At What Point Is It Not Worth Burning Coal .

Yanche wrote:

VigIIPeaBurner wrote: .... Fuels are normalized to show the cost of 1,000,000 BTU adjusted for "typical boiler efficiencies". The URL for that calculator is http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/techline/fuel-v ... ulator.pdf

By far the best heating calculator is provided by the U.S. Dept. of Energy. It's available here:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/experts/heatcalc.xls

You need Microsoft Excel or Sun's free Open Office to use it. Be sure to look at the instruction pages and reference pages. It's a outstanding piece of comprehensive work.

Thanks Yanche. heatcalc.xls is certainly more comprehensive and adjustable. The calculator from the forestry service is also nice for simplicity. Although not as customizable, it adjusts each fuel cost's unit based on the cost/1 million BTU. Quick and easy overview of how they all compare with few keystrokes. I'll be using both. Thanks again

I have a 15 year old oil boiler thats rated at 85% Ill bet my New Yorker wood/coal boiler is only 70% if that. Eff. ratings, if you have them must be figured in when calculating coal vs. oil.

This question reminds me of something my dad used to say.

The point that is it no longer worth burning coal is when you have more money than brains.

I put my kill-a-watt on my keystoker and it's telling me the stove is going to increase my electric bill $120 a month. Is this in line with what others have seen when switching to a stoker? I have a keystoker 105 - chimney vent. I wasn't anticipating that large a jump in my electric costs. That needs to be factored in to the cost of burning coal, IMO.

$120 a month?
You mean a year?

Yea I'd recheck that $129 a month figure. Your computer will probably use more than the stove.

Glad I use a gravity fed. I would burn coal even if I had a million bucks. I just love the heat from it.

I'm hoping its a problem with the meter. I have triple checked the settings on it and it's right. I just moved into this house - first electric bill was $38 but that was an estimated meter reading - first bill with a real meter reading came a couple days ago - $200 - That's when I put the meter on the stove. When I saw the $120 a month I reset the meter and 24 hours later it was saying $120/month again. I just took it off the stove, plugged the laptop into it and reset it. If it tells me the laptop is going to cost me 120 I'll know the problem is with the meter.

gambler wrote:

ablumny wrote:I track my oil usage religiously. 1100 gallons per year on average. I paid $850 for three tons of Rice delivered and all indications are that three tons will last me the season. Thus:

$850 / 1100 = Oil has to drop to $.72 per gallon to break even on material costs.

At 1100 gal of oil you will need twice the amount of coal that you have. 180 gal of oil = 1 ton of coal 1100/180= 6.1 tons

actually that jives with what many people are saying here, ~$1.40 break even point, but everyone I spoke with stated 3 tons would do the job. maybe not!

Steve-ny I did some figures a bit ago on electric and my stove is costing me roughly $21 a month give or take a few to run. With my current usage of coal and electric my stove is costing me rougnly $6.71 for a 24 hour day. $120 extra a month doesn't sound quite right. I never got this anal with my costs while burning oil but times and things a work were also quite a bit different a year ago also. Even if oil does drop to where it is more economical I have made the leap and the investment is paid for and oh yeah coal heat compared to forced hot air oil furnace, well you can't compare. One thing that I will be doing next year is add a coal trol, now that I've run the alaska for a couple of months the coal trol will make it way more efficient than using the manual feed rate/ blower switches.

Yep, it was a glitch with the meter. I had the laptop on it for a while and saw the readings looked normal, like $4 a month or something, so I reset it and put the stove back on it last night. Very cold last night (11 degrees) and the stove was working hard to keep our house in the mid-high 70's and the meter is showing $14.50 a month in electric usage. I don't know what caused it to give the erroneous readings last night, but I'm breathing easier this morning. And you're right about the quality of the heat from the coal stove - it's way better than the hot water baseboard heat from the oil boiler!

OPEC ministers are in agreement on the need to cut output when they meet on Wednesday in Algeria to prop up sagging prices, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Saturday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/12/13/us-opec ... 2F20081213

Looks like we won't get to the point it's cheaper to burn oil

did you guys see 60 miniutes with the Saudi Arabia story it was right after the football game?

the saudi's showed all the new oil fields saying there is plenty of oil and there is no reason for people to change over to other forms of energy .
they are starting to see that we have cut our consumtion and they are starting to worry about it.

I say keep burning coal even if oil is the same price...keep the money in american hands.

djackman wrote:

OPEC ministers are in agreement on the need to cut output when they meet on Wednesday in Algeria to prop up sagging prices, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Saturday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/12/13/us-opec ... 2F20081213

Looks like we won't get to the point it's cheaper to burn oil

They will all agree to cut production then go home and cheat on the quotas to keep their heads above water.

Sync, I agree with you on that. I think the guy said something like $55.00 a barrel is the breakeven point. When you see an Arab telling us that we "DON'T NEED" ALTERNATE fuels you can feel pretty confident that world financial meltdown is causeing major rippels in the consuming of Oil.
I love burning my Coal as just one small thing I can do to help.