Coal Bin Pictures and Designs

It's not going anywhere with the tent spikes there. When I say tent spikes I'm referring to ones that are made for holding really large tents like the ones you see at festivals. You could just get some rebar... Steel and concrete, nothing to break.

Thanks Richard, looks like I will be looking at steel rebar and drilling it into the concrete floor. Now for the dimensions of the rebar, 1/4", 3/8" or 1/2" rebar? Any thoughts?

Freddy, I screwed it into the concrete floor after having predrilled a 1/4 inch hole into the concrete. I used 2 3/4 inch screws - 1/4 inch in diameter. So One inch to 1 1/4 inch is in the concrete.
Manny

1/2" rebar, it is the most common and available, at least in my area..

Greg L

Now your talkin'! What a great sketch Richard. Yup, 1/2" rebar. I see Lowes sells short pieces if you didn't want to buy a 20' length. Or, 1/2" bolts, 7 or 8" might work out less money. Hmmmm, maybe 7/16" bolts into a 1/2" hole 3 1/2 to 4" deep and some epoxy putty? Just yesterday I drilled some pins for interior walls in a barn. The only trick was to vaccum the holes before the rebar went in.

Following up on many of your suggestions, Freddy and Richard, here are are updated pictures of the progress of my coal bin:
Let me know if you can think of any additional modifications before I button her up.

Manny

Some pictures of the new bin $100.00 in the lumber, about 6 hours to build it 8'x4'x6'. 4.37 tons of nut for the 08/09 heating season!

Chabbo, That bad boy will hold a battleship!

Hugg... I might make the studs 16" on center.

Razzler... Lookin' good!

I finally got a part of my project 100% complete. Here are some pics of my new coal bin. It's 10' X 8' X 6'. Time to order coal tomorrow. The rice burner needs some food.

I started sandblasting radiators today. Screwed my back up pretty good moving it. The next couple of days I need to coast. I guess I'll start putting the manifolds together, clean and paint parts I'm re-using etc. Gotta keep moving, summer is almost over.

billw,
That's one hell of a bin! I would almost call it an addition to your home. How much coal will it hold?

Hey there, I'm new to this site,
Just wanted to share pics of my coal bin.
I'm one of the people waiting for the VF3000.
I have placed the order in June, but I'm afraid that
I won't see the boiler until next year.

Anyway, I've built that bin to hold about 4 tons of rice,
and today I've finished constructing outside bin to hold another
20 tons,
That should last for a while...

Dan

Thanks Scott. I have a tendency to over-build. The long wall is weaved into the foundation, the short wall has 6 pieces of rebar drilled into the floor and the first three courses of block are filled with concrete. It shouldn't go anywhere.

Based strictly on arithmetic it should hold 11 tons. Practically probably 9. I'll know for sure after I get a delivery.

Nice job Dan. 24 tons, you can never have enough fuel.

Bill, the worm should be as close to the ground as possible if you can lower it. You're going to need some kind of containment sytem like a 55 gallon drum especially if the worm is going to stay there. Without you're going to have to make an enormous pile of coal to get even a small amount that will actually feed.
---------------------------------

Dan, is there reason for the covering? If it's for dust control I'm not sure that is really going to do much. Make sure both of those lids are removable. If for example you were getting it delivered from a coal truck the delivery guy could just about fill that bin without even going in the house if the lids are off and its not a very hard delivery assuming they can get the truck near the window. If they are permanent you've created what amounts to a nightmare. Frankly if I got there with a truck I'd have you remove them before I put the coal in because it would be that much work to fill it.

I'd also suggest building up the sides next to the window. The delivery guy or even yourself will want to get as much in there as possible before moving it around in the bin, it's a lot less work to shovel a very high coal pile. Most of it will just slide by itself into place. You can literally move half a ton in bin like that with the first shovel... As it gets built up on the sides it becomes more work but you still want a very high pile.

Richard,
The worm is 8" higher than planned because I had to put the unit on blocks to get the boiler section off my cherry picker. I didn't have the manpower to lift the boiler section onto the base. One of the inconveniences of being a loner.

I'm not sure why I would need a drum. The worm extends almost 4' into the bin. There should be 5' of coal on top of the worm. As it uses up the coal I'll have to get rake it over the worm or get in the bin and shovel it. I thought about putting angled sides so the coal would get directed to the worm as the pile goes down. I figured I'd rather have the extra coal in the bin. If this doesn't work next year I'll modify it. I'm trying to avoid having to 'fill the hopper'.

Because you'll need a lot of coal to keep the pile high enough, you're going to have 2 ton of coal just to prop the pile up high enough to get coal on the worm. You draw a 45 degree angle anywhere from the top of the worm upwards, any coal on the other side of the worm is dead space.