Do they weigh coal before or after they wash it???

Just askin'......


Sure looks like about 20+ gallons of water ran out from the time of delivery to him finishing.

Who know how much drained in transit!

I can't imagine paying for that water weight!!!

Thanks!

Ask them not to wash it... Trust me, You'll only do it once. After you deal with the dust and fines, you'll be happy next time to pay for the weight of the water. I've heard that some mines subtract some weight for the water.

20 gallons seems excessive. When running the coal over a screen with water before it goes into the truck it was able to drain out. After about 3 4 minutes you would tip it up and probably about 250 pounds or more would run out. At that point you might have another 200 pounds of water still in the truck but its going to vary according the coal.

It comes out of the breaker soaking wet and from there it varies by the breaker and the season. At Hudson for example at this time of the year it either goes onto the stockpile, into a truck if it's off the edge of the pile or into a special hopper for loading delivery trucks where it's washed again.

If the coal is from the center of the pile or off the stock pile where it tends to be more dirty the extra washing at the special hopper that removes a lot of small stuff will easily offset the water weight especially on larger sizes like nut or pea.

You can ask your deliver person about getting dry/drier coal off the stock pile but it will most likely have a lot more fines and dirt in it. If it's completely dry you'll need a hose to wet it down because you're going to have a cloud of dust in your basement thick enough to cut through and that is not an exaggeration.

Having said all that the water weight is accounted for and the cost will be averaged into every ton, if they were selling just perfectly dry coal all the time the cost would go up.

My delivery of 3 tons of Blaschak Rice was damp, but not wet. After the bin was filled, barely 1 cup of water dripped out thru the bottom.

I think its what ever the market allows. If the general public is used to buying a barrell of water with 3 apples in it with no complaints then lets try two apples next year maybe we will have to go back to 3 or maybe we can try one apple the year after? What are they selling apples or water? Brian

26Weeks wrote:I think its what ever the market allows. If the general public is used to buying a barrell of water with 3 apples in it with no complaints then lets try two apples next year maybe we will have to go back to 3 or maybe we can try one apple the year after? What are they selling apples or water? Brian

When you're going through a dealer that is coming right from the breaker they are going to do what they can get as much water out of it as possible. If you're paying for water so are they in a sense. Certainly you don't want a lot of water pouring out of the truck when you get to the house because then you get "the look".

Again the amount will vary, besides as described above the water weigth being offset by the removal of fine dirt and dust It also retains less when you drain it out the cleaner it is. Think of it if you had gravel, the water will run right through it. Now consider if that gravel has a lot of dirt in it. It's the same with the coal, those fine particles will retain lots of water.

While on the topic easy way to tell how clean a delivery is look at the water draining out. If it comes out clear or even slightly clear its about as clean as it's going to get

Last year while waiting for my 22 ton delivery I called the driver and he was at the breaker letting water drain,at delivery he also told me the breaker subtracted a little weight to compensate for water.No noticable runoff at delivery and the coal was damp,about 3 hours from breaker. RichB