Ludrol,
@Ludrol@szmer.info avatar

Yes, I have coal furnace + boiler as a central heating installation.

agent_flounder,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

No, but this topic sent me down a rabbit hole briefly.

You may have heard of the Marshall Fire in Boulder, Colorado that burned 1000 homes and killed two people within the city in 2021.

In the area of the point of ignition of this wildfire, an underground coal fire has been known to be burning for the past 150 years. As far as I know they still haven’t ruled it out as a possible cause.

CaptainBlagbird,
@CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.world avatar

They didn’t start the fire, it was always burning 🎶

MonkeyBoyLX,

Yep. Grew up in a house with a wood stove as the only source of heat, and my parents would occasionally use some coal in it. Dad also had a coal forge for hobby blacksmithing.

Wodge,
@Wodge@lemmy.world avatar

Yes. Am Welsh. Coal fires are still pretty common in the South Wales valleys. My Grandfather still gets free coal deliveries every other month due to his time working in the pits.

kaffiene,

Omg they’re not phasing it out? jfc

Mamertine,

As in part off his pension is free coal for life?

Wodge,
@Wodge@lemmy.world avatar

Could ever have a lump sum or coal for life, he picked the coal as the cash payout was around £5000, which would cover the coal cost for about 3 years at the time. He’s been having that for over 30 years at this point, pretty good deal!

SubArcticTundra,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Coal stoves are still sometimes the principal source of heat for rural houses in Eastern Europe. They are slowly being phased out though.

tal, (edited )
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

There are apparently a few people here and there who still use it. I remember reading some article about a guy in the US who preferred it.

googles

npr.org/…/for-the-few-who-heat-homes-with-coal-it…

Every few weeks, John Ord does something unusual for most people living in 2019 — he stops by a local hardware store in rural northeastern Pennsylvania to buy coal to heat his home.

Ord’s coal-burning stove burns 24 hours a day when it’s cold. He likes the constant heat it gives off and says it’s cheaper than his other options — oil and electric.

trolololol,

What’s the difference?

Honytawk, (edited )

One you can mine from the ground.

The other you get by smelting oak logs in a furnace

xigoi,
@xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

You can also get the former by killing wither skeletons, making it a renewable resource.

someguy3,

Coal is mined out of the ground.

Charcoal is wood that has been super heated to remove the water.

lemmefixdat4u,

Charcoal is wood that has been heated above combustion temperature without oxygen. That does drive off water, but it also chemically decomposes the lignin and other organics into primarily carbon while creating a volatile mixture of gasses known as woodgas.

Source: Have a woodgas generator. Byproduct is charcoal.

Zonetrooper,
@Zonetrooper@lemmy.world avatar

In a steam locomotive, but a scale model one that was ridden on instead of in. It was actually pretty cool; they still hand-stoked the firebox and everything, just… really small.

someguy3,

I rode one of those but it must have been gas or diesel.

thedeadwalking4242,

I lived in wv, you find chunks of it out in the ground sometimes. I was a curious kid and tried to get some to light. It was real low quality though so it burnt like shit

kaffiene,

Yes. In a fire. Why?

Jaybob32, (edited )

Yes. On a camping trip. At one end of the lake is the remains of an old WWII POW camp. There were at the time some small piles of coal. We took a couple of pieces and burned it in a camp fire. Only because I had never seen coal burn before.

perplexity.ai/…/White-otter-Lake-lnJZ4ycdSKOAmJ2U…

Rocketpoweredgorilla,
@Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca avatar

Yes. Used to build and install coal boilers for hot water heating systems.

dfi,

Here in New Zealand you can buy it at the Hardware store in 20KG bags. Older houses have pot belly “stoves” for heat, which are smaller then log burners usually, and coal is the best fuel for them.

ace_garp,
@ace_garp@lemmy.world avatar

Yes, in 1989.

East Perth to Midland train yards on the footplate of the Flying Scotsman.

The fireman was shovelling coal into the firebox, and it was one of the most concentrated sources of heat I have seen in my life.

Chainweasel,

Yeah, I grew up in a poor area in rural Ohio and we heated primary with coal until 2021.

Turbofish,

I’d never really considered that people might not have seen coal burn.

In Ireland both coal and turf are still fairly common as the primary method of heating. That said they are “trying” to phase it out.

someguy3,

Since we produce a lot of NG around here that’s what we use for heating. But we always used electric clothes dryers…

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