Re: possible to buy coal?
 

About 5 or 6km East of Turis towards Valencia, near the Godelleta and Monserrat junctions.
Maybe you are in the Cana Par region.

At present perched on a freezing windswept hill-top in N.E.England.
Apart from the last few days, had snow here since the last week of Oct.
Look forward to getting back down there and enjoying a few fresh oranges straight of the tree in the garden.
Missed out on all the other fruit due to problems here causing delay, so my friendly Spanish neighbour will no doubt have enjoyed the rest of it.

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

Thats right , we are not far from Canyapa ..we are on Altury.:unsure:

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

OK, a couple of misconceptions here.

A fuel can only give out so much heat. Correct useage will maximise that. Wood is a fast fuel, coal is a slow fuel. In order to maximise heat output, coal needs to be held up and the ash allowed to fall away. Failure to do this makes the coal burn slower, and the bars to burn out. Wood is a fast fuel, and if held up on bars, with the ash falling away, it will burn more to flame, and flames send smost all their heat up the chimney. If you don't believe me, see the difference between holding your fingers to the side of a candle flame, or above it. Wood needs to burn more smothered in its ash in order to give out more heat. In an open fire, radiant heat is effectively all the heat you get from the fuel, and you get that more from coal and embers. Flames may look pretty but are very extravagent. If the grate has a lot of bars between you and the coals, then again, that will reduce heat output.

Mixing wood and coal risks you getting the worst of both worlds, as the wood will be more likely to burn to give flames, and the coal will be smothered by the wood ash.

If you cannot get a good fire from wood, trust me you are doing something very, very wrong. Damp fuel is one of the commonest reasons. A damp log can hold a lot of water, and a lot of the energy from the other logs will go towards driving all that water out, which reduces the heat available to warm the room. Remember that that water has to undergo a phase change which is horrendously expensive wrto energy.

A phase change is when water changes from ice to liquid, or from liquid to steam. Consider this. Put a cupful of water into a saucepan, bring it to the boil and time how long that takes. Now without altering the flame, leave it until all that water has boiled away and see how long that takes. That will give you an idea how expensive a phase change is, and, since a damp log can easily hold a cupful of water, how much energy is wasted through burning damp fuel.

This is why steam scalds so badly, and is so dangerous. When the steam hits your skin, it starts to cool, phase changes downwards and dumps its high heat content into your skin.

As for coke burning out a flue. It has little to do with heat, and more to do with acid. All fuels burnt put a lot of acids up your chimney. Carbonic, sulphuric, sulphurous, nitrous and nitric acids, plus a few halide based acids.

The sulphur based acids are far higher in so called smokeless fuels, and the nitrogen based acids increase with fire temperatures.

So, burning coke and other smokeless fuels will result in a higher risk of acid corrosion in metal chimneys. The heat damage is usually caused by a buildup of soot and tars from burning wood and or house coal, which is why regular sweeping is important. A chimney fire can do spectacular structural damage to masonry chimneys as they can burn at temperatures far exceeding that of the fire in the hearth, and it can also accelerate corrosion damage in metal chimneys/flues.

Anyway, hope that helps.

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

our living room stinks when we've used wood, plus i find its too dear to use, but looking at your later post, maybe i'm burning it wrong. But, still cant get away from the smell the next day. hence wanting coal.

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

OK, a bad smell means one of two things, neither good. Either fumes from the flue are escaping into the living space, or condensate is running out of an upside down joint and baking dry. That will REALLY stink the place out.

Fumes must not be tolerated. They usually mean that something above the escape point is restricting the flow thru the flue. This is dangerous and must be addressed.

The condensate problem can only be fixed by burning the appliance so no condensate forms (not always poss.), or else fixing the leak. This can mean ripping out the flue pipes and fitting them back the right way up.

Not, to be honest the simplest of jobs.

Changing the fuel ought to make little or no difference unless the different burning of coal to wood causes a reduction in condensate.

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

could it also be the type of wood being burned? we've not got metal flue pipes, this chimney is built with bricks. i was even considering a glass fronted wood burner with metal flue pipes as an alternative, but it didnt seem worth it.

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

I don't think so, to be honest.

With an open fire either the top is reduced too much either thru bad design or deposits that need cleaning, or the opening is too big. What is the size of the flue??

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

Problem is as previously stated that so much of the heat is wasted and disappears up the chimney whatever fuel is used.
My Spanish neighbour has a much more efficient system.
His log fire is at one end of the room and the metal flue pipe stretches at a slight rising angle,out of harms way right along to the other end of the room before bending vertically and out through the roof.
The pipe probably gives off more heat than the fire itself and the room is always piping hot.
Much more efficient than the conventional straight up the chimney and out to warm the night sky and the birds.
However maybe some of the ladies may object as its not the prettiest thing to look at.
Personally being a practical sort of guy I'd be more than happy with it.:D

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

Like so many things, that's ok providing he is careful to keep it clean, especially the bend where it turns upwards.

The danger is when someone else is running it, or he sells the property and the new people don't realise how dangerous it could be.

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

in the non-technical term, it starts pretty wide at the chimney (roughly about the size of the fireplace) and tapers to an exit on top of the roof of around 15".
the house was, as per many country villas, built solely for summer use, by a pretty wealthy valencian family whom we bought the gaff off, so, although the house has been built to high standards, i reckon this chimney would probably have been built more as a 'feature' than for actual use.
i really dont want to get into expensive repairs so its probably best not to use it - if you believe that coal will be no better in it.
ah well, in 6 weeks the summer will be on its way anyway!!

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

15" internal? If the area of the fireplace is much more than 9x the internal x sect area of the flue at its smallest point, then the fireplace may be too big.

Having said that, there is an interesting design feature on that which I have only ever seen in an Elizabethan chimney. It had a small pot, a big fireplace opening, but the chimney tapered all the way to the top.

Re: possible to buy coal?
 

we have just come back from almeria we drove and yes we took 5 bags of coal with us alot cheaper stays warmer .any one fancy transporting bit from england to spain .i will buyb it from you my naboghs who are spanish thought it was barbeque coal when they saw it burn and how hot it was they wanted some .