Estimated yearly savings by using coal

I used to spend 6 to 700 dollars a month for electricity. Now I spend less then that per year with coal.

This year, the price of #2 heating oil dropped over 20 cents/gallon. At this current price, I'd be paying (for the 6 mo heating season: Oct. - Apr.) approximately $2180.

This year, I bought 4 tons of bagged anthracite for $1070.40, which will last the entire heating season & still leave me with a good head-start for next winter!!

Previous owner of my house (my father) would burn 4 tanks of oil. At 2.11 a gallon (what I paid for 200 gallons this fall) it would cost me 2321.00 for oil. I'll spend about 750.00 on 4 tons of bagged coal. A savings of 1571.00 this year alone.

it ran me $360. last year for coal. (3 ton) thanksgiving to middle of may. i use wood up to the middle of nov with wood that i processed and i dont put a cost to that.

it should be around the same cost this yr with a slight increase at the scale.

I burned coal for the first time last winter and saved @1100$ not using oil. Coal cost me @800$ and my house was 70* to 80* instead of @65* and 60* at night!! Awesome!!----- Question though,anyone have any ideas about how to make my firebox smaller. I tried putting some bricks in there last winter but it wouldn't stay lit. What would the minimum size coalbed be? I have a fireplace insert and I heat a one story two bedroom ranch and the stove throws off way to much heat most of the time. If I could get this issue resolved I would burn/pay less and would be toasty warm and more friendly to the environment. Thanks

I heat a relatively small townhome; about 1600 square feet. The number of dollars saved by using coal last season is not overwhelming but, the PERCENTAGE savings is, I think, quite impressive. I compared my natural gas bills to those of a neighbor with the same exact home and family size:

Natural gas bill (4 mos.) WITH COAL: $431.
Natural gas bill (4 mos.) NO coal: $914. SAVINGS: 53 PERCENT!

Cost of coal: $200. I STILL SAVED 31 PERCENT!!

The best part is the QUALITY of the heat as well as warmer temps with coal. Even if I didn't save a penny, it would still be worth it. I expect to do even better this heating season.

The last winter I burned oil it cost me over $2500 in oil. Last winter I spent $850 on coal and about $300 on oil. And the house was 74F. I'll stick with coal.

200 year old farm house would cost me 1200 gallons for heat and hot water for the year. I'm figuring 4 ton of coal for this year for heat and hot water plus about 100 gallons of oil. At the prebuy price that we normally took advantage of it would have cost me $2700.00 for oil. I spent $800.00 for coal and about $1700.00 for the stove and water coil and misc. It will pay for itself in one year. Oh yeah, as with anyone who burns with home grown coal or wood, the house is always warmer than when burning oil, gas, propane, etc.
Tom

I have a 1600 sq.ft home with open ceiling to the second floor ( A plus for heating the upstiars bedrooms. As you know, heat rises. ) and a unfinished basenment. My stoker is setup in the basement ( fan forced air to upper living area ) and on average it will be 57 - 63 degrees in the basement and 70 - 75 upstairs in the upper livng areas. Not using any electric baseboard heat. Not bad! My last purchase of rice coal was in april of 2006 and it was 135 a ton picked up. ( I'm sure it has gone up since my last load ) I average about $80.00 - 100.00 a month to heat my home. A gift compared to oil & propane.

Well, we always heated with wood (electric backup) and used about 2 cords per winter. It used to be free, but my source dried up so it cost me about $175/cord last 2 years.

I suspect the Harman will burn about 2 tons per season in our very small house, so the price will actually go up a tiny bit (we no longer use electric heaters at all though).

BUT the benefiots are:

1) no more chimney fires and chimney cleanings
2) no more wild temperature swings
3) no more constantly fiddling with the damper and reloading the wood stove 2x per day
4) no more carrying wood with bugs and dirt through the house every day

Soon, I will have hot water coil in the harman, and lower the electric water heating costs.

Also, coal lasts indefinately, so it can be stockpipled. I plan to store about 5 or 6 tons... actually I'd like to go to 6 or 8, 8 tons would be 4 years of heat. Should we have another oil embargo or supply disruption, I'll be ok for 4 years!

All in all, its WELL worth it!

I have just finished 1 month heating with my coal stocker and burned 1 ton of Bituminous. I estimate that I will need 5 tons per heating season here in Ohio. The current price for stoker coal picked up is $56. Last year I spent $1800 on propane and froze. So I'm looking to stay warm and save $1500/year.

HardWood wrote:I have just finished 1 month heating with my coal stocker and burned 1 ton of Bituminous. I estimate that I will need 5 tons per heating season here in Ohio. The current price for stoker coal picked up is $56. Last year I spent $1800 on propane and froze. So I'm looking to stay warm and save $1500/year.

What type of stoker are you running your bituminous in?

Do you have any smoke/soot issues?

We tried burning Indiana bituminous years ago in a handfired furnace and made a real mess.

Looking for a good way to burn Illinois bituminous now (same basic stuff), as we can't get anthracite out here cost effectively.

Chris

No coal stove installed yet but I expect huge savings. Right now I pay $1.79 plus tax for a gallon of propane, when the temps get down below 5 degrees the furnace runs 80% of the time and will use about 15 gallons a day, normally I will burn 6-8 gal. a day. My house is average drafty for a 130 year old victorian, I insulated the attic floor and the doors and I have storm windows. I keep the thermostat at 60-62 unless someone is sick. I figure $900 a month will buy a lot of coal and get the stoker paid off pretty quickly and hopefully we will be warmer. Plus I would rather my money go to hard working local coal families rather than the Propane company.

We just moved into the house a REAL OLD New England home (a converted one room school house now a small 3 bedroom home with the 1940's additions on either side about 1700 sq ft. ) it has a tiny 25" x 25" fire place that’s in great shape and works awesome for sending heat up the chimney and out the house(up draft is not a problem)
The boiler is 2 years old, works well enough but the house is as insulated as well as a garden tool shed.
I just got my 2nd $270.00 oil delivery of 125 gallons in the month of Feb on the 14th.

I went through 125 gallons of oil in 11 DAYS! So now the panic has set in and my wife said " I'm cold, I'm tired, and now going in the poor house!"

(enter stage left) SUPER HUBBY! I'll save you/ warm you!!! All the while thinking what the hell am I going to do.

I wanted to put in a pellet stove at first then thought that will work ok (never getting really hot in the house) till the power goes out for another 3 or 4 day stretch (a common thing here in N.E.) our pipes split and burst in 27places during the last 3 day power outage….Thanks PSNH! for getting right on top of things 3 days later......
So then I remember my school time buddy Mike, his old man worked for the PA. Railroad and swore by coal for everything. Their house was sweltering hot on the coldest days outside temp 4 degrees inside temp 80, I mean like break a sweat HOT! They had either a Surdiac or Franco-Belge(?) coal stove.

So fast forward 25 years and here I am reading from this great forum and making the decision to learn the art of burning coal to heat my house or freeze to death trying and seeing that I'm 45lbs overweight it's the wife and kids that would freeze long before me so this has got to work
(what can i say its a science thing fat people generate more heat)

I'm confident that once I get the stove hooked up and belting out heat the house will in all probability will go from..... too cold.. to... too hot.
Too hot is fine by me, I can always crack a window.
I fired up my kero-sun round 20,000 btu heater and the temp on that side of the house went up 14 degrees to 74 just from the k2 heater in 2 hours.... so what's going to be like with the coal stove?

Kerosene is---------------- $3.00 a gallon
Oil is ------------------------$2.21 a gallon
40 lbs of pea coal is------- $6.00 a bag

The way I figure it:

HEATING WITH OIL
To heat the house for 33 days I'll use 375 gallons of oil it will cost me $810.00 for heat.

HEATING WITH COAL
To heat the house for 33 days I'll use one 40lb bag per day and it will cost me $198.00 for heat.

THAT'S A SAVINGS OF $612.00 PER MONTH!!
It cost me about $1.00 an hour to keep the house at 65 degrees
(a far cry from warm and cozy in my book)
I'm picking up the Russo hand stoker tonight it cost me $100.00.
It will pay for itself along with all the parts to hook it up in about 20 min after its running strong...

That is pretty optimistic, I would think about $4-500 in savings.... but you will be a lot warmer. My coal bill is about 40% vs. oil cost with the house at 74* instead of 68*.