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Hi,

If we want to stockpile some emergency black muck fuel, what brand should we go for?

More generally, does this stuff burn as well as wood - and are the running costs better or worse?

(Yes, our burner does have the grate add-on for solid fuel burning)

For emergencies, I would have thought Welsh athracite would be best, in calorific terms.

We've found that you can get a much hotter fire with logs than with coal, but coal burns more evenly. Plus we've used smokeless coal when we've used it, which probably doesn't have the energy density of top-quality raw coal.

Nasty stuff to burn though, environmentally speaking - but worth having some for emergencies if you have the space, definitely.

maybe not best but I have great results with it when needing to last out the wood is ; Focus DIY (Do it all) sell bags of smokeless coal that is great for our stores but even better they have an offer on this time every year ie pay for 3 and get 4. They are £4.99 each so 4 bags for £15 = £3.75 each per 10kg - I get some now and then. I dont know what 25kg would sell for from a merchant though Its 100% worth storing a good few sacks for emergency needs, after all it dont harm the environment one bit if you dont burn it, but its there as back up. But like I said I do burn a bit.

True what Andy says if you burn wood you get a hotter stove, but what I find with coal is you get steady heat all day, and you cna get the stove hot but it needs much more air from underneath. Also does help to keep the creoste down, dries it up a big time. When I burn coal I sprinkle some chimney clean product on the hot coals and shut the stove down (often at bed time) after the Season I get half a bucket of creosote / black stuff from a 7m flue, which is only a very thin lining of the dreadful stuff, one sweep and my flue is back to mint

PS also did have a half ton of Welsh Anthra given to me 2 yrs ago, awesome stuff, not much ash off it. Last a long time and best of all you can burn it twice. Poker all the ash into the fire (when out) and gather up all the cokes left on top and put in a bucket. Get your wood fire going and later throw on the coke

As MisterE says you need more air to burn coal and most stove manufacturers recommend the use of a fire basket. It gets the air into the coal but also takes the heat away from the fabric of the stove as the hotter burning coal can damage the steel and fire bricks.

Anthracite and Welsh steam coal should burn cleaner than wood. They are OK to use in smokeless zones whereas wood is not, except in the most efficient wood burning stoves.

I would certainly advise the use of smokless fuel, not coal.

In the event of any sudden fuel emergency, do you want smoke to be seen from your chimney? I feel that it could attract unwelcome attention.

I know of someone who has stockpiled smokeless fuel, to use instead of wood in an emergency simply to ensure that no wood smoke can be seen in any future emergency.

Until we switched to wood last autumn, we used general household coal with the solid fuel kit (grate, sides, back and firebricks for the sides). We found it burnt much slower than wood and gave off a lot of heat. After all coal has a lot more density and energy than wood to my knowledge.

From memory we got through less coal than when we had an open fire. You can also burn peat and briquettes. We found the anthracite and other man-made (you know what I mean) round/oval coals were nowhere near as good as proper coal. Maybe it was just poor quality stuff.

We tried smokeless fuel once - it didn't burn well for us.

snow hope wrote:Until we switched to wood last autumn, we used general household coal with the solid fuel kit (grate, sides, back and firebricks for the sides). We found it burnt much slower than wood and gave off a lot of heat. After all coal has a lot more density and energy than wood to my knowledge.

From memory we got through less coal than when we had an open fire. You can also burn peat and briquettes. We found the anthracite and other man-made (you know what I mean) round/oval coals were nowhere near as good as proper coal. Maybe it was just poor quality stuff.

We tried smokeless fuel once - it didn't burn well for us.

Cheers Snow Hope, I thought you could not burn house coal in them becasue they wipe out your flue?

Hey MisterE, we were never told that and I am not aware of that advice. But we burn wood now and I have heard that it can tar up your chimney a bit. This is our second full winter with the stove. Must get our chimney swept as it was last done just before we put the stove in......

Hi, I have mixed pepcoke with ordinary coal it really gets hot, but would not use pepcoke on its own as far to hot.