Coal versus propane: I spent a year with each and coal wins every time

I started forging with a propane forge because everyone said it was cleaner and easier. After six months I was tired of the inconsistent heat and the cost of refilling those tanks. Switched to a coal forge last spring and wish I had done it sooner. The fire is more work to manage, sure, but I get way better control over the heat zones and it costs me about $40 a month in coal versus $80 for propane. Anyone here ever make the switch and end up going back to gas?

3 comments

3 Comments

jennifer96511d ago

What kind of coal are you running? I tried that anthracite stuff once and it was like trying to light wet concrete. Had to switch to bituminous and then it was a whole different ballgame, but the smoke drove my neighbors crazy. Ended up building a little shed just for the forge so they wouldn't see the smoke rolling out.

price.tara11d agoMost Upvoted

Three sheds and two noise complaints later, @jennifer965, I'm starting to think the real forge was the one I built in my own head. My bituminous setup looks like a post-apocalyptic chimney out back, but at least the neighbors stopped knocking.

jessicaflores11d ago

Man I gotta disagree hard here. Anthracite is the way to go if you know what you're doing. Took me a week to figure out the draft right but once I did it burns forever with almost no smoke. Bituminous is just messy and loud with all that popping. I set up a simple pipe setup for airflow and my anthracite forge runs clean enough that my neighbor's wife asked if I even used coal. Plus it's way cheaper in the long run since you use less. The smoke you had was probably from wet coal or bad draft control.