Different Types of Soft Coal.What Burns Good for You?

you should give it to me

Berlin, I have maxxed out my primary (sort of opening the ash pit door) and secondary air and it is still smokey. From an engineering point of view what would it take to get a clean burn?

From what others have said this coal is a very unusual burning coal.I saw it

burned once in a fireplace and it burned with a very bright light and very

little soot,it needs a lot of top air and when it burns the coal kinda sheets

and slides apart with a lot of volatiles released and the air has to be there to

assist in the full combustion.I don't believe you can burn it in an enclosed

stove unless it is specially constructed to get the secondary air at a high level

to prevent the large amount of soot.

BigBarney

there's not much you can do to get a "clean" burn. any type of bituminous coal in a hand-fired stove will not burn smokelessly, you can reduce the smoke by having preheated secondary combusion air in an air tight appliance, but you will still have some visable smoke, and yes, you will have some little soot balls no matter what; if you have neighbors close by and they feel that a little good clean soot is going to be a problem, you really cant burn it in a hand fired appliance. the coal you have is worse than most bituminous coals because it's roughly double the volitile content (60% vs. 30% for bituminous) cannel coal is not meant to be burned in any type of enclosure and is meant for open fires only.

Thanks europachris, BigBarney, and berlin. I think I get it. Isn't ironic that alchemists never did make gold out of base metals but physicists made gold into mercury.

CokeHead:

You could try mixing it with some low volatility coal which would help

with the extreme amount of soot maybe some 17% vol bituminous

coal and extra above the fire air. I'm not sure but if I remember

correctly cannel coal is 60-65% volatiles and low in carbon but heavy

in oxygen,which doesn't give a good heat profile.The mix would be

about 40%, not too bad for a good burn with plenty of secondary

air.

BigBarney

I'm in the Johnstown , Pa area and would like to find where I can still get Somerset coal. I need a coal that will burn clean as I'm in an area where no one but me burns coal. Anyone know somewhere in my area that has it?

I want to see video of the user burning cannel coal in their stove That would be epic! I always wondered how dynamite burns in a stove too Props to the user with b@lls of iron
Vid Please!

raye321 wrote:I'm in the Johnstown , Pa area and would like to find where I can still get Somerset coal. I need a coal that will burn clean as I'm in an area where no one but me burns coal. Anyone know somewhere in my area that has it?

Country Coal and Energy Products carries Somerset coal in Nut and Run of Mine. Their number is (814)445-7255

So far, some of the nicest bit that I have burned in a hand fired stove is from Cobra Mining in Barton, MD. It's about 45 miles south of Somerset. The coal is very hard for a low vol bit, it doesn't turn to dust with a little bit of handling. It has a high FSI and it will bridge together, but it burns fine, with little smoke and soot, and not much ash. Their number is (301)697-3862.

I tried some low-vol bit (run of mine) out of the broad top field. It burns very clean, with just a little smoke when loading the stove. It will actually make any soot inside the stove peel off like anthracite does. The downside is that it seems to have a fairly high ash content, and while not as friable as the somerset coal, it doesn't like to be handled too much.

I think that's the same stuff Dungeonmaster brought me a bag of a few years back. I had an EPIC BOOM with it that fractured my glass. I liked the way it burned though. For the price, if I lived remotely close to PA I'd be a bit guy 100%. You just can't argue with $80/ton. I'd be rich!

SMITTY wrote:....I had an EPIC BOOM with it that fractured my glass.

I managed to get by without breaking any glass, but I had one puffback that was so loud, it sounded like a gunshot going off in the house! After that, I picked up the DS Basement #4 door, which has secondary air dials. I haven't had a single puffback since, and the stove smokes alot less after loading, since the volatiles will burn, instead of going up the chimney unburned.

I wouldn't mind having a stove like the one Berlin has posted plans of, with heated secondary air, but my fabrication skills aren't quite there

Be cautious with the recommendation of maryland high coke button coal. You've been lucky in your DS, but in most appliances a high coke button coal will be almost impossible to burn because of how tightly it bridges in the firebox. Typically, it's the single biggest negative to some bit coals and makes them unburnable in many appliances. The soot of some bit coals is far less of an issue if the individual doesn't have close neighbors. I would just be hesitant to recommend a high coke button coal to someone without the STRONG caveat that they try a small amount for a few days first to be absolutely sure it will be ok in their appliance.

Berlin wrote:Be cautious with the recommendation of maryland high coke button coal. You've been lucky in your DS, but in most appliances a high coke button coal will be almost impossible to burn because of how tightly it bridges in the firebox. Typically, it's the single biggest negative to some bit coals and makes them unburnable in many appliances. The soot of some bit coals is far less of an issue if the individual doesn't have close neighbors. I would just be hesitant to recommend a high coke button coal to someone without the STRONG caveat that they try a small amount for a few days first to be absolutely sure it will be ok in their appliance.

I had some issues early on, by trying to just pile it on. What I found works well, is to use the poker to push the hot, mature coals to the perimeter of the firebox. I'll dump the fresh coal into the low spot in the middle of the fire. Doing it this way, when the coal swells, it won't cover the 4 corners of the firebox, and air can still make it through the coal bed.

You're definitely right about starting with small amounts. I did nearly have an outfire by loading the whole firebox to the top of the firebrick, and letting it go. A few hours later I came back to a solid mass of coal, and it took a bit of work with the poker to get it broken up!

Im not sure this would work on all stoves but when we were testing stoves to burn candle coal they ALWAYS seemed to burn better, hotter and less agressivly by drilling a couple holes in the stove above the firebox (Im not telling you to all start drilling holes in your stoves so you can buy coal at $80 per ton) Im just saying it may help tremendously if your hellbent on using up a batch of this junk