Coal For Cooking/Heating. Any Of You Lot Actually Experience?

[launderess]

All this noise about DT and "bringing back" coal had one thinking; it must have been a nightmare to cook on a coal range. That and or having to heat a home with the stuff.

All that soot, having to manage/regulate a fire, much less get one going sounds like one large pain. Then having to haul away ashes and finding a place for disposal.

Even thought of using a gas fired AGA range puts one off, cannot imagine using one heated by coal.

 

[wayupnorth]

I have a coal pot belly stove from a train caboose that was very easy to run. Start with regular charcoal, shovel some coal on it as it gets going good, fill it halfway, shut the damper back and 12 hours later, shake it down and put more coal in it. Once the temperature hit 40 outside, it went out when there was no draft left in the chimney. No worrys about a chimney fire as the flue pipe was cool to the touch as all the heat radiated off the bottom. Alot of work and I am too old to mess with it anymore. I'll keep my oil boiler and backup gas. You couldnt even melt butter on the top of this stove.

 

[mrsalvo]

Closest I came to coal heat was in jr. high school that was built in the 1920's if I remember correctly. It had a huge boiler down in the basement behind the cafeteria. The boiler had been coal fired but later converted to oil, in the 1950's. The boiler provided steam heat to the radiators, which was no easy task for a 3 story building. The radiators would sing and dance, as I used to say, made it difficult to learn and study with all the loud popping noise they'd make, and the hissing of steam. One of the older workers told me it was backbreaking work shoveling the coal into the furnaces, "hard work", I attended jr high in '72.
People can say what they want, but me being cold natured anyway, that was the coldest, miserable, 2 winters of my life. Attended jr high school in Missouri, after spending 3 years straight in the valley in California!!!
I digress, but does coal really have anyplace in our society now? Always thought of it as dirty, stinks, and all-in-all not healthy for one. I personally have no desire to go back to the 1950's, it wasn't always easy. I've moved on.

Barry

 

[askolover]

Daddy had a coal stove in his workshop when I was little.  He would buy big rocks of coal from the local grain mill of all places.  We would break them with a hammer to smaller pieces and stoke the stove.  It was very warm in that old uninsulated shop.  I wouldn't even know where to buy coal now. 

Vanderbilt just switched their powerplant's steam boiler to a new gas fired one a couple of years ago.  They even demolished the smoke stack so there's no going back!  They are one of the few places in Nashville that produces some of their own electricity.

 

[brisnat81]

I grew up in a house with a wood stove in the kitchen and a wet back for heating water.

In winter it kept the house warm, in summer it kept the kitchen like a sauna. The kitchen was from the early 70s and the cupboard next to the stove had a back door that opened to the outside to bring the wood in easily.

Ours had baffles/ regulators, you could control the amount of heat to the oven and the simmer side, plus you could control the amount of heat directed to the heating coil on the back of the stove. You could fry and boil and unlike an Aga if you needed more heat in a hurry, just put more wood on and the hot side is good to go in 10-15 mins.

The hot water tank was in the roof, cool water would fall down from the roof and then when heated would flow back to the tank via convection.

At night you’d close the flue and dampers and in the morning you’d usually have enough coals left to put more wood on and fire it up for the day. Mum dried citrus peels on the rack above to use as firefighters.

The hardest part was chopping wood and the messiest was dumping the ash pan. It was a built in kitchen otherwise, just with a huge piece of enameled steel in the middle of the room.

The ad I’ve linked is the same stove we had. You can see in the images the water heating pipes coming out the side.

https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/fyansford/building-materials/everhot-deluxe-204-wood-stove/1195487008

 

[gizmo]

wood stoves and coal stoves

I used to use a stove the same as the one in Brisnat's link. They were made in a suburb of Melbourne till the 1980s. Ours was a bit older than the one in the photo, probably 1960s vintage.

I loved cooking on it. It had controls for flue damper, oven damper, hot water temperature and air inlet. This bank of levers at the bank probably put a few buyers off the Everhot stoves as it looks complicated to drive, the rival IXL stoves were simpler. The range of adjustments made it really easy to use in practice, meaning you could still get a hot oven from a small fire if you adjusted it right. (or a blazing fire to heat more hot water, without over heating the oven, if that is what you want.) It has a lovely even heat under the pans, two hotplates, one over the fire runs hotter, one over the oven runs cooler. I also had a little wire trivet so if the hotplates were too hot, I could cook on the trivet to get a gentler heat.

there was also a pedal under the ash box door, stamping on the pedal jiggled the grate to encourage ash to fall into the pan. This was more for use when burning coal and briquettes, as they tended to clog up the grate. We only ever used wood.

The stove is still installed and we still own the house, a relative lives there and she isn't interested in using the stove, she has an electric cooker next to the Everhot.

we bought a reconditioned IXL stove to go into our current house when we were building, but when we installed the kitchen I changed my mind and we only put in a gas cooker, the IXL is still in the garage waiting for me to decide its future...
we went with IXL the second time as they are a bit smaller, and parts are plentiful around here as they were made not far from here and were very popular, and had a smaller firebox so used a bit less wood.

Coincidentally, Stephen and I have just today got back from a fabulous holiday in New Zealand. Coal is still a moderately popular fuel for home heating around the west coast and southern region of the South Island. We spent a bit of time there and I can assure you that coal burning fires STINK. You see a lot more black smoke from coal fire flues than from wood fires, and the smell is way worse. I wouldn't...[this post was last edited: 9/19/2018-07:42]

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

My aunt and uncle have a wood-burning stove used to heat their house up in Maine--along with endless cords of wood.... And which to my knowledge, had never run out...

I'm suprised to see in one post "char", next to "coal", when bags of charcoal I see warn (w/ the word "Danger") that "burning charcoal indoors can kill you", and at least starting in the era where it was finally okay, to cite that a product misused "can cause death"...

-- Dave

 

[washman]

never used coal

but I did find a lump in my stocking one Christmas.

 

[triumphdolomite]

My favourite Fish and Chip shop is in a little village in Lincolnshire where the fish and chips are still cooked in beef dripping on a coal fired range. Its somewhere I've been visiting since I was small and my Aunt used to live in the next door village, since she moved I only manage to get there perhaps once each year as its quite a distance away from where I live. The shop celebrates it's 70th anniversary this year and has been featured recently in one of the UK daily newspapers.
Hope this link works
Ian

Upton Chippie

 

[circlew]

I've never lived in a house that had a coal furnace, but several of my neighbors had one. I remember black smoke pouring out of their chimneys in Winter. One of my neighbors said how happy she was when they got a gas furnace in the late 60's - there was much less housecleaning necessary. The rental hovel I'm in had a coal fired boiler until the 60's, then oil until electric baseboard heat was installed in the early 80's.

Coal furnaces were not considered modern as early as the 30's. My dad's uncle and aunt built their house in 1936, and it had oil forced air heat. They could afford the best, so coal would have been out of the question for them.

 

[jeb]

coal heat

We heated with coal/wood most of my growing up years. The coal furnace sat next to the fuel oil furnace and had a blower that force the heat into the heat ducts. It was in the basement and very modern for the time (bought new in early 70's). Even with it being new there would be a gray film over everything by spring. Spring cleaning was a big deal at our house. Every curtain was taken down washed, ironed and put back up after washing the windows. Every wall was washed and rugs scrubbed. You didn't notice the gray until you started cleaning (my mother did but not my dad, brother or me).We when to the coal fields and hand loaded the truck. We also cut wood from our woods. When my brother and I move out ( and with that the labor force) they install a gas furnace. I remember one time the stove pipe fell out of the chimney and filled the house with black, oily smoke before we could get it put back in. My brother and I were called off of school and my parents took off work for a few days to clean up the mess. We had to wash all the clothes in the closets, all bedding everything.

 

[turquoisedude]

My grandmother in the UK still heated with coal until the late 1980s when my aunts ganged up on her and installed gas central heating in her house.  From the first visits I can remember (going back to the late 60s), grandma Cann heated the house with coal fireplaces. The one in her living room had a water back of some kind for heating water, so if you wanted a hot bath or water for dishes, you had to light a fire.  The slightest whiff of tar will send me back to her old house in the midlands.

Here in the land of the maple leaf, we almost exclusively had oil heat, except for one rural home that had a wood-fired furnace.

 

[xraytech]

We never had coal heat, but everyone in the family had wood stoves used as supplemental heat.
I assume my home, built in 1946 had a coal furnace originally as there is a coal chute in the wall of the porch, I still use that chute, but my coal cellar is now filled with wood.

Being in a rural area outdoor furnaces are fairly popular here, they are either wood or coal fired. I know some people with them who burn coal exclusively.

 

[wayupnorth]

I find with burning wood, you mess with it 2-3 times more in the same period than with coal. I wont bother with either now, just propane and oil, set it and forget it. I used to want to save some but now I am too old to mess with that anymore.

 

[launderess]

Thanks guys!

Please keep all these great stories coming!

Have never used nor been near anything that burned coal (or wood for that matter). Outside of BBQs with charcoal briquettes know nothing about burning any such things for heat.

Didn't know coal gave off a whiff when burning. Did know from my hobby interest in steam locomotives (that burned coal) that black smoke was a sign of waste. Well at least when it came to coal fired locomotives, but suppose that translates across the board, no?

 

[wayupnorth]

Wood waste is now turned into pellets for both heating and BBQ grills. Coal is still stinky, dirty and wood will creosote a chimney and start a chimney fire in no time. I am going to stay in this century with just oil and gas, much safer. I used that pot belly stove with coal in the back chimney of my last house and it would heat just fine but used a 50 lb. bag of coal every other day. I had wood here for a while and after the ice storm of 1998, when we lost power nearly 2 weeks, I had a chimney fire, even though I had cleaned the chimney less than 2 months before. Not messing with either any more. Sold the woodstove, put a nice gas unit in that heats as good as that did and works with no power.

 

[petek]

My nana's old house in Hamilton had a coal "octopus" furnace down in the cellar. I remember as a kid being scared to go down there. It was a gravity furnace with no blowers etc. I'd go if Lou, her husband went down to shovel coal but that was all. She had a new gas furnace installed probably when I was around 7 so about 1963 maybe before.

My great aunt in Manchester UK, also had like Paul described a coal fireplace, but in her kitchen with a water tank behind the wall for hot water,, There were fireplaces in every room but the rest had been converted to gas.. Not sure what the reason was the kitchen was left with a coal fire. She also had the coin operated electricity meter. I read somewhere those were for people who may not be able to pay (ie poor) but she wasn't "poor" and could certainly afford to pay a monthly bill.

 

[gusherb]

No experience personally, but Chicago used to be all heated with coal like any other city at the time. Instead of progressing to oil, they progressed straight to NG starting in the 1930s AFAIK. I honestly don’t fully understand why one would go to oil when NG was already available, like was done in most of the suburbs in the early 50s, those homes all had oil heat but there was NG supply for cooking/heating water. Those suburban dwellers all converted their heating to NG by the late 50s early 60s. In the suburbs some homes were built with gravity hot air coal furnaces as late as 1945 which I think had to have been ridiculously out of date by then.

I personally find the history and artifacts highly fascinating, but the idea of having to stoke a furnace or boiler at all hours and deal with the mess is not something I ever want to go back to as long as cleaner options are available.

 

[mieleforever]

We have bought a wood burning slow combustion stove for our house a few years ago, here everybody is changing back to wood as LP gas and electricity is very expensive. Thing is even if electricity were cheaper I would still use a wood stove, love the heat it generates at a fraction of the price and very romantic to watch the fire burning.

Regards