anyone heating with coal?

[Davey Crockett]

I remember, i think it was 1963, when one morning as i went downstairs my mother was telling my dad how nice it was not to have to get up to a cold house and go into the basementt and put coal in the furnance.
How nice it was now that there was oil heat with just a themostat to turn on the wall.
How nice it was not to haul ashes out from the basement.

And life was better. Maybe close to when we got running water, no more outdoor outhouse, REA and no longer a maytag gas engine to start to charge the 32 volt direct current system up in the house for lights. For me it was as nice as dad selling the 12 milk cows and then those worthless chickhens, a 806 with power steering and not a WD-9 with manual steering that I could not turn.

When the land ran out of rocks and no longer needed to pick by hand or pitch hay building a hay stack (however those square bales where no joy) A TV and the list goes on.
(You damed near wrote my early life story except we heated with wood in a huge kitchen stove and a oil burning free standing stove in the living room.)

Same here, Good stuff. It didn't hurt us one bit , Like they used to say in the oilfield if it don't kill you it will only make you stronger. We had a nice big drawz stoker with a big furnace that would take wood or coal, We burned wood when it was warmer and fired up the coal later in the fall or early winter. My job was to unload coal from the pickup and keep the hopper full . Used to buy coal from Porter brothers aka Dakota hide and fur. Unloaded it from a boxcar via an old dinosaur conveyor . Back in those days they used planks to cover the box car doors , They were like pallets are today , Pretty much worthless to most people . They were green and rough cut so they worked good for building pens , They lasted a long time and would bend like a longbow when an animal tried to break through them. When I left home in the 70s they replaced the stoker with an oil furnace . If the hopper was low the stoker would smoke back and fill the house and I got my ass chewed. You could always tell what kind of heat the kids had at home by the smell of their clothes in those days.

 

[LBrandt]

I made one promise to myself when I graduated from highschool and that was I would never ever milk another dam cow ever. That might be the only one I followed through on. LB

 

[Davey Crockett]

Um no.

I work for a residential HVAC service and repair company. The single most expensive repairs (and most problematic systems) we routinely stumble across are geo thermal.

Compressors need to be special ordered as nobody around keeps them in stock. Turn-around time can take 1-2 weeks, and longer during peak seasons. Pumps are the same. And lord help you if there's a leak somewhere. I think the theory behind geo is sound, and there's a lot of potential there. But long-term it's going to potentially cost you beucoup bucks, especially if you're not an annual maintenance kinda guy.

Truth be told, I think 99 percent of the issues stem from improper installation. When geo was all the rage 8-10 years ago, every swinging dick with an HVAC license (and some without) wanted a piece of the action. Well, you get what you pay for. We have a customer west of DL who had a company install his Geo, then went out of business. Now he's stuck with an expensive system that kicks out error codes like a Bismarck bouncer, and is considering starting over with a standard forced-air system and air-to-air heat pump. QUOTE]


I think the industry evolved so fast that manufactures were in a big hurry to be the first to the market , Sort of like the snowmobile industry of the early 70s. Thinking back, I remember one manufacturer bragging up their new scroll compressor then about a month later they were in the process of a unit "upgrade" that consisted of a rubber mat to set under the unit on because of vibration issues. I toured the Hutterite colony in SD hoping they were building a down to earth affordable heat pump but instead they were more interested in promoting an expensive all Stainless Steel cabinet. The most important thing I know of is to get ALL the air purged out of the system during installation and use good makeup water with additives and corrosion inhibitors.

 

[roosterfish]

What Duckslayer said. I know a guy who's pump has went out twice and took over a week get each time.