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.
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!
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.
I was often in charge of lighting the grill when I lived at home with my parents, we used a hot air gun to light the grill, and it worked really well, we never used lighter fluid, just hot air, and during the process you easily see flames comming up from the burning coal.
Failing that, I used to be an active member of a herritage railroad with steam trains, looking into the firebox of a steam enging you clearly see the coals burning.
Where the fires were was around the North and North East of Scotland. Coal man used to come round in a truck, filthy black from the coal, load up the bunkers. I remember it being very messy, sooty, but it was less smokey than the peat fires, though coal didn’t smell as nice. There is something really nice about a real fire, though they’re not clean. I doubt many of any of those houses have now, gas came along and there was a lot of change.
I’ve done some blacksmithing as a hobby. The two most common ways of heating the metal are a gas furnace and a coal forge. The forge normally has some sort of forced air coming from the bottom to feed the fire. The coal starts burning real smoky like, but then turns to coke and burns hotter the more air you force through it. Typically you pile some coal around the sides of the fire so it converts to coke then you scoop it into the fire as needed. Also it produces a waste product called clinker that builds up at the bottom of the fire at the tuyere (the nozzle or grate the air is forced through). It’s kind of like stone or metal and it needs to be cleaned out to keep the fire going.
While growing up my family’s home had heating stoves capable of burning both wood and coal. While we primarily burned wood, coal would sometimes be used, particularly on nights when it was really cold out as it tended to burn hotter and usually burned longer than wood of the same volume.
Charcoal for cooking on a grill is most frequent and normal. (Yes, I know charcoal briquettes are not pure coal, but some do contain coal as an additive).
Because of schooling and work, I’ve seen it burned in power plants and burned it myself in a laboratory setting (comparing bituminous to anthracite to others). My sister volunteers at a historical blacksmith shop, they have a couple different demonstration furnaces and one burns coal. There’s also a steam engine demonstrator that runs on coal, but they don’t fire that one up very often.
When I was a little kid, so young my memories are very hazy, i was taken to see the sod house my great grandma grew up in before it was torn down. They used coal for heating.
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