specifically, had substantially lower rates of asthma and many other ailments later on.

Can you provide a reference to that study?

My wife has asthma and has trouble breathing with a wood stove going. I have two kids under the age of 4, one has mild activity induced asthma. We tried coal for the first time about a month ago. I read alot about it and decided the health risks were very low as long as basic safety measures were followed. Still we were both very hesitant. Stove has been going 24/7 and she has had no problem at all. They spend the majority of the day in the same room with the stove. We were both suprised to find that we didn't smell a thing - except outside the house when the wind blows right you can smell some sulfer. I think the difference is also because with wood you have to open and fiddle with it more frequently so some smoke gets in the house. I open my coal stove twice a day, and then only very briefly.

update - I should mention I have removable ash pans that I dump outside! I emptied them inside the first time and it was immediately obvious that was a bad idea.

i'll see if I can find more information. what interesting about it was that it took some of the obvious socio-economic differences to account when making comparisons about the health of children in solid fuel use housholds unlike most of the research available previously. (much of the studies done on indoor air pollution are done on children/people living in third-world nations and involve lower respratory infections, many of which may be attributed to pathogens and disease, and not conclusively linked to solid fuel use; this particular research was interesting because it was conducted on people in germany/eastern europe)

Before WWII when just about everyone was heating with coal asthma was a rare occurrence. It started to show up in the '50s and oddly enough, since the switch to diesel school buses, it has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. Does that tell you something?

My youngest had asthma, switched to coal and she has been trouble free ever since.

as long as you keep the baby out of the furnace, he/she won't be bothered by the fumes.