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OT where to buy coal in Kansas

fatboy

Aluminum
Joined
Dec 8, 2003
Location
central kansas
Where do you find a vendor for coal in Kansas? I am interested in doing a cost analysis to heat my shop with coal but cannot find a source. I am in central Kansas and would like to offset heating costs this winter. I am also interested in advantages and disadvantages regarding the use of coal for heating. Thanks for any help.
 
Do you have a stove already? If you bought it recently from a retailer, ask him about obtaining coal.

You might be better served to burn wood. In fact, you might find that a pickup truck and a chain saw would get all the firewood you could burn in a season -- legally -- from tree trimmers and builders.

Or, ask on one of the live steam railroader sites.

Kansas once had a large coal mining industry...
 
If there is an Amish community in your area, you might ask at one of their farms. There is an Amish farm near Berne, IN that has a hardware store and sells coal in quantities small enough to haul in a buggy. I'm not sure if it is for cooking, heating, or blacksmithing or all of the above.

Coal does produce ash and cinders. We had a coal furnace 1946-1949 and I remember Dad had to clean out the furnace and dump the ashes in a separate metal ash can for the garbage collectors.

I had a friend who burned waste oil from cars, plus wood, to heat his workshop.

Larry
 
We heat our 20,000+ square feet very well with coal and wood scrap. We have 2 stokers, one on a low pressure steam system and the other on a forced air system. We burn about 20 tons/year and probably a little less wood scrap. Don't really know how to value the scrap, but the coal is $100.00/ton delivered. The building is 120ish years old and not very tight. Not much trouble to fire a stoker. You do the math, and you'll find you CAN'T beat coal. Our last shop could use $100.00 worth of propane a day, and not be warm.
Try to use a stoker. They're much cleaner burning and more efficient.

Charlie
 
Could you buy a whole dump trailer load from as close as you can and sell what you don't need.
Might get yours pretty cheap that way.

Charlie
 
They covered it all.

Born2L* got it a little bass akward. Buy the tri-axle load, 22 ton or so, burn it next year and, if need be, the year after.

It don't go bad, like fuel oil and gasoline do. It's a rock, with a specific composition that allows is to burn.

If you go with a stoker, and your original post says simply that you want to consider "heating" your "shop", no one knows what your "shop" is, you may be just throwing a shovel full on the fire every couple hours, you will have to buy graded coal.

Nut or egg size to feed thru a stoker. Better screened, the higher the price.

Probably is cheaper, probably does require more work. Mechanics do most of the work, that is a wash.

Cheers,

George
 
I live in Parsons. I used to get coal down in Chetopa and Oswego. It came from Oklahoma and that company just hauled it to those towns to get it loaded onto railroad cars. That company is out of business as far as I know. I gave 42.00 a ton towards the end- way too much in my opinion. I was just burning it for fun, I usually burn wood.
The coal had lots of fines in it and I would've rather had lots of big stuff, but you can't be choosy.
A couple of years ago, the railroad here had a derailment at the north end of town and 6 - 100 ton loads of coal overturned. Coal everywhere. I drove up there afterwards and saw them hauling the coal off in semis'. I asked where they were taking it, they said it had to go to a landfill because it was an "environmental hazard"!!!
I asked if I could get some of it, and they said bring your truck. I hauled off over 10 tons of it.
That winter, I fired up my boiler with wood, got a good fire going, and then threw in 3 or 4 five gallon buckets of the free Wyoming coal. A few hours later, I noticed that the water temp was dropping in my system but the boiler was still in a "firing" mode. I opened the furnace door, and on what should have been a grate full of glowing coal was a blanket of railroad ballast (rock) smothering the coal.
When they were scooping up the spilled coal with the big Cat loader, they can't tell how deep they're digging, and lo and behold the ballast is picked up with the coal since it is covered with coal dust- it all looks like coal! Doesn't burn worth a hoot, though!!!!
Well, it was impossible to dig out all the rock from the coal pile, so I had a buddy with a skid loader come over and scooped up my big pile and I hauled it off.
Good luck finding a supplier. I have a feeling that there is actually some coal still being produced in Oklahoma, and with a little snooping you will find it.
 
I heat my shop with coal,960sq.ft.10 ft to the trusses,I am paying 200 a ton for antracite(sp?) coal,I get it from the Omish folk usally,3 ton will do it.
I know that does not answer your question,but I thought I should comment.
I start the season with small wood fires,then when the cold settles in the coal comes out,coal heat last (in my stove)for over 18 hours,so in the morning it is toasty just like I left it.
I belong to a coal forum ,it is call antracite somthing?but there are bituminous burners on there as well,if you search with proper spelling you will get data than you need,them boys and girls think of thier burners like we think of our machines,yep.
Off topic abit,but just yesterday the propane company came and took my 500 gallon tank and left me a 250 gallon tank,said i have been burning less than 300 gallons a year,they gave me no choice,i heat the house with wood,have for 30 years.
Buzzsaw on the back of the new holland,and being a shop rat,you all can imagine just what my splitter looks like,eh?

GW
 
Just bought 2 ton from Continental Coal yesterday. $65.00 a ton. Clean coal, they load it for you. Can't assure the properties as I have only burnt a couple of coal buckets so far thru my heating stove but didn't have any clinkers. Continental Coal has one mine (Lucky Strike) in Linn County Kansas and one in Missouri on V highway. The one in Linn County is east of Pleasanton, KS on Tiger Road to the Kansas, Missouri state line, north 1/2 mile and west in to the mine.
 
Just bought 2 ton from Continental Coal yesterday. $65.00 a ton. Clean coal, they load it for you. Can't assure the properties as I have only burnt a couple of coal buckets so far thru my heating stove but didn't have any clinkers. Continental Coal has one mine (Lucky Strike) in Linn County Kansas and one in Missouri on V highway. The one in Linn County is east of Pleasanton, KS on Tiger Road to the Kansas, Missouri state line, north 1/2 mile and west in to the mine.


How the hell is a 7 year old thread about coal the one that enticed you to sign up and make your first post?


Also, what is this "heating" you guys speak of? -- A Floridian... :D
 
I heat my shop with coal,960sq.ft.10 ft to the trusses,I am paying 200 a ton for antracite(sp?) coal,I get it from the Omish folk usally,3 ton will do it.
I know that does not answer your question,but I thought I should comment.
I start the season with small wood fires,then when the cold settles in the coal comes out,coal heat last (in my stove)for over 18 hours,so in the morning it is toasty just like I left it.
I belong to a coal forum ,it is call antracite somthing?but there are bituminous burners on there as well,if you search with proper spelling you will get data than you need,them boys and girls think of thier burners like we think of our machines,yep.
Off topic abit,but just yesterday the propane company came and took my 500 gallon tank and left me a 250 gallon tank,said i have been burning less than 300 gallons a year,they gave me no choice,i heat the house with wood,have for 30 years.
Buzzsaw on the back of the new holland,and being a shop rat,you all can imagine just what my splitter looks like,eh?

GW

Just looked up the values
24,000,000btu ton of coal
28,000,000btu full chord white oak
With wood at $240 a chord it would be 117,000btu per dollar... with coal at $200 = 120,000btu per dollar.
Yes... that is the site is correct with the output of each.
Would seem the coal price in Pinckney is a little high. Coal better a little than wood but not by much.
 








 
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