Newly discovered hazard in coal smoke!
I recently discovered a previously unknown hazard in coal smoke and I wanted to warn everyone.
I was at a friend’s shop–let’s call him “Tom”–, doing some preparation work for an upcoming Guild class. I was using one of his seldom-used guest forges. After firing it up and working for a while I raked a bunch of the loose coal from the forge top into a nice heap on my fire. Within a few seconds along with the sulfury goodness-smell of green coal smoke, I caught a hint of a peculiar yet strangely familiar odor. Several seconds after that it went from a hint of an odor to an olfactory 16 lb. sledgehammer. I started coughing and wheezing. My sense of smell, which had been in hiding from my prior life as a turn-key and had just started showing signs of recovery, immediately tripped all its breakers to keep the limbic region of my brain from imploding. “Tom” on his forge about 10 feet away had just enough time to start asking, “Are you alri…” before the stench was upon him. Driven by raw lizard brain survival instinct, we both staggered to the door and into the blissfully cold, clean air outside.
Tom, as it happens, has a number of outdoor cats. Some of them make rodent patrols through the shop. Now, you would think a cat that has lived outdoors its whole life wouldn’t know what a litter box is, let alone have a desire to use one. It must be primal wiring in their genes, however, as at least one of them thought the forge was its box and the coal large grained but adequate litter. Turns out cat urine doesn’t have much of a smell when it is frozen and mixed in with coal, but with the heat of a forge, it melts and then burns into a funk the likes of which the most delinquent of junior high school boys only dream of being able to harness into a stink bomb.
My trauma wasn’t over. After getting home, throwing all my clothes in the washer, showering until all my hot water and half a bar of soap was gone, and drinking half a bottle of “Febreze,” my own cats still gave me the look. Cat owners, you know the one that seems to say, “You know, I have never thought of peeing THERE before but, <sniff>, it seems to be the happening thing to do.” I went to sleep that night with the worry I would be awoken in the most unpleasant of ways….
Don’t let this happen to you. When using coal as a fuel, remember to specify the constituents: Low ash, low sulfur, medium volatiles, zero cat urine.
No cats were harmed in the making of this public service announcement!
Martin Pansch, Guild member
