Interesting article. However it would seem, unless you're hell bent to use anthracite, using real charcoal would be more reliable. It is naturally low sulfur. Or you could build a coking furnace to make coke from either anthracite or bituminous. In blacksmithing you have to coke the coal (like making charcoal from wood) in order to get enough heat to melt steel. It is pretty easy to get to temperature with coke or charcoal.
I don't really want to get into cokeing my own fuel or making charcoal. Be nice if I could just find a supplier for the coke. Not sure if I would build the cupola at all, but if I wanted to go deeper down the iron rabbit hole then the cupola would be the way I would do it. It would be nice to be able to use the anthracite since it is cheap and easy to obtain. I also read where they did use some hard low sulfur bituminous coal in cupolas as well but it sounds like it only came from certain areas??
ordered this book last night. I know I can just read it online, but call me old fashioned I would just rather have it in print... https://books.google.com/books?id=A...n you use bituminous coal in a cupola&f=false
I had not heard about using coal in a cupola furnace. That is a nice book; I downloaded it. It would be interesting to see how that worked.
No dishwasher. The dogs get the plates clean enough for most all our guests And washing my coffee mug just ruins the flavor for at least a month....
I hate laying tile!! my whole body aches. But it's coming along. @Jason those tile leveling systems are pretty neat. But the problem is that in old homes they can create more problems than they solve. My floors dip toward the center of the room by a couple inches. Sometimes you just have to go for it!! So I started in the center and tiled myself into the corner. Intentionally
Look at the bright side, if you ever have a big spill it's easy to clean up the puddle in the center of the room. Best, Kelly
I swallowed my marble when I was 5, I asked the consultant if he could find it when I had a colonoscopy 40 years later but to no joy so technically I 'lost my marble' a long time ago. Nice tiling Mr F certainly moving along
Ugg, moving day set for next weekend. Finally! Still waiting on the new pole building, maybe by the end of the month... Bought an older wood stove insert and fired it up to see if would heat the house. Did it ever!! Getting that liner up the chimney wasn't much fun either. So anyone else heat with wood???
When I was growing up in the mountains of western Maryland, we heated with wood. We had a huge furnace with a fire box about 5' x 3' x 4'. I used to fill it with 4' logs and it would burn for more than 12 hours per load. It was jacketed and tied into the central duct system so it worked off the main thermostat. Worked great until we had a chimney fire that cracked the liner! That kitchen looks awesome by the way! Robert
Floor looks great. I have seen several heaters that use wood pellets. Don't know much about the stoves or the pellets, but apparently it is easier than handling/storing than full sized pieces of wood.