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A guy at the feed store said my coal was 'too pretty' and it stuck with me
I was loading a bag of bituminous into my truck outside Cedar Falls last Saturday when an old fella in overalls looked at it and said 'that's too pretty, you want the ugly stuff that clinkers.' I laughed it off, but then I got home and my fire kept going out because the pieces were all uniform and shiny, no real variation to hold heat. So what do you all look for when you're buying coal, does the dusty uneven stuff actually burn better for you or did he just have a grudge against the shiny bags?
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sanchez.sean19d ago
A buddy of mine up in Grundy County ran into the same thing two winters back, bought a load of that glossy uniform nut coal because it looked nice in the bag, and his stove kept dying down on him overnight. He swore the stuff burned cool and left him with a grate full of ash that wouldn't shake loose. He ended up mixing in some cheaper, dusty lump coal from a different yard and said the uneven pieces with a little slack in them seemed to catch and hold a lot better. The old timers around here always told me pretty coal is usually just washed and sorted hard, which strips out the fines that actually help a fire breathe. Course, some of that shine is real and burns fine, so it depends where it came from and how it was handled.
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