Estimated yearly savings by using coal

I just put in a coal boiler next to my propane unit. I shut of the gas and am not burning any propane. Heating an old farm house ( but remodeled) built during the civil war in Ohio. ( that still may be going on, I'm not sure) Last year, we spent 3600 during the heating season, took all year to pay for it. I'm now burning 250 to 300 a month with coal. We heated with wood during the mild time of late Oct through the first of Dec. Strictly coal now until march then back to wood. Wost case it would be 1200 for coal but the house is 72 instead of 65. NICE. Feels good not paying "the man".

Forgot to say this, I also switched my business shop heat to coal. Now I don't pay commercial rates for natural gas. This is real nice too.

I'm new to the forum, I was just reading around when I stumbled upon this thread.
I have been burning coal for about 5 years now.
I have a 6300 sq.ft house built before 1850. We don't use all of it in the winter because the plumbing freezes and it cost too much. 7 years ago it cost about $550 a month for the part we were heating, plus electric and natural gas hot water.
This was pretty good, and if we kept wood fires in the fireplaces, we could keep the temps in the high 60's or low 70's for whichever room we were in. I think we were already saving a considerable amount by using the wood and not heating everything. Previous owner was paying over $800/month for hot water baseboard that hardly worked, and they were freezing.

They had bills from the owner before them who used #2 heating oil and had an older furnace. She was buying 600 gals of oil every month, but it was for steam heat that probably heated the whole house.

I can't even tell you what we save. We're enjoying 75-80 degrees in the rooms we use with about 55-60 degrees in between (hallways, foyer, rarley used parlor), and nothing has frozen, even in the wing we don't use in the winter.

Every 24 hours we burn about 100#, less if it's warmer out (2 50# bags). We're switching from bagged to pickup, so we'll save even more. Current cost is about $15.50 day or $465/month. Picked up the cost will be 10.50/day or about $315/month.
We paid $400 for the two smaller stoves, and the Locke was given to us by a friend who bought the house it was in and didn't want it. I think we broke even in the first winter.

I estimate I'm heating 3500-4000 sq.ft to an average of 60 degrees at that price, and my gas/electric is down to under $40/month.

I really want to install a new steam system for central heating. Soon I will have elderly grandmother living here, and I'd like to heat the back wing with something less obtrusive than a coal stove. It would also be nice to tend just one fire.

I'd love to know if anyone has seen a modern steam boiler that can be coal fired and still back up with gas if necessary. That would be perfect for me.

Chris in upstate NY.

pointydog wrote:I'd love to know if anyone has seen a modern steam boiler that can be coal fired and still back up with gas if necessary. That would be perfect for me.
.

EFM makes a coal/oil combo .

I'd love to know if anyone has seen a modern steam boiler that can be coal fired and still back up with gas if necessary. That would be perfect for me.

I have an HS Tarm wood/coal over gas/oil boiler. It heated an antique 14 room colonial. I ran it for four or five years but my bother, who now lives in the house, couldn't be bothered. He replaced it with a gas only boiler.

It is still in the boiler room and I wouldn't consider rigging it out until warmer weather. The bulkhead has to be removed.

pointydog wrote:I'd love to know if anyone has seen a modern steam boiler that can be coal fired and still back up with gas if necessary. That would be perfect for me.

I believe both Axeman and EFM make steam stoker boilers, probably a few more. You do not want a combination boiler, install a coal fired unit in tandem with what you have and save the money.

Just updated our numbers; figured I should, oil went up 1/3 since last year:

House is stick built 1200' 1915 frame.
Prices used are current for here LI, NY: Oil $3.39, Electric $0.21, Natural Gas $1.90, Wood $200, Coal $200, LP $4.24
Coal cost incl travel. Wood includes pain and suffering fee.

All figures are for central heating, hot water is handle by oil right now, so that component (32%) of annual total is removed for calc - savings are CH only.

Energy is figured in M/BTUs to make apples-to-apples comparisons.

- Charlie

I have a natural gas furnace but I heat my house with a stoker stove and I will save about $500 this year. I would love to have a central coal heating system but saving $500 a year it would take about 10 years to pay for the system. Not a very good return!

OIL;$3,000.00 COAL; $800.00 to $1,000.00 hyfire1 setting in front of the fire place in the livingroom, not the prettiest looking stove but when any one says anything i tell them to pay the oil bill, that shouts them up.

Charlie,
Can you PM me your equations?
Natural Gas costs me $1.20 a Therm and have never been able to compare Propane to NG to Coal and Wood at a FULL cord (4ft x 4ft x 8ft). Nor figure out for sure if burning coal is cheaper at $210 a ton plus fuel.
Thanks,
drujinin

a therm is 100,000 BTU's. to get to one million BTU's multiply by 10. $1.20 x 10 = $12 per million BTU's. but CHECK YOUR BILL! divide the check you have to write by the therms used, it's going to be a lot more than $1.20 per therm in actual cost. For coal or other fuels compare the delivered price to compare apples to apples. At $210 a ton plus the gas to pick it up assuming bagged coal that's less than $10 per million BTU's, I'll bet once you look close at the fees and taxes and surcharges on that gas bill you'll find coal to be about half price. Some areas have super cheap gas so you might be an exception.

Attached are my formulas. Not too pretty, but you may have fun playing around with the numbers. Change'em to match your situation. I've studied a lot of the online calculators and wasn't completely satisfied, mostly because they couldn't be tuned to match my situation.

'Prices' at the top trickle through calculations in the sheet.

There are a lot of different assumptions and calculations: Fuel comparisons (mostly vs. oil), winter (CH+DHW) and summer (DHW only), various stove paybacks, and handfired vs. stoker vs. oil.

I believe that most of the important elements are included. Note that there is a different opinion regarding efficiencies of various boiler types - these are conservative, but probably accurate. It works for us; the consumption estimates come very close to the actual we record.

It would be great if this could be 'accurized' further -- it would be a good service to all. Please post your improvements.

-Charlie

PS: It converts everything to MBTUs to make apples to apples comparisons.

PPS: I use the number I write on the check as the cost of oil/gas/whatever. Our electric bill says that we pay 12.1 cents/KWH, but includes 32 surcharges and taxes for "organic plant security disposal", "State non-use fee", and something called a "sunlight storage fee", which total 21.3 KW/H.

After talking with others I know , plus the Electric co, I can be certain I'm saving $200 per month in heat. So with cost of the stove I'll pay for it self next by year. I'll save 300 more per month in Propane when I get a Stoker for my machine shop...wOOt.

Matthaus wrote:Hi davemich,

The Coal-trol on the Alaska is awesome! the only problem is that the Tri-burner having only one motor for both combustion and stoking...

:USAribbon:

I was just on the Blaschak coal website where they have links to all the brands of coal stoves and names that they have shown, except Tri Burner. So I did a Google search for 'Tri Burner coal'. The first listing stated that Tri Burner was patented by Reading Stove. Does Alaska also have the Tri Burner?

WIcoal wrote: Does Alaska also have the Tri Burner?

I don't belive so, if I remember correctly that was a system that Alaska moved away from.