i'd love to see those just for fun. i haven't run them myself because i wasn't planning to build anything any time soon.

My family is coming to visit. They asked what I wanted for Christmas and I said coal.
Of their 2 vehicles a VW that is useless in snow and ice and a f250 I know they would bring the truck.
They said they would load it up with as much coal as they are comfortable hauling which will be at least 1,500 pounds and haul it out here for Christmas.

I'm still going to go to the power plant and see if I can get my own coal. Then I will just pick another Christmas present.

When I was a kid my parents always threatened me with coal for Xmas if I did not get along with my sister.
Wow you are actually getting coal for Xmas.:D

I was bad.

Oh man the coal furnace earned it's spot during the February freeze.
Time to expand the coal furnaces role to water heating, glycol heat piping, closed loop air heating and hot air for the dryer.

Still working during the Apocalypse
 

Yeah, my wife was telling me, "Aren't you glad we didn't move to Texas"!

I just cut the old water mixer off my old HS Tarm. Installed one that works!
Found out that old people can't solder if there is a bunch of SharkBite fitting laying close by.
The problem is that Pex pipe doesn't like really hot water (over 180F)!
So, if I burn wood, I'll have to watch the water temperature, carefully.

I have a small supply of wood, and about 60 gallons of propane just in case.
I'm keeping the heating oil tank full, for the same reason.

I'm not likely to ever burn coal again, but the coal grate is still installed, JIC.

The oil burner is still used daily to make hot-water so we have been getting a fill-up every fall.
I have a feeling that heating oil isn't going to be cheap anymore.
The oil burner motor uses about 650 watts IIRC, so the back-up supply should be able to handle that for a while.
It would be nice to run if the sun was up and the battery was near full charge.
600 watts of PV would lighten the load.

Heating oil is a good backup. It's just too expensive to run all year, but when you need it you will be glad you have it.

Since we lost our heat-pump hot water heater, we've been burning oil to make hot water.
The burn runs are done on demand "Google, turn on hot water" when we have extra demand.
But, normally it's on a timer, and runs (15 to 20 min) in the morning (before work) and in the evening just before we get home.
On the weekends, it's 3 runs, morning, noon and evening.
If the boiler hits the high cutoff temp, it run time is less.
The new water mixer has less heat loss. (2 check-valves) A bit of savings.

At a burn rate of 1-gal per hour, It's typically less than 3/4 of a gallon per day.
So, a 275 gallon tank of heating oil lasts us about 1 year.
So far the really cold nights haven't really used a lot of extra oil.
The new mini-split works okay when it's extra cold.
The old Sanyo still works down to 5 to 8 degs depending on the dewpoint. :)

Nothing smells as good when burned as coal other than the mesquite in my smoker. I love the smell of burning coal especially in a locomotive.

Would be nice for the shop but wood/coal heat wastes so much floor space in a building.

As for the Texas thing. It wasn't as big of a deal as the media made it out to be (as usual). I was on my way back from Charlotte via Fayettville,GA and got stuck in lousyana for 2 nights because they have no graders to clear the roads and just close the freeways instead.

Our power went out the second night at around 10am. It came back a few times here and there and wasn't fully on until 6am the next day. The generator ran the furnace fridge and other stuff just fine. Our electric bill was normal for the month and our gas bill was only 10$ more than last february.

Austin and San Antonio were the biggest problems along with apartments. Very few houses here had any frozen pipes. Even houses that sat for a day or more with temps hitting -4 survived just fine.

I have converted the big generator to tri fuel so it's easier for her to start when I'm not here and no issues with fuel going bad in the carb. The generator was primarily for summer as that's when our power tends to go out and it's easier to stay warm than cool... Our local power lines here are all running over capacity since it's an older area and houses use more power now so fuses and transformers blow here. I get a warning before it blows as my battery backups kick in as the voltage and frequency dips.

My video of the generator conversion
https://youtu.be/pCoRNeoninQ

I added 64 more bags of coal to the stack in case the build back broke bill passes.