Outside of a specialist delivery company (“high quality bituminous”, heh), I’d have to travel to a feed & seed store in the nearby farm country to buy coal for heating ($9 for a 40lb bag of anthracite). They’re out of stock, but it’s not clear to me if that’s because of supply chain issues, or because nobody ever actually wants it in my area.
Meanwhile firewood is super easy to get. It’s available everywhere, including in huge stacks outside our grocery stores. I can even buy it from my city at $90 a cord, but it needs to be split.
It is. I lived in a small town in a river valley some years ago: you couldn't open the windows in late afternoon, when everyone started to burn their dirty fires.
Actually, between people burning whatever looks wood-like and coal, I'd probably prefer the coal.
The model I’m considering purchasing has an actual catalytic converter in it, just like a car, to ensure combustion is as complete as possible.
It's 2021. Burning wood makes no sense from a global warming and certainly not from a public health perspective.
Well here in germany in winter time, you can buy 10 kg packs in allmost every supermarket. Probably a side effect of the still big ongoing open coal mining. But its gotten quite rare in comparison, when I was a child, it was common for many houses, to have coal in the basement and regular getting a truck for resupply. Now it is mostly for additional heat.