Canuck

What engine oil (and how much of it) have you got in there?

Alan, that's exactly what I was looking for, thanks. So it looks like: ECOAL (32,996)>Phurnacite=Stoveheat (32,809)>Ancit (32,326)>Homefire (32,275)>Homefire Ovals (32,077)>Taybrite (30,265) shows that all but Taybrite are within 3% of each other. My guess is that these differences are not significant, except MAYBE that Taybrite gives about 7% less energy per kg than the mean of the others. I think this won't keep me up tonight like it did last night. Yeah, I put that in there deliberately, assuming that inefficiencies caused by any particular stove would apply to most fuels. For the sake of comparing, I think you have to start with whatever figures you can find (given that they're the best lab results the manufacturer can produce) and go from there. Any guesses on how "cleanly" an old pot-belly stove full of holes actually burns would be welcome too. Out of curiosity, which diesel/kerosene heater did you go with? I'm seriously considering one, just for the convenience. In/near Cambridge, thanks for asking, and interested in just about anything to do with boating. I grew up on the West (wet) coast od Canada and have always been into it. Funny how quickly mu impression that boating is something you do at the edge of a country has changed to something you do ACROSS a country!

Hello. This is my first post, and I hope it's not too nerdy. I'm new to the UK, newer to narrowboats, and due to the recommendations of some fantastic people I met coming down the Nene, newer still to this site. Just trying to compute the best value for money/environment when I buy some sort of coal-based product for heating. I can find, as a rough estimate that anthracite will release something like 32MJ/kg of energy when cleanly burned, but lower grade coals can be as little as half of that (and wood, something like 5-10). So, to estimate using something like 30MJ/kg, I would get approximately (30MJ/kg)*(25kg/bag)*(1kWh/3.6MJ)=208ish kWh/bag. I have hunted around quite a bit to find out what's in all (or any) of the fancy fuels like taybrite or homefire, but can't seem to find anything. If any of you could shed some light on the compositions of these fuels (or at least their energy densities), I would really appreciate it. Obviously, being able to calculate the energy will mean also being able to estimate the CO_2 production. It would be interesting to know how much real energy/CO_2 you're getting/producing for each of the different fuels, which depends on knowing what's in them. Cheers,