Kerosene Heaters and the Like

[Verily]

Coal burns hotter than wood and sometimes is available to buy cheap in your neighborhood. I don't recommend it as it tends to burn out the mortar between the bricks and its kinda dirty. But in this 1870's Victorian house I live in ALL the fireplaces are designed to burn coal (smaller chamber than for wood) usually you can put a heater in those coal fireplaces and use the chimney to vent the fumes.

If you live near a coal mine you can usually score a truckload rather cheap. (A little cheaper in the short run but more in the long)
I don't burn pine as it causes creosote buildup. Coal causes soot. Hardwood burns cleaner so long as its cured and burned hot and slow.
But yes, there is a fan built into our cast iron fireplace. We don't have the whole house connected to it. (It's a newer addition for this house) We have central heat.
But that would be great if it was. I've heard of boilers that are wood burning that heat homes....but you still have the ash and wood cutting to deal with. Not to mention the mineral buildup inside the heat exchanger.

A good set of carbon monoxide detectors are a must with any type combustion heating. They save lives....

Yeah, coal sorta sounded dirtier, made me think of is a coal train and all that black smoke, so I was like, REALLY? people burned coal in their house? Kind of grungy sounding.

I should check for a local supplier just in case, thanks

You know, I had found out they used to have a local dry ice manufacturer near us that went out of business, and NOW I'm thinking, MAN, I would so RATHER keep them in business but its just too late...

We don't have carbon monoxide detectors, might get a couple. Was thinking that was a good idea to have in the garage if we were running our generators outside of it for the potential of the fumes making their way back and so have some type of warning.

Its not a bad way to go I dont think, so I never thought about it too much.

 

[Verily]

I have coal in my woodstove as we speak.

What's it like?

 

[DuckieLady]

I've made quite a few different designs of small heaters and this is one that I made that works the best. The stainless steel kitchen utensil thing works great with a Crisco candle if you use a fat wick with it and not normal candle wicks.

I've made candles for a long time and candles will take the edge off the cold in a room but only raise the temperature about 2 or 3 degrees. Which was enough for me but not really very efficient. If you want to try your hand at candle making, it's easy to make efficient candles which have no odor and last a long time but not only that but expensive if you use good wax, like Beeswax. Beeswax actually cleans and purifies the sir in a room by emitting negative ions or something like that. The problem with Beeswax is, it used to be expensive. Now it's outrageous. but the candles burn a long time.

Crisco candles work pretty good if you use a 3/8" round wick to give a better burn and more BTU's. Don't try to use regular candle wicks for Crisco.

I'm not sure what size of wick I have. I bought some a couple of years ago for my oil lamps. Would that work? They're pretty thick.

I might try it out.

 

[DuckieLady]

I haven't chopped wood in probably close to 20 years.

Thank goodness

 

[Verily]

I haven't chopped wood in probably close to 20 years.

Thank goodness

I have never ever done it, thankfully

 

[JohnDB]

Yeah, coal sorta sounded dirtier, made me think of is a coal train and all that black smoke, so I was like, REALLY? people burned coal in their house? Kind of grungy sounding.

This house has 5 coal fireplaces. All with chimneys. The mortar is almost gone. It's not grungy.
If you burn coal you periodically have to have them swept no different from burning pine in a fireplace.

These days you need a catalytic converter installed on all new fireplaces to reduce carbon exhaust. And it needs to be replaced every so often.
Anthracite coal burns the cleanest and its the yellow coal that burns producing the smoke. Today yellow coal is not allowed to be used as fuel.

Burning coal puts mercury into the surrounding environment. (Not good) it leaves behind the gypsum which is what drywall is made out of. (The ash leftover after coal is burned.)

Which is why all drywall factories are right next to coal burning power plants.

 

[Verily]

This house has 5 coal fireplaces. All with chimneys. The mortar is almost gone. It's not grungy.
If you burn coal you periodically have to have them swept no different from burning pine in a fireplace.

These days you need a catalytic converter installed on all new fireplaces to reduce carbon exhaust. And it needs to be replaced every so often.
Anthracite coal burns the cleanest and its the yellow coal that burns producing the smoke. Today yellow coal is not allowed to be used as fuel.

Burning coal puts mercury into the surrounding environment. (Not good) it leaves behind the gypsum which is what drywall is made out of. (The ash leftover after coal is burned.)

Which is why all drywall factories are right next to coal burning power plants.

Thats really interesting, you know alot about this stuff, I now know who I can turn to for any questions on these sorts of things because I sure dont know about any of this.

Good to know, thank you JohnDB much appreciated, and God richly bless you in our Lord Jesus Christ

 

[rockytopva]

I hear there are 100,000 abandoned coal mines in Virginia alone. When out in the woods I look for signs of family mines in hopes of some coal. There are so much regulations that selling it from the house is pretty much out of the question. I like to buy my coal here and burn it along with wood... https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/premium-nut-coal

 

[Jay Ross]

The best way of heating a house/home where some form of combustion is used is indirect heating where none of the combustion products can enter the house itself.

Heat loss from a house can be from conduction of the heat through the walls and roof and if the house is a concrete slab on the ground, there can be a large heat loss through the ground as well. If the house has a wooden floor set above the ground, then there will be conduction of the heat through the wooden floor as well.

heat loss from a house can be from convection of the heat through holes etc in the walls and roof of the home as well. The heated air rising will find ways of escaping from the house through any opening that is available for the hot air to flow through.

The best solution to heating a house/home is gained when the house is built and not by retrofitting solutions after it has been built.

It should be remembered that each person in a house contributes around 200 watts of heating such that for every five people in a room is equivalent to having a 1 kw electric radiant heater in the room.

Passive heating of a house is one of the best solutions to implement when designing and building a house. Using the sun to heat brick walls inside the house during the day means that the thermal mass of the brick walls can be used to heat the house during the night.

Good quality blankets and mattresses will help to keep people warm while they sleep. Having two small children sleeping in the same bed will help to keep them warn during the night.

If you are renting a house to live in then your options are limited to what the Landlord will provide, and the problem is often left to the person renting to solve.

It all comes down to economics as to what the cheapest solutions may be. Using kerosene heaters in the house is not a solution that I would recommend.

Shalom

 

[Verily]

I hear there are 100,000 abandoned coal mines in Virginia alone. When out in the woods I look for signs of family mines in hopes of some coal. There are so much regulations that selling it from the house is pretty much out of the question. I like to buy my coal here and burn it along with wood... https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/premium-nut-coal

Did they end up backing off of their support of the whole LGBTQ+++ perversions?

 

[rockytopva]

Did they end up backing off of their support of the whole LGBTQ+++ perversions?

The state of Virginia...

The western part votes red
The eastern part votes blue

In November we will see that the whole state voted red... Until getting up the next morning and seeing the vote went blue...

 

[Verily]

The best way of heating a house/home where some form of combustion is used is indirect heating where none of the combustion products can enter the house itself.

Heat loss from a house can be from conduction of the heat through the walls and roof and if the house is a concrete slab on the ground, there can be a large heat loss through the ground as well. If the house has a wooden floor set above the ground, then there will be conduction of the heat through the wooden floor as well.

heat loss from a house can be from convection of the heat through holes etc in the walls and roof of the home as well. The heated air rising will find ways of escaping from the house through any opening that is available for the hot air to flow through.

The best solution to heating a house/home is gained when the house is built and not by retrofitting solutions after it has been built.

It should be remembered that each person in a house contributes around 200 watts of heating such that for every five people in a room is equivalent to having a 1 kw electric radiant heater in the room.

Passive heating of a house is one of the best solutions to implement when designing and building a house. Using the sun to heat brick walls inside the house during the day means that the thermal mass of the brick walls can be used to heat the house during the night.

Good quality blankets and mattresses will help to keep people warm while they sleep. Having two small children sleeping in the same bed will help to keep them warn during the night.

If you are renting a house to live in then your options are limited to what the Landlord will provide, and the problem is often left to the person renting to solve.

It all comes down to economics as to what the cheapest solutions may be. Using kerosene heaters in the house is not a solution that I would recommend.

Shalom

I heard Geothermal heating, where pipes are run under ground and the air moved through the home through some other kind of "who knows what you call it" system.

I know the guy who built the home we live in now was going to fully submerge the home underground inspired off a better homes and gardens house featured in one of its magazines in the 1980's. He ran into a problem with local zoning and so the house is only partially earth bermed (not fully as was pictured). The light of the home was suppose to come from the center of the home (it having no windows) but fire marshall (or laws or whatever) stopped this going forward, so we have one window per side of the house for this reason only.

It was supposedly one of the greener houses of the 80's. Its not so bad on heating and cooling but not something that is super economical. I should dig up a picture when I get a chance, its a strange home. Thankfully its in a nice wooded setting, like that haha.

 

[Verily]

The state of Virginia...

The western part votes red
The eastern part votes blue

In November we will see that the whole state voted red... Until getting up the next morning and seeing the vote went blue...

From what I understand they are located in almost all 50 states, unless they take their walking orders in Virgina?

 

[Lambano]

Do you have some way of ventilating it? Back in Colorado, every winter there'd be some tragic story on the news about a family that got overcome in the night by carbon monoxide poisoning from combustion space heaters.

At the very least, have carbon monoxide detectors in the rooms with the space heaters and on every floor of the house.

 

[MA2444]

I have never ever done it, thankfully

What kind of husbands do you girls have? Lol! Chopping wood is the mans job.

The only reason a woman ever chops wood, is if she wants to.

 

[MA2444]

It should be remembered that each person in a house contributes around 200 watts of heating such that for every five people in a room is equivalent to having a 1 kw electric radiant heater in the room.

Is it that high? I thought it was about 75 to a 100w while resting or just sitting around? And that's what? maybe 250-300 BTU's at the most? (I hope I remembered that right!. Either way it amounts to quite a bit of heat! I think if a person is radiating 200w then they're prolly working out?!

Which is why shopping malls use the air conditioner all winter long. With all those lights in the mall giving off heat and all those holiday shoppers too?! I remember a no cool service call that was a RTU (roof top unit) in wintertime. I had to change that blower motor in knee deep snow on the roof of a mall and froze my butt off in that cold wind!

Tip your furnace man! It's not all changing thermocouples, lol!

 

[MA2444]

I'm not sure what size of wick I have. I bought some a couple of years ago for my oil lamps. Would that work? They're pretty thick.

I might try it out.

That's the first thing I tried before getting some round ones! The flat ones work...ok. Not great but merely ok. I got better results with 3 normal size candle wicks braided together, but still not as good as the round wicks.

 

[MA2444]

Passive heating of a house is one of the best solutions to implement when designing and building a house. Using the sun to heat brick walls inside the house during the day means that the thermal mass of the brick walls can be used to heat the house during the night.

People can actually use a rule of thumb that will reveal to them how many BTU's per square foot is needed to heat a home. Now if if you google it you'll prolly read 20 BTU's per square foot, BUT! That's assuming zero heat loss and perfect air distribution! Also, depending on where you live and just how cold it gets affects it also. If you go with 20 BTU's psf then I hope you live in Florida!

I was in Colorado which is a cold state! You need heat. I used to use 35-40-45 BTU's per square foot, where 45 btu's psf was for an old loose construction house, and 40 was for average homes, and 35 btu's psf was for new tightly constructed homes.

Maybe you could heat the home with 20 btu's psf, but only if it's a super tight house and this is not good for construction in my experience. Besides, even if you pay for those upgrades in tightness, you still get the $10 hr guys building it. Good? Good! let's go to lunch! and as soon as you start pumping heat into the home, it starts losing heat through the windows, wall boards and everything.

I'm not gonna try to teach a het load/loss calculation because most people it would be too much for the average person. So 35-40-45 as a rule of thumb works fine. So say for an average house that is 1000 sq ft...X 40 (BTU's) = 40.000 BTU's, right? Wrong. Because the house is average and losing heat everywhere and not only that, but your furnace is not 100% efficient! If you need 40K BTU's to heat it then that's 40,000 btu's of usable heat in the home, and not the size of heater you need! If you have an 80,000 BTU furnace that is 80% efficient then it (supposedly) is putting 64,000 BTU's of usable heat in your home. (80,000 X .8 = 64,000)

The rule of thumb worked well for me, then I didn't have to break out the books (LOL!)...what is the R-Value of masonry brick on your house? What's the R-Value of wood? Vinyl siding? Insulation gives you the R-Value of it.. What's the area combined of windows in the house?

You see insulation does not trap heat in your home! It can't, but it can do more to slow down the heat loss than many other building materials. And you do a surface area of the different materials on the outside of the house and plug it into an equation and it gives you your heat loss (or gain). See what I mean? It gets deep fast! I love my rule of thumb!

And you know that in America, if they claim their product is ?? R-Value or whatever BTU Efficiency is claimed to be, in actual field use it never wuite adds up to what they claim the got (under laboratory conditions!) I never got to go into a lab conditions house installation, lol! What's that address again? But I suspect that if they claim R-10 for something, then in the field it's prolly R8 or something like that. So by just doubling the BTU's supposed requirement to heat an average home, it let's you leave all the reference books on the shelf, lol. So a 1000 sq ft house (20 BTU's per square foot) going with 40 BTU's per sq ft saves a lot of time and headches!

How many BTU's are those Kerosene heaters? I'm guessing 40,000 to maybe 60,000 BTU's? I'm guessing because I'm unfamiliar with many kerosene heaters. But I know about heat!

 

[MA2444]

Do you have some way of ventilating it? Back in Colorado, every winter there'd be some tragic story on the news about a family that got overcome in the night by carbon monoxide poisoning from combustion space heaters.

At the very least, have carbon monoxide detectors in the rooms with the space heaters and on every floor of the house.

I remember those! That's where I had a heat & air company. Those new tight houses suck! They do and they dont. They don't because most people dont realize how tight those houses are and wont get a CO detector or keep fresh batteries in it.

One lady called and they did have a CO detector which was going off during the day sometimes. I walked in with my detector and in living room I got instant high readings. Knowing the CO is from lack of air in combustion I went down to the basement where the gas appliances are located, and the furnace and HWH were both running...and the exposed vent pipes were frosted over!

I thought for a moment, they're back-venting? And it hit me! The fireplace was on in the living room. I talked to the lady and she said she used the gas logs almost every day, she likes them. Daddy would get up and go to work, and she would get up and go tur on the gas logs, and leave them on all day! This was new nice home so construction was tight. That fireplace needs so much air to burn that it drew the air it needed from the only place that it could...the water heater vent/furnace vent and so the carbon monoxide tracked from the units up the stairs and directly to the gas logs.

You can't run gas logs all day in a new tight home without cracking a window somewhere. You have to replace the air that is being used in the house. You can make it in an unused bedroom and even close the door if it's got a gap under the door. It will be the chilly room but you wont die!

I loved those service calls. Real easy, walking around testing and talking...saving lives.

But luckily she did have a CO detector, a must in modern homes. So she was able to call for help before anyone died.

Now don''t kill yourself while I'm at work today honey...bye.

 

[MA2444]

Do you have some way of ventilating it? Back in Colorado, every winter there'd be some tragic story on the news about a family that got overcome in the night by carbon monoxide poisoning from combustion space heaters.

At the very least, have carbon monoxide detectors in the rooms with the space heaters and on every floor of the house.

Did you know that the man who invented C.O. detectors lives in Colorado Springs? He was my customer! I used to buy his CO detectors that he made in his garage! Later he sold out to Nighthawk industries and they began making his design (so he couldn't sell to me any more ) But he made the absolute best CO detector on the market. It is sensitive and will alarm two different ways, either by a high level of CO over a short period of time or by lower levels of CO over a longer period of time. They called it the Nighthawk CO detector and as I understand it, Nighthawk industries sol the design to First Alert, so they have it now but did keep the Nighthawk designation. Get that unit, it's the best bar none.

You can get that model with a plug in and a battery back-up...and take it seriously if it talks to you! (Alarms or gives readings).