delivery of coal. manual says wet is bad

titleist1 wrote: ↑

Mon. Feb. 04, 2019 11:27 am

I have found that rice coal when WET and in 5 gallon buckets does not dry well.

I wonder if you put some really small holes in them if that would help.

whenever i get a coal delivery i fill every five gallon bucket i can get my hands on with dry coal before the damp coal is delivered to my bin.

lincolnmania wrote: ↑

Mon. Feb. 04, 2019 5:57 pm

whenever i get a coal delivery i fill every five gallon bucket i can get my hands on with dry coal before the damp coal is delivered to my bin.

I was aiming to do just that but amazon messed up my bucket order. I ordered a 10 pack and they sent me one bucket.

What Richard S. said. Wonder if several poked holes in the bottom of a bucket full of coal that drains into another bucket would work?

Poking several holes in a corner of the bag and setting it in the top of a bucket after sliting the top open lets it drain, and while the coal isn't totally dry, it isn't sloppy wet or cause issues

I think I might be ok at this point, I had put in a bucket of the new coal and it has been burning ok. Also, I notice if I wrap my hand in a paper towel and push it through some of this coal it doesn't come out sopping wet, just somewhat damp in spots. That seems like a safe amount of dampness to me. There's no pooling of water in the bucket or anything like that.

Damp is fine and it sounds like you are there. The guy that delivers mine actually suggested keeping a spray bottle of water near where you transfer the coal, either into a bucket from the bin or bucket to hopper. He said it cuts way down on dust. I just keep a shop vac running when I do the transfers. Mine is wet when it gets delivered (August), but has time to get pretty dry by the time I’m ready to burn. I’ve heard about the oil coating as well, but never had it personally. Some say it can have a strong odor that gets in the house. Not sure on that one.

darnskewered wrote: ↑

Tue. Feb. 05, 2019 11:09 am

I think I might be ok at this point, I had put in a bucket of the new coal and it has been burning ok. Also, I notice if I wrap my hand in a paper towel and push it through some of this coal it doesn't come out sopping wet, just somewhat damp in spots. That seems like a safe amount of dampness to me. There's no pooling of water in the bucket or anything like that.

Sounds like its at a good level of dampness!

Iv had a load of wet coal drain for the best part of a week before the water stopped coming out of my feed pipe from the bin. If i let this wet coal into my hopper ,it will go through my stove and crack my hot grate. I had to spread the coal out in a mortar mixing tub to let it dry before i dumped it into the hopper. Normally i get all my coal in the fall before he heating season and it has time to dry before the heating season.

Any reclaimed anthracite coal or mined anthracite will probably have oil residue from any hydraulic oil leaks coming from the mining machinery used to mine it. The water that remains from it being rained on or washed will dilute it considerably when the weather is warm and the residual oil heats up from the seasonal heat.

After you get the pail order business settled with amazon you can start your coal drying by taking 2 pails and drilling 1/8 inch holes in 4 of them and then taking four bricks if you have them and standing them on the long narrow edge in the bottom of the two buckets and just setting the filled buckets of coal with the holes in them in the other buckets and letting them drain.

As long as you have at least one bucket of coal drying out you will have fewer issues with fines.

You can have 4 coal buckets draining all the time and warming up at the same time if the coal is frozen. The coal dust that remains will dry out and you can just spread it across the edge of the hopper filled with coal at the beginning of the next heating season and the stoker will not have any issues with it.

lzaharis wrote: ↑

Thu. Feb. 07, 2019 1:01 pm

Any reclaimed anthracite coal or mined anthracite will probably have oil residue from any hydraulic oil leaks coming from the mining machinery used to mine it.

Nobody is going to run machinery with any substantial oil leaks, any oil from machinery will be negligible even if it were leaking like a sieve. "Oiled coal" has mineral oil purposely applied to it after processing.

Mineral Oil is odorless, thin and clear.

In my past experience with undercutters and diesel scoops used in rock salt mining, the mine where I use to work used 1,500 gallons of 10 weight hydraulic oil a week some times as they only fixed leaks when they became major ones like a blown main hydraulic suction or pressure line for a diesel scoop or an undercutter.

Anything like a small undercutter on rails with an 8 foot bar always leaks as they use open center hydraulic valves that are manually operated and overtime the valve body spool seals are the first things to go bad since they are manually controlled with connecting rods rather than low pressure electric over hydraulic remote control valve banks that operate at 12 volts to control a valve circuit or hydraulic motor.