Stasher wrote:Just reviewing our coal store for the coming months and I wondered what everyone else uses. We have seven sacks (and two blocks of Heiz Profi) left from last year, but I will be getting a least another half a dozen over the next few weeks. We do not buy coal 'loose' and I am a bit of a tart when it comes to what I buy. Our current selection includes (we do not live in a smokefree zone)
Wow. I'm really surprised. I've never heard of anyone using coal for heating... well not outside of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" anyway. It sounds like this is fairly common in the UK...? Is coal your primary heating source or is it or is a supplemental source - like a woodstove here in the US. What are the environmental implications? I can easily imagine "environmentalists" heads exploding if widespread use of private coal burning stoves came into use in the US.
Very interesting...
Just curious,
Your American Friend
OK, I suddenly had visions of alpha male throwing coal into a furnace a la Flying Scotsman!
We have oil fired central heating which costs a bomb to run (well impressed with Briggs 2.0 cutting that out of the budget ). BUT we also have an oil fired aga (one of ur neighbours runs their rayburn on coal alone) which means that side of the house is kept damp free and warm(ish). The aga is our primary cooking stove and also heats our water. We also have a boiler that can be switched on (electric) should we need extra hot water or when the outside temp has plummeted to shocking levels. Our house is detached and over a hundred years old. Good roof insulation and double glazed but we do 'get' the weather. We have a multi fuel stove which we run mainly on wood, but using coal increases the heat output significantly. I cannot stay in the room if we're using coal. It's too hot. Maybe coal is a european thing? Certainly some of the 'hi tech' coaly things are imported.
Stasher wrote:
We have oil fired central heating which costs a bomb to run (well impressed with Briggs 2.0 cutting that out of the budget ).
Since 2006, we've seen the cost of heating oil rise by 40%. That was the deciding factor to replace our heating source. Where we live, we will always be dependant upon oil, so it had to go.
Oil costs....Have you checked out the Heatmiser thermostats? When we were on oil we fitted one of these and we worked out it paid for itself in one winter. A huge amount of oil is used firing up the boiler and we found the traditional thermostat had the boiler coming on and off, on and off all the time. The Heatmiser stat is digital and therefore precise in its temperature settings. It also gives you four heating time zones of different temperatures, so you can set it for a lower temp in the daytime when everyone is more active then set it for a higher temp in the evening. It has a frost-setting so if you switch off your heating at night, the Heatmiser continues to monitor the temp to keep the house ticking over so there's no huge demand in the morning to get the whole house up to temperature.
Stasher wrote:Just reviewing our coal store for the coming months and I wondered what everyone else uses. We have seven sacks (and two blocks of Heiz Profi) left from last year, but I will be getting a least another half a dozen over the next few weeks. We do not buy coal 'loose' and I am a bit of a tart when it comes to what I buy. Our current selection includes (we do not live in a smokefree zone)
Wow. I'm really surprised. I've never heard of anyone using coal for heating... well not outside of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" anyway. It sounds like this is fairly common in the UK...? Is coal your primary heating source or is it or is a supplemental source - like a woodstove here in the US. What are the environmental implications? I can easily imagine "environmentalists" heads exploding if widespread use of private coal burning stoves came into use in the US.
Very interesting...
Just curious,
Your American Friend
OK, I suddenly had visions of alpha male throwing coal into a furnace a la Flying Scotsman!
We have oil fired central heating which costs a bomb to run (well impressed with Briggs 2.0 cutting that out of the budget ). BUT we also have an oil fired aga (one of ur neighbours runs their rayburn on coal alone) which means that side of the house is kept damp free and warm(ish). The aga is our primary cooking stove and also heats our water. We also have a boiler that can be switched on (electric) should we need extra hot water or when the outside temp has plummeted to shocking levels. Our house is detached and over a hundred years old. Good roof insulation and double glazed but we do 'get' the weather. We have a multi fuel stove which we run mainly on wood, but using coal increases the heat output significantly. I cannot stay in the room if we're using coal. It's too hot. Maybe coal is a european thing? Certainly some of the 'hi tech' coaly things are imported.
Hope that helps explain
Stasher God Bless you I've not a clue what you're talking about. I've no idea what an "aga" or a "rayburn" is. The rest I sort of get. It sounds like you have redundant systems for heating, running on multiple fuels, which makes a good bit of sense. But at the risk of exasperating my British friends and forcing them to provide a briefing on British construction, HAVAC, and plumbing methods I will beg off this conversation.
I'll only further comment that in the US the use of coal, though we have tons of it, and still use it in the production of electricity (though that is being replaced with Natural Gas), is in the minds of many like smoking cigarettes in public. You can do it but you'll be a social outcast, a member of a subculture with an unfortunate personal vice, pitied by some, loathed by most, and never invited to the best up scale cocktail parties.
I guess I'll just have to take a trip out to the UK and investigate this personally.
They are commonly found in rural areas where there is no Gas Supply. I grow up in the late fifties andsixties with a Ray Burn range in the Kitchen, it was always the warmest places in the house. Mainly burnt cook on it.
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If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
They are commonly found in rural areas where there is no Gas Supply. I grow up in the late fifties andsixties with a Ray Burn range in the Kitchen, it was always the warmest places in the house. Mainly burnt cook on it.
I live in London therefore I am in a smokeless zone by default. I burn low emission coal but also logs on an open fire. All of the pubs do this very openly and never get in trouble. Plus there are no smokeless enforcement officers that I'm aware of. Feels low risk.
I'm more worried about the smell and smoke giving us away in winter should we be in crisis mode. It might actually be safer to be cold. I therefore have lots of thermal protection for the family just in case.
I will be stuffed heating wise if shtf, living in a flat doesn't give you any options that I can think of, what does everyone else in a flat have planned? I can't store fuel as it's against my tenancy agreement, although I do have camping gas canisters hidden in a plastic lidded box with a couple of camping stoves I got.
Behind every great man is an even greater woman. She carried you, raised you and made you who you are.
I suddenly had visions of alpha male throwing coal into a furnace a la Flying Scotsman! 
). BUT we also have an oil fired aga (one of ur neighbours runs their rayburn on coal alone) which means that side of the house is kept damp free and warm(ish). The aga is our primary cooking stove and also heats our water. We also have a boiler that can be switched on (electric) should we need extra hot water or when the outside temp has plummeted to shocking levels. Our house is detached and over a hundred years old. Good roof insulation and double glazed but we do 'get' the weather. We have a multi fuel stove which we run mainly on wood, but using coal increases the heat output significantly. I cannot stay in the room if we're using coal. It's too hot. Maybe coal is a european thing? Certainly some of the 'hi tech' coaly things are imported.
