Ash Disposal?

 
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BrotherDave
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Post by BrotherDave » Thu. Jan. 09, 2014 6:26 pm

I use it to fill in the low spots in my gravel driveway.
Great for traction on ice and snow, better than salt.

 
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CoalHeat
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Post by CoalHeat » Thu. Jan. 09, 2014 8:10 pm

Merged with the already existing thread.
Ash on the driveway, ash in the yard, ash in the woods, I have it everywhere.
If you dig down about 6 inches around the house there is ash from years gone by. In one spot I actually found lots of burnable pieces, looks like it was nut size.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Sat. Jan. 11, 2014 11:07 am

Same here.

The first house here (front half of my house now) was a small two bed room "English cottage" built in 1866. It was expanded to a Queen Ann Victorian in 1892. Two of the early owners were the local coal dealers. Remnants of the brick foundation and cold air chase of the original coal furnace "octopus " still remain in the dirt basement floor.

Wherever I dig on the property there's unburned bits of coal in ash pits, along with pieces of rusted cans, broken glass, and pottery. They burned and buried their house-hold garbage in pits about two feet deep.

When I tore out the 21 x 32 foot wooden floor of the carriage house, under the floor, from foundation to foundation, it was a foot deep with unburned coal fines. Buried in the fines were a lot of old glass bottles, more house-hold burned garbage, and a woman's high button leather shoe. I guess they dumped the fines there to get rid of them from their coal business's silos across the road. I had to dig out all the fines to pour the concrete floor. It all got mixed in with the 22 tons of crushed stone that makes up my driveway, along with eight years of coal ash from my stove.

Paul


 
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skobydog
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Post by skobydog » Sat. Jan. 11, 2014 3:55 pm

I have a gravel driveway and spread some around where I had large ice patches. I could still run and slide across the ice. All the ash seemed to do was turn the ice a tan color.

I ended up sweeping it off because I didn't like the looks of it and didn't want to track into my house.

I think I'll just dump it over the embankment in my back yard from now on.

 
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davidmcbeth3
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Post by davidmcbeth3 » Sat. Jan. 11, 2014 4:21 pm

I just dump my ashes on cars of politicians that voted for that stupid gun bill .... enjoy, its "for the children"

 
Pacowy
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Post by Pacowy » Sat. Jan. 11, 2014 4:47 pm

skobydog wrote:I have a gravel driveway and spread some around where I had large ice patches. I could still run and slide across the ice. All the ash seemed to do was turn the ice a tan color.

I ended up sweeping it off because I didn't like the looks of it and didn't want to track into my house.

I think I'll just dump it over the embankment in my back yard from now on.
Not sure what's wrong with your ash. Mine is the best traction agent ever. We always keep a barrel of it handy. Wet shoes come off at the door in all seasons here, so tracking it in the house is not an issue.

Most of our ash for the past few years has been used to build up my brother-in-law's unpaved driveway. Before that we had an unpaved driveway, and used the ash for that purpose ourselves.

We now have a paved driveway in pretty marginal condition. My favorite use of coal ash has been in a custom "flowable cinder block" pavement patching compound. The right mix of portland cement, bottom ash, fly ash, plasticizer and tint has the working consistency of pudding and can be screeded singlehandedly by an old guy with a 2x4. And it hardens like concrete and has withstood all forms of weather extremes and lots of traffic. For under $80 in materials I generated and installed a couple of cubic yards of color-matched patches, instead of paying 15x that much to the low-bid paving contractor. :up: It's not perfect but is a giant improvement over the mess that was there.

Mike
Driveway Patch.JPG
.JPG | 513.3KB | Driveway Patch.JPG


 
titleist1
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Post by titleist1 » Sat. Mar. 08, 2014 10:06 am

If you are in the Lancaster, PA area and need a place to get rid of your ash, this person is looking for coal ash....

**Broken Link(S) Removed**

 
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Rice Burner
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Post by Rice Burner » Tue. May. 13, 2014 2:09 pm

I used a large portion of this winters ash to lay a bed for a flagstone patio. Mixed it with some soil and tamped it down works great.

 
gweedow
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Post by gweedow » Fri. Nov. 21, 2014 9:36 pm

I now put my anthracite coal ash in several white plastic bags, and leave for garbage pickup. I use maybe 3or4 of the bags a week only because I don't want the garbage pickup guys to lug up to heavy of a bag.

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