And some way to burn it ? From an article on Zero Hedge today: Minnesota: "We need those in Becker, Big Lake, Chisago City, Lindstrom, Princeton, and Isanti to reduce use of natural gas. Until further notice, you are urged to turn down your thermostat to 60 degrees or lower and avoid the use of other natural gas appliances including hot water," reads a statement by the utility. Meanwhile, power was restored to over 7,000 metro-area Minnesotans after power went out Tuesday evening. The outage was blamed on equipment failures on power poles. I'd get hypothermia at 60 degrees after being used to our normal 75-80 wood fired house temps.
As time goes by, I have found it is better not to rely upon the power grid. Just too much of a gamble. So, wood provides heat, solar provides the majority of essential electricity, and the grid provides for luxury items. A good reason to not live in towns/cities or any apartments.
Heating with outdoor wood boiler. Reminds me, cold out tonight, gotta go out and load it for the night. 0 degrees out there as I type...
Problems is even small cities are slowly limiting what you can do. I have about 2 cords set aside only for emergencies.
natural gas supplier sent out emergency alert for folks to set their thermostats to 65 or lower. Seems supply is being outstripped by demand. just lent neighbor a mr. buddy heater and 10 one pound tanks of propane. seems his furnace keeps going out .. along with his kitchen stove. He's kind regretting getting rid of the propane pig in his front yard. As for me .. more wood into the fireplace inserts. and more water in the pots.
Was told a three-r (Nooner for easterners ) time warp ~ was in the day , Naw , just more firewood work , Im warm on the second stage , storm did first almost for me
Rural king sells the hell out of them and no problem getting a wagon load of stoker coal from most of the mines.
Hard to find good hard coal here in Ohio. Used to be easy to find soft coal, but I think all coal mining got shut down here in the state, so if we could get it, it would have to be brought in. Wood is very easy to find and is still renewable. - It kinda grows on trees! LOL!
Amazing that is just slightly higher than coal we bought for our stoker furnace in the 60's. I would have thought it a lot higher.
My particular interest in coal is more for blacksmithing , but heating too is a mild concern. I have enough wood available for a few years under normal conditions for this place. The advantage of coal is that unlike wood, which over time looses it's gas, coal has a some what indefinite lifespan. Currently I am down to about 50 lbs of coal and that through a bootleg source .. Charcoal bricketts are what is mostly available, I have a failed 55 gallon drum that has rust holes too much to waste fixing and I may move all my coal and charcoal into it just to keep it organized and the mess down to a minimum.
Demand is WAY down with the shift away from coal fired power plants. Off hand, I don't know if that 40 bux stuff is bituminous, anthracite or really cheap bog coal. But it IS available here, but the truck, or bag for about that. I suspect it's anthracite, 'cause that's what is and was locally mined. That would be metallurgical grade? You ain't gonna get that for 40 frn the ton.
Some guys only use it for it's heat, not raising the carbon content. With current metals available heating is all that's important. For that matter I can use gasoline blow torches for flame if I must . Gasoline only goes so far and does not have the storage capability of coal.
Of course I do. A lifetime’s worth. I’m under the tarp chillin with the well-behaved Lab. Peter. Henry being naughty. A reminder. The first fire can be a SOB. Especially in the PNW. The second one should l always have dry wood and dry fir branches ready to roll.
Yeah, I guess demand IS way off. We have a CSX rail line that runs thru our area, coming out of VA, KY, WVA, and used to be several LONG coal trains per day on the tracks headed south.....now it's rare to see one per week. Coal we bought at the time was bituminous, because that is what they mined in SouthWest VA where I lived at that time.