A Visit to the Blaschak Breaker, Mahanoy City, PA

Coal berner and I met with another forum member (I didn't ask permission to use his name) at the breaker in Mahoney City yesterday for a tour that few can experience. The guys there are good people and even my wife could hardly wait to tell her friends about her trip. It was also her birthday.

Blaschak sells bagged rice coal from Maine to the Rockies, so there's no excuse for not having a stoker.

They go through great pains to ensure that the bagged rice coal is dry. I've heard some people complain about the wet coal in the bags, but it's because it's not kept covered in the marketplace. They really have a nice operation.

Every time I've went there they have been great to deal with. There coal rates up there pretty high on my scale, not far behind the deep mine breakers.

mike wrote:Every time I've went there they have been great to deal with. There coal rates up there pretty high on my scale, not far behind the deep mine breakers.

Yes it is Pretty good for strip mine But you havn't tied all of the deep stuff yet unless you went since the last time I talked to you if I remember you had one more to try yet Also for 165.00 aton
I will stick with The deep stuff for 130.00 to 140.00 a ton I can buy a extra 357lbs to 538lbs with the 25 to 35 bucks I will have left over But if that was my only choice I would burn it

i used Blaschak in bags all winter. every bag had wet coal. my hopper is so rusted up , I have to remove it. I will have to sand it all down and repaint it. how can water get in the bags if there sealed plastic?

ken wrote:i used Blaschak in bags all winter. every bag had wet coal. my hopper is so rusted up , I have to remove it. I will have to sand it all down and repaint it. how can water get in the bags if there sealed plastic?

there are air holes in the bag to leave the air out when they fill the bags also to help dry the coal what is happening is when the bages leave the Plant there are shrink wrapped with a Plastic cover over the top when the pallets get to the dealer he cuts the top off to get the bags off well if he does not covers it back up all of the rain water will soke up in
threw the holes in the bags so you will have wet coal tell your dealer to cover the load back up with a tarp or somthing to keep the rain water out I can tell you this the coal is dry when it leaves the bagging Plant they have a huge dryer to dry the coal in the 4 huge hoppers that are 4 stories high inside a building when they ship it out it is dry

The only deep mined breaker I haven't tried as of yet is Harmony and really I guess KImmels now that there working. I'm really happy with Lennings and think I'm going to fill my bin up to the floor joists with his coal this summer

It's definitely dry when it is bagged. I would get on the dealer about it. You could also buy a wrapped pallet.

coal berner wrote: there are air holes in the bag to leave the air out when they fill the bags also to help dry the coal what is happening is when the bages leave the Plant there are shrink wrapped with a Plastic cover over the top when the pallets get to the dealer he cuts the top off to get the bags off well if he does not covers it back up all of the rain water will soke up in
threw the holes in the bags so you will have wet coal tell your dealer to cover the load back up with a tarp or somthing to keep the rain water out I can tell you this the coal is dry when it leaves the bagging Plant they have a huge dryer to dry the coal in the 4 huge hoppers that are 4 stories high inside a building when they ship it out it is dry

Negative. I bought my Blaschak from a dealer that took it tightly wrapped right from a covered trailer truck and put it into covered storage. This stuff never saw a drop of rain from when it left Blaschak. Every bag I had was soaking wet and I would usually cut off a corner of the bag and drop it over a 5 gal. pail to drain. I had a least a quart or two of water accumulated over 1000 lbs. of coal that I drained. No way that's rainwater. That stuff was bagged wet as hell.

Either way, it's not a big deal aside from the drippy black water drooling out everywhere. The coal burns very well. I do have to knock down the coal in the hopper a lot as it's so wet it sticks into a big sandcastle and it will burn a gopher hole all the way down to the pusher block about 8" around and leave the entire hopper still filled to the top.

The water inside the bags could be from condensation. Coal has an inherent moisture content of 5%. Even kiln dried wood has a moisture content of 6%. When I worked in a deep mine, the limestone was completely saturated with water in the mine and the stones were extremely heavy because of the water in them.

I don't know for sure if it gets wet at the breaker, the dealer, or somewhere in between, but it is not just Blashack, all bagged coal can have water in it. I get mine as early as I can so it can be drying out and pour it into cat litter buckets with holes in the bottom before I use it. Sometime I will have water just run out of the bucket, other times it is pretty dry. One thing I have noticed is if it is froozen when I buy it there seams to be more water in it. Maybe the freezing seperates the water from the coal or something. I have gotten so I don't worry about it. I just make plans to treat it all like the bag was half full of water. I bucket a week ahead of burning in a continuous rotation of 12 buckets. When one is empty, it is refilled. That way the heat from the stove and the draining of the buckets ensures that I have dry coal to put in the stove. I also ensure that my coal is under cover as soon as I get it so it can start drying, or at least not get wetter.

coal-cooker wrote:One thing I have noticed is if it is froozen when I buy it there seams to be more water in it. Maybe the freezing seperates the water from the coal or something. .

The freezing weather will prevent it from evaporating. If as suggested the water is from it being left out then any water is going to accumulate over the winter.

I talked on the phone with my *local* dealer Blasckak dealer. (only 125 miles away) He told me it was purposely bagged damp to keep the dust down. He also said he has had complaints about it being too wet and spoke to the factory about it. He said they said they had some new help & blamed it on them for bagging it too wet.

How's that for third hand information?

I thought the idea of bagged was for convenience? It doesn't sound too convenient to be chasing black drippies.

I saw several pallets coming directly off the palletizer and there wasn't a drop of water on the floor.

mike wrote:The only deep mined breaker I haven't tried as of yet is Harmony and really I guess KImmels now that there working. I'm really happy with Lennings and think I'm going to fill my bin up to the floor joists with his coal this summer

Well Mike I would hold off a little on Kimmel just yet yes there are mining deep out there but they are having alot
of Problems yet and production in that mine is low How do I know this well I was out at Superior two weeks ago and a Guy that works for Kimmel was telling me and Roger about all of the Problems and Yes he was Buying his coal from Superior so that should tell you something also Roger got a call from them they wanted to know if they could buy some coal off of them they are not getting enough out of that mine to fill orders and I know that you know what kind of Problems they are havieng with that Machine in that mine as for Lenig Mike I have had a few bad reports from a few members about there Rice one a few months ago and one today what happend in both cases is they ran out of there rice and got some from another source and it is not very good very high ash content and lots of unwants in it I looked at the ash today Not
looking good But I have not had any bad reports on any of there other size so Being you burn buck you should be OK also Mike When you do go to UAE Harmony mine & burn some of it I will bet you Mike your bin will be filled with UAE and not lenig

europachris wrote:

coal berner wrote: there are air holes in the bag to leave the air out when they fill the bags also to help dry the coal what is happening is when the bages leave the Plant there are shrink wrapped with a Plastic cover over the top when the pallets get to the dealer he cuts the top off to get the bags off well if he does not covers it back up all of the rain water will soke up in
threw the holes in the bags so you will have wet coal tell your dealer to cover the load back up with a tarp or somthing to keep the rain water out I can tell you this the coal is dry when it leaves the bagging Plant they have a huge dryer to dry the coal in the 4 huge hoppers that are 4 stories high inside a building when they ship it out it is dry

Negative. I bought my Blaschak from a dealer that took it tightly wrapped right from a covered trailer truck and put it into covered storage. This stuff never saw a drop of rain from when it left Blaschak. Every bag I had was soaking wet and I would usually cut off a corner of the bag and drop it over a 5 gal. pail to drain. I had a least a quart or two of water accumulated over 1000 lbs. of coal that I drained. No way that's rainwater. That stuff was bagged wet as hell.

Either way, it's not a big deal aside from the drippy black water drooling out everywhere. The coal burns very well. I do have to knock down the coal in the hopper a lot as it's so wet it sticks into a big sandcastle and it will burn a gopher hole all the way down to the pusher block about 8" around and leave the entire hopper still filled to the top.

Well I will say this if you are coming down to the tour I will take you Right to the Bagging Plant and you will see for yourself that the coal is Dry when it goes into the bags and onto the Pallets