Garage Forecourt Coal

[dmr]

16 minutes ago, booke23 said:

 

Yes it should probably be called Ecoal 40 at a push! The other factor is while Ecoal 50 may be more green due to the greater biomass content, it may have greater potential to reduce local air quality due to the lower anthricite content compared to Ecoal.  

 

I also note that it contains petrocoke which is not so good.   A big concern that I have is what to do with the ash as coal ash is said to be toxic. Hopefully eCoal is better as the binder is molasses, but its difficult/impossible to get any info on ash quality.

[Foggy66]

2 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

It's a last resort for most of us, isn't it, but last night I thought I'd grab a "just in case" bag off the forecourt on the way to t'boat cos I knew I was a bit low.  £12.99 for 10kg of Cosilite (never heard of it) or £24.99 for 20kg of Blaze. Streuth! Last I bought was off Jason on coal boat Bargus, and he apologised for 20kg of Excel being 14.50! Imagine the local garage being your normal source - hardly bears thinking about. 

£14.50 😳that’s a bit steep. Last November my local coal merchant was charging £12.70 and delivery is free of charge. I checked just before Christmas and the price had increased to £13.60 but even at that £14.50 is still expensive. 

[dmr]

3 minutes ago, rogeriko said:

Right now 3% of our UK Electricity production is coming from coal fired generators.

3%   thats really good. Gas is now the more worrying fuel.

UK has done pretty well on its electricity generatiion, but we are failing to reduce our consumption, in fact we appear keen to increase it, and we do outsource our manufacturing to China which is cheating and might well turn out to be an economic and political disaster.

[MtB]

19 minutes ago, booke23 said:

 

Maybe they are rebranding it…but if you ever want to know exactly what’s in the coal there is usually a DEFRA id number on the back of the bag that you can lookup on the DEFRA website to see the ingredients.

And of course you were right…..I might try and find that thread later 😅 

 

 

I wasn't meaning to cast aspersions on your superior knowledge of Ecoal and Ecoal 50, I was just noting for DMR what you'd said! 

 

I reckon that thread was about seven or eight years ago. Or mebbe a bit less....

 

 

 

[booke23]

3 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

I also note that it contains petrocoke which is not so good.   A big concern that I have is what to do with the ash as coal ash is said to be toxic. Hopefully eCoal is better as the binder is molasses, but its difficult/impossible to get any info on ash quality.

 

Unfortunately as far as I can tell all manufactured smokeless coal contains petrocoke. The cheaper varieties sometimes have as much as 70% petrocoke. Generally the more you spend the more anthricite and less petrocoke the coal contains….the more expensive stuff can have as little as 15% petrocoke. 

 

Of course you can buy pure anthricite to burn which is a joy to use and handle, but it is a fuel with only two heat possibilities….not lit and flat out! 

4 minutes ago, MtB said:

I wasn't meaning to cast aspersions on your superior knowledge of Ecoal and Ecoal 50, I was just noting for DMR what you'd said! 

 

Of course…..no aspersion taken, and I wouldn’t say I have any great knowledge….Just that I’ve discovered the DEFRA coal website a few weeks ago and gone to town on reading it!!

[dmr]

2 minutes ago, booke23 said:

 

Unfortunately as far as I can tell all manufactured smokeless coal contains petrocoke. The cheaper varieties sometimes have as much as 70% petrocoke. Generally the more you spend the more anthricite and less petrocoke the coal contains….the more expensive stuff can have as little as 15% petrocoke. 

 

Of course you can buy pure anthricite to burn which is a joy to use and handle, but it is a fuel with only two heat possibilities….not lit and flat out! 

 

Tried it many years ago and just did not get on with it, but have a much better stove now, though still quite small. Ecoal is just so nice to use and very controllable and stays in well overnight.

 

I had done pretty well with my carbon footprint this year till HVO got hard to get.

[bizzard]

I've been picking up 10 kg bags of Braizier from ''The Range'' throughout the year ready for winter. It began at £3.99p a bag and is now, last week £7.45p a bag, still the best value around here. As for ash I think it;s a matter of the hotter the fire the more ash yer gonna get whatever you use, simple as that,

[dmr]

23 minutes ago, bizzard said:

I've been picking up 10 kg bags of Braizier from ''The Range'' throughout the year ready for winter. It began at £3.99p a bag and is now, last week £7.45p a bag, still the best value around here. As for ash I think it;s a matter of the hotter the fire the more ash yer gonna get whatever you use, simple as that,

 

Thats some hefty inflation. Do you have a Wickes nearby? If you get a Trade account you could be getting Ecoal for £7.20 and if you get the right quantity they will deliver free, and saving the planet (a little bit) too.

[GUMPY]

4 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

Wickes remains an alternative emergency supply.

 

I note there is mow no premium for the 2slightly greener" ECoal50, being priced the same as Blaze.

 

£10 for a 10Kg bag, but a rather better deal for 3 bags at £24, so down to £8 for 10Kg.

And if you have a Wickes trade card its only £21.60 or £7.20 a bag

 

[GUMPY]

Late to the party as ever 

[Machpoint005]

2 hours ago, dmr said:

3%   thats really good. Gas is now the more worrying fuel.

UK has done pretty well on its electricity generatiion, but we are failing to reduce our consumption, in fact we appear keen to increase it, and we do outsource our manufacturing to China which is cheating and might well turn out to be an economic and political disaster.

 

It was zero coal-fired until a couple of weeks ago.

 

 

 

[Peanut]

Homebase, do two 20 kg bags of smokless Homefire for £34.00, that's £8.50 per 10 kg.

Half a ton delivered worked out the same.

[Ronaldo47]

I understand that the UK's total contribution to greenhouse gases is around 0.8%, (zero point eight %), so the amount produced by burning fossil fuel in a canal boat stove is a vanishingly small proportion of our contribution. 

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

I understand that the UK's total contribution to greenhouse gases is around 0.8%, (zero point eight %), so the amount produced by burning fossil fuel in a canal boat stove is a vanishingly small proportion of our contribution. 

 

Quite. I also suspect even if the UK miraculously reduced its CO2 output to zero at midnight tonight, the economic growth so prized by governments all over the world with the resulting increasing fossil fuel burning would overwhelm our sacrifice in less than about a week. 

 

Happy New Year everyone! 

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

19 hours ago, booke23 said:

Ecoal - comprise anthracite fines (as to approximately 40 to 65% of the total weight), petroleum coke (as to approximately 20 to 40% of the total weight), bituminous coal (as to approximately 0 to 20% of the total weight), biomass (as to approximately 5 to 20% of the total weight), biomass char (as to approximately 0 to 10% of the total weight) and an organic binder or, molasses and acid binder (as to a maximum of 20% of the total weight)

 

 

Thanks for that gem of information. Until the Ukraine thing, I was burning Red at home, but I could not understand that if the fire went out and stone-cold I sometimes got a sticky acidic gunge on some internal parts. I knew they often use molasses as a binder so that explained the stickiness, but not the acid. Now I think you have told me.

 

FWIW, I switched to Excel for the time being because my merchant said it made less ash and the smaller size gives a denser fire. So far the ash claim seems to hold up, but I will have to wait for anther cold snap to compare with the one last month when I was burning Red.

 

[tree monkey]

36 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Thanks for that gem of information. Until the Ukraine thing, I was burning Red at home, but I could not understand that if the fire went out and stone-cold I sometimes got a sticky acidic gunge on some internal parts. I knew they often use molasses as a binder so that explained the stickiness, but not the acid. Now I think you have told me.

 

FWIW, I switched to Excel for the time being because my merchant said it made less ash and the smaller size gives a denser fire. So far the ash claim seems to hold up, but I will have to wait for anther cold snap to compare with the one last month when I was burning Red.

 

I've found the current blend of excel seems to produce much more ash than it used to.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

I've found the current blend of excel seems to produce much more ash than it used to.

 

I think when this was discussed previously it was established this was due to the 'Ready to burn' thing.

[tree monkey]

2 minutes ago, M_JG said:

 

I think when this was discussed previously it was established this was due to the 'Ready to burn' thing.

Yeah, I remember the thread and at the time I hadn't noticed any difference but this batch (delivered in the summer) is definitely more ashy 

[LadyG]

20 hours ago, bizzard said:

I've been picking up 10 kg bags of Braizier from ''The Range'' throughout the year ready for winter. It began at £3.99p a bag and is now, last week £7.45p a bag, still the best value around here. As for ash I think it;s a matter of the hotter the fire the more ash yer gonna get whatever you use, simple as that,

Why would that be, I'd think it should  be the other way, I assumed more ash equals more concrete powder. Anyway, it's premium for me, regardless of the name round here they are oval D shaped things. As long as they are dry and delivered promptly

Edited January 1, 2023 by LadyG

[Mike Todd]

17 hours ago, MtB said:

 

Quite. I also suspect even if the UK miraculously reduced its CO2 output to zero at midnight tonight, the economic growth so prized by governments all over the world with the resulting increasing fossil fuel burning would overwhelm our sacrifice in less than about a week. 

 

Happy New Year everyone! 

 

 

I don't think anyone is suggesting that any one country should give up its pollution - we all need to.

[magnetman]

There are two different smokeless fuel products called Excel. Well one of them has a + after it but some people might not see it.

 

https://smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk/fuels.php?country=england

 

The wide allowed variation in constituents of the product mean that the manufacturer can alter it within the specifications according to the best margin available so the products will not always be the same. 

 

Also the term "ash" is a bit of a misnomer with smokeless fuels. It will be mostly a non combustible binder added during the briquetting process rather than a byproduct of burning a hydrocarbon. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2023 by magnetman

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

22 hours ago, dmr said:

Burning any fossil fuel is not good, but most boaters have little option.

 

The Ecoal is by far the best of a bad lot as its part renewable.

It claims to be 50% olive stones though if you get the data sheet its usually a lot less than 50% Olive stones but does use a lot of Molasses.

I suspect its energy intensive to make it which is not mentioned, but I hope mine is made on windy days 😀

I tried a bag of Ecoal from off the coal boat, £20. And I bought a couple of bags of summat else, 🤷‍♀️ dunno what at £18 a bag. 
 

Maybe trying just a bag isn’t enough and I need to give it awhile to compare but I didn’t notice much difference from other stuff. 
 

Trouble with moving around it’s difficult to be consistent with a certain brand/type and have to accept what’s available. 

And everything seems to leave too much ash whatever you get. 
I did prefer burning proper coal with it heating up much quicker. 
 

I usually just buy the cheapest now. 

 

[dmr]

9 minutes ago, Goliath said:

I tried a bag of Ecoal from off the coal boat, £20. And I bought a couple of bags of summat else, 🤷‍♀️ dunno what at £18 a bag. 
 

Maybe trying just a bag isn’t enough and I need to give it awhile to compare but I didn’t notice much difference from other stuff. 
 

Trouble with moving around it’s difficult to be consistent with a certain brand/type and have to accept what’s available. 

And everything seems to leave too much ash whatever you get. 
I did prefer burning proper coal with it heating up much quicker. 
 

I usually just buy the cheapest now. 

 

 

We've tried lots of coals over the years, but I suspect that the formulation changes quite a bit year to year which makes testing pretty difficult. I did start making notes but gave up. I find Ecoal to be up with the better coals and better than most. We have quite a small stove and its easy to keep in overnight on Ecoal.  I also like it that Wickes will deliver for free in a van. The big coal companies use a big truck and that does not work here due to the sharp bend on the hill 😀.  

And now that I am almost a proper pensioner I do like the 10kg bags.

Ash is a problem. I wonder if we could sell it to CRT for gate ashing?

 

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

9 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

We've tried lots of coals over the years, but I suspect that the formulation changes quite a bit year to year which makes testing pretty difficult. I did start making notes but gave up. I find Ecoal to be up with the better coals and better than most. We have quite a small stove and its easy to keep in overnight on Ecoal.  I also like it that Wickes will deliver for free in a van. The big coal companies use a big truck and that does not work here due to the sharp bend on the hill 😀.  

And now that I am almost a proper pensioner I do like the 10kg bags.

Ash is a problem. I wonder if we could sell it to CRT for gate ashing?

 

 

how about your man fromHebden?

whats his prices now, don’t he occasionally deliver in a Land Rover?

 

I liked using him for delivery when I could afford to buy 10 bags at a time, £80 -£90 😂. 
 

He’ll deliver anywhere along the valley. 

 

[dmr]

12 minutes ago, Goliath said:

how about your man fromHebden?

whats his prices now, don’t he occasionally deliver in a Land Rover?

 

I liked using him for delivery when I could afford to buy 10 bags at a time, £80 -£90 😂. 
 

He’ll deliver anywhere along the valley. 

 

 

We are right at the end of his delivery range. He would not deliver for free but did not give a price. The wickes price really is good so its easier to use them. Will hopefully take the boat down to Hebden for a couple of weeks Feb/March so will get coal from him then. The railways have taken a lot of his yard back to make a bigger car park, but have built him a new big shed right at the far end.