KA6 Coking up in the Grates

So here is the last ash pan I pulled. Just to give an idea of how the cakes look and how my ash looks. There is some unburnt coal there from having to push the cakes off the grates but you can also see lots of fines.

Wow! The average size of the coal is small to begin with, and it also looks like it has a lot of fines in it. Any chance you are at the bottom of the bin and into a pile of fines?

Get some coal from a different source, reset to factory specs and go from there.

Wow, indeed! My coal cakes are very brittle and contain very little unburnt coal

That's mostly Blaschak with some Mallard mixed in. I threw Mallard on top of it last summer. I'm going to pick a half ton up maybe tomorrow or Monday from a local guy that doesn't have Blaschak as the other guy does. As soon as I hit this garbage in my bin it's been burning like this. ..... LOTS off heat. .... I'll give it that. I'm going through coal like crap through a goose lol. I've bought 8.5 ton since last spring and I'm about 800# from empty. .... Not bad heating 4200 square feet and the domestic hot water for the house and apartment. Especially with a winter this cold.

While it's not likely other "contaminates" can wind up in a coal bin through no fault of the coal. Things like calcium carbonate can be a problem but the most likely is sand. Especially the high silica sands like are found in central PA. These don't really melt at coal firing temps just turn into a sticky high viscosity paste when at the coal firing temps. Because sand is fine it tends to sift down through the pile and concentrate in the coal fines near the bottom. I've known people to haul coal in the same utility trailer they use to haul sand, or to throw the floor sweepings on the coal pile. Over timeit builds up near the bottom. It does not take much. I see that you have been burning since November. Not sure whether the pile has been around longer or not. Anyway the point is you can make good coal clinker up if you contaminate it with certain real common materials. And its far worse with really fine coal. Good luck!

Sand I know isn't an issue. My bin is concrete and I sweep it and the trailer between loads but you make adn interesting point. ....I lightly hose my like. ... mist it each time I shovel to keep dust down and I'm curious if this bottom coal is that loaded with washed down coal dust? My stoker doesn't mind the damp coal do I never thought otherwise about it. Thankfully I've got the pirates rounded up yo make a coal vac do I won't have to do that anymore.

You just may be wrongly accusing the Blaschak...would not all the Mallard siftings move down and concentrate into the Blaschak's below...it ain't pure Blaschak's anymore.

That's true but I wasn't really a fan of blaschak but then again I went from Old Harmony to that so it's hard to compare.

I know,....send me over a ton and I'll run it through my KA6 as an experiment!

So far nothing has compared to the Old Harmony stuff though Direnzo gets talked up. I may just get 5 ton of blaschak delivered since my local guy is 215 a ton delivered. I'm thinking he was on to something with washing down the junk from all the coal on top. Live and learn I guess.

A neighbor of mine had a ton of rice that was on the small side and would cause clinker jams in his KA-6. My dad traded him a ton of buck for the ton of small rice. Dad's EFM ate the rice up fine, and the KA-6 liked the buck. I think the inclined bed stokers are more sensitive to coal sizing and ash fusion temp.

Rob R. wrote:A neighbor of mine had a ton of rice that was on the small side and would cause clinker jams in his KA-6. My dad traded him a ton of buck for the ton of small rice. Dad's EFM ate the rice up fine, and the KA-6 liked the buck. I think the inclined bed stokers are more sensitive to coal sizing and ash fusion temp.

Rob ,I had 2 pallets of very small rice , lots of fines and the 110 digested it ,just had to burn a little extra. I just started a new pallet and it is great , all from the same delivery . Those other 2 pallets must have come from the bottom of the pile or something .

I was getting, consistently, some pretty big coal cakes burning Blaschak rice. Recently bought some bags of Kimmel. Burns about the same as the Blaschak but is producing virtually no coal cakes, so far. The cakes never clogged up the grate, so it wasn't a problem for me. It's just interesting that the two different brands behave differently in the same stoker.