Coalpail.com Forum

Pocono what are their hours on sat.

No mensies cone nor heavy media separator was shone to me yet the new green McCloskey crushers were. Paul indeed stated that this years extraction was experimental and if there was enough interest they would install a full scale breaker next year.
I would be conifident that would include a cone and separator as well as any modern toy that would aid the process and profit.

I understood that blashack's hazelton operation was buying thier product but when they tried lowballing the price NA said no deal. Early this morn while it was 37* I decided today would be a good day to burn the 2 buckets they gave me to sample.

1/4 hod of cowboy charcoal dumped on 2 sheets of crumpled pocono record,came right to life with the match and within 10 minutes I had .03 draft and shovled 2 scoops of a standard fireplace ash shovel's worth of the new coal. It steamed for a few minutes and low and behold it lit off causing draft to head to .05 and bring out a few blue ladies.
Well by now the steel box isnt cold anymore and I pour on a 1/4 hod of the NA coal. in a few more minutes it too is blue flamin
I was being careful not to put too much on right now as I wanted the cowboy charcoal to burn off and allow me to better analyze the new coals ability and qualities.
In 45minutes time I gave the bed the rest of the 5gal bucket and tried to drown it out but as we all know and love, there from below came a dim and faint orange glow and before long it spread and then a blue one danced up. in short order the whole thing was blue flaming and the dwyer was bouncing at .10....

Yep so far so good hear. I didnt need a hearty shake-down at all yet but I wanted to see if I had a cement block in the bottom like the previously posted pics of this coal in a stoker. Nope no jammin clinks. Now I am burning throttled waayyyyy down I will add. Nice white powdery ash. A good handfed from what I researched will chomp most things thrown at it. I wonder how that nice baseburner of Wsherricks is makin out.

Saturday they are there till noon. I think they open at 7a.

So just as the chill is leaving the house at a good pace now, I get called into work and so I close the draft down low and leave for 3+ hours..... The test duties were turned over to the coal fire lady tender and naturally upon......

Returning back the living room is a nice 73* and that ole familiar coal warmth greets me. I figure now is a good time to give the grates a shake and open the air all the way. in no time there was good full glow and flames and the grate shook normal although it sounded crunchier than im used to. I was looking for and half expecting some grate stoppage but had none as of yet. This coal does indeed burn hot and well in my opinion. I have only one potential drawback with it in reguards to my set up and that is that it is more on the pea side of nut then the egg side of nut and I fear in the deep cold sub-zero, might not let enough air thru for my need. This open stud 102yr old cottage with absolutly no insulation and single pane drafty windows,will need larger sized nut to crank out the needed btu's.
The limitations of our storage bin might force me to wait till next year to buy this afordable heat rock for use in the alaska kodiak and the jotul507.

So 12 hours after I started this test I decided to take the other full 5gal worth (actually a tall one like 7 gal) and dump it all ontop of the existing bed. The kodiak when empty is capable of taking 120#... Again the orange went away and a short while later the bluest big ladies came out to dance. I just opened the ash pit door and gave a full swing bunch of shakes to the grate,in a attempt to "find" a rock and alas none were found.
As with any new thing, especially one thats over 50% cheaper than familar others, I went into this with a pessimistic approach.
That now has turned to optimisim and I look foward to hear other folks give thier experience with this product. It would be just dandy if this company could take this initial run of product and indeed see fit to step up to the next level required yet provide our family of black rock burners the relief of knowing theres a affordable source of heat . Thanks Paul and John and crew.

Fired the AA130 earlier in the week because of cool nights. Loaded a bucket of last years ash in and about 15 -20 lbs of my normal coal. Put in the 130 plus pounds of buckwheat/pea mix I got from NA. Fire off the unit and after it came up to temp and stablized, I put in a clean ash pan and leveled off the barrel over the auger with coal. I have run the past few days but loads have been light as the weather was warmer than predicted. I have been heating DHW and taking the chill off of the house in the mornings.

Proceedures are less than scientific but the only thing I have to test coal by.

The results are 116 lbs coal burned with 40 lbs ash produced. This is 34-35% ash. Some rather large clinkers spit out as well as various unburned material.

I do not know what my normal coal runs but will try to monitor it this next week. However, at $100 a ton, this high ash still results in about a 20% savings over $180 a ton premimum coal. Less if you get your premimum coal at a lower price.

I am curious as to how much ash my normal coal will produce with the AA runing at low loads. This next week may tell. Obviously, the coal is not burned as completely at low loads.

I plan to shut down the AA in a couple of weeks and fire up the keystoker burning 100% NA rice coal. I will monitor the results and post them as they come available.

Weather has been too warm for my friend with the hand fired to burn his nut coal yet.

edit - update 9/24/12 7:30 pm. Last 30 hours of cool weather and hot showers burned 81 lbs of coal with 15.6 lbs of ash. About 19%. I am sure I am at the end of the NA coal in the AA130 hopper.

I use a word of caution....I clinkered up like I had a slab of concrete this morning. Welp gotta work it through somehow. If you are in a pinch I would say try it, not good quality. Not putting down NA in anyway because John did tell me that the quality was lower than other breakers/mines. Just to low for me. Lesson learned.

One old farmers thoughts--this stuff might be great in my HITZER 50-93-- but my current supplier (BLASCHAK) at $240.00 per (NUT) is trouble free with no guess work. NOW, my point--if & when NA decides to upgrade & purchases all the needed equipment to do it right, that price will have to adjust accordingly. I'd rather pay a market price then worry about "it might, it might not" Nothin personal John, just saying.

Fred, at $240.00 per nut, what does that make it a ton?

A whole bunch. You know how them Dryden prices are---

Did another ash weigh on the good coal in the AA last night. Looks like I run about 19-20% ash under light load with the stuff I got from Sherman last year. I will shut down the AA this weekend and fire up the Keystoker on Rice. Results will be posted.

steamup wrote:Did another ash weigh on the good coal in the AA last night. Looks like I run about 19-20% ash under light load with the stuff I got from Sherman last year. I will shut down the AA this weekend and fire up the Keystoker on Rice. Results will be posted.

edit - update 9/24/12 7:30 pm. Last 30 hours of cool weather and hot showers burned 81 lbs of coal with 15.6 lbs of ash. About 19%. I am sure I am at the end of the NA coal in the AA130 hopper.

Are both these comparisons with the NA coal?

Lightning wrote:

steamup wrote:Did another ash weigh on the good coal in the AA last night. Looks like I run about 19-20% ash under light load with the stuff I got from Sherman last year. I will shut down the AA this weekend and fire up the Keystoker on Rice. Results will be posted.

edit - update 9/24/12 7:30 pm. Last 30 hours of cool weather and hot showers burned 81 lbs of coal with 15.6 lbs of ash. About 19%. I am sure I am at the end of the NA coal in the AA130 hopper.

Are both these comparisons with the NA coal?

No, I am running 20% ash at light load with breaker coal, 35% ash at light load with NA coal in an AA-130. Did not have a very big sample of NA coal for the AA.

You know and I know a AA with a light load you are asking for unburnt. I have my Anthrastat at 150 now because I had 3 outfires so far. Today I bumped it down maybe 2 degrees. Making any adjustment on the AA I usually end up with a outfire within a few days. My fault. Timer is up from 45 sec per half hour to 2 minutes per half. Aquastat is 190 low 230 high. That is normal setting.(Steam) This coal likes to burn hot and likes a deep fire. My house is at 80 with thermostat set at 70. It overshoots as it seems to take a while to blaze up then it burns hot as hell, I do get some clinkers (big as a pack of smokes) but nothing the AA can't handle with ease. Going shopping will add a few ash pictures soon.

I got a clinker about the size of a soft ball, flatened on one side. I was amazed that the AA could give birth to such a creature.

As previously indicated, I shut down the AA130 and fired up the K-6. This time it was using Newport Ag. Rice coal. Results are 89 lbs burned, 37 lbs ash generated. This weigh in of coal and as was slightly more accurate than with the AA. Based on these numbers I generated a whopping 41% ash. The as was reddish and stayed very granular. Very little reduced to powder. The granuals fused together forming a ceramic like matrix. It appeared to even expand as it burned on the stoker burner forming a very thick carpet of airy ash.

The test will continue this week. I will have to purge my hopper and try my buckwheat coal from Sherman to see if my ash results are consistant with the AA.

Again, I will repeat that these results are using conditions and scales that are not highly precise. (cheap digital bathroom scale).

I am sure the coal quality from NA will vary with where and how they mine the coal. I am not discounting getting coal from them because it seems to burn ok. I will have to calculate the current price plus trucking to see if the higher ash is worth dealing with. 20 percent more ash by weight will mean at least 20 percent fewer btu's.

I expect the higher ash will give some people problems as some anthony7812 stated.

Here are photos.

AA130 Ash using NA Pea size coal
K-6 ash using NA rice size coal