Does this Reading Nut ash look good ?

This last bag smelled like sulfur pretty strong and did not burn as hot. Had to open dampers all the way to see the blues.

What is all the colored granola crap? Does this look like the ash of a good coal ?

Burned in a Hitzer 30-95 hand fired.

Looks like some clinkers and other crap in there. Maybe some small rocks and unburnt coal too. My hand fed used to be mostly powder with some small pieces. What you have looks like it was not burnt thoroughly or perhaps burned too hot. Most of that stuff wouldn't make it through my grate.

What you have almost looks like hand fed ash with some stoker ash mixed in.

thats how my aa-130 ash looks, although it is not reading coal.

That looks just like the Blaschak pea/Reading nut mix I burn. The larger pieces just crumble into dust. Very rarely do I find unburned coal in the ash. Lisa

lowfog01 wrote:That looks just like the Blaschak pea/Reading nut mix I burn. The larger pieces just crumble into dust. Very rarely do I find unburned coal in the ash. Lisa

Those little unburnts are prolly from my over agressive shaking to get big pan of ash. This load also had more fines in it. It lumped together into a crunchy powder pile and I had to poke it to break it up so that the fresh stuff could come down from the hopper chute. It was not fused hard - just fused into a big pile and soft crunchy.

I guess if you burn enough bags of any brand coal you get the good bad 'n ugly.

Seems like you're over thinking this whole coal/ash thing. While I know some coal is better than others.....more BTUs, less ash, etc.....just try a different source next time and compare. Buy a few bags of "XYZ" coal and burn it to see if you like it.
I put the coal in....take the ash out....nothing but heat inbetween.

smokeyCityTeacher wrote:This last bag smelled like sulfur pretty strong and did not burn as hot. Had to open dampers all the way to see the blues.

Sometimes you're not going to see the dancing blue ladies at all but the fire is just fine and putting out heat. Do you have thermometers on the front of your stove and on the pipe after the barro? Those thermometers will tell you if your fire is burning or not regardless of whether you see the blue ladies or not. Some times the fire will look really, really dead. You will get the unburned pieces of coal in the ash if you shake the stove at this point to "revive" it. Check your stove/pipe temps and if they are running where you would expect then forget about shaking the stove. It’s hard but you’ve got to trust the thermometers. On my Harmon anything above 200* is a healthy fire. I found this through trail and error. One day you’re around just see how low you can run the air intake valve and still maintain the fire. Watch the thermometers. Do you have a room thermometer in the stove room? I have them all over the house - you might say I'm compulsive - but they also tell me if the stove is running the temperature I want it to regardless of what the fire looks like. As the fire burns through out the day, the red coals will begin to emerge after 10 or 12 hours and the blue ladies may never have shown up. That's when you refresh your fire by opening the ash door, shake it and reload for the next 12 hour block of time.

Coal reacts slowly to any change. I try to remember the Centralia mine fire when the blue ladies aren’t dancing in my stove. That fire has burned for 30 or so years without any attention; that being the case my fire isn’t going to die after only a couple of hours if I don’t do anything to it. Lisa

Don't know if it's the quality of the photo, but your ash looks to me like a gray color. The ash I get from Reading is beigey, mostly a fine powder (almost like baby powder) with a few granola-like pieces that crumble, like Lisa has said previously. Your photo seems to have larger pieces of partially burnt coal and unburnt coal. Seems like you are shaking a bit too much?

Lisa: My fire usually shows a stack temp of 100-125 and it putting our serious heat with just a small layer of blues.

I have the built in Hitzer blower on all the time plus a box fan behind it so the heat is washed off before it can show up in the stack. Ill get a couple more gauges for stove body and room.

So.. go by the numbers more than the appearance eh ? I have always judged a perfect fire by a perfect layer of blue ladies dancing on my bed.

Perky is probably right about the shaking. I think I powdered up my coal by vigorous shaking every hour in my attempt to get a full pan in a hurry so I could take a picture. Lots of unburnt chips in the pan as a result.

Im dying to get my hands on some Superior brand so I can see purple ladies.

smokeyCityTeacher wrote:Lisa: My fire usually shows a stack temp of 100-125 and it putting our serious heat with just a small layer of blues.

So.. go by the numbers more than the appearance eh ? I have always judged a perfect fire by a perfect layer of blue ladies dancing on my bed.

Your stove maybe different but if my Mark II has a stove front temp 125-200* I'll never see blue ladies dancing but the fire is strong and putting out the heat I need to maintain the room temp of 75*. That's why I say watch the numbers more then the fire itself.

smokeyCityTeacher wrote:Perky is probably right about the shaking. I think I powdered up my coal by vigorous shaking every hour in my attempt to get a full pan in a hurry so I could take a picture. Lots of unburnt chips in the pan as a result.

Yep, Perky's right. That's another lesson I didn't want to accept - the stove doesn't always need to be shaken as often you'd think. In the beginning I was shaking all the time but this year (my fourth year) I'm only shaking twice a day and emptying the pan once unless the numbers tell me I need to check the fire. I also pay more attention to what the shaking is doing, i.e. does the ash pan glow quickly (less shaking needed) or is the shake hard and crunchy (stop and come back later.)Life is so much easier when I pay attention to the numbers and not necessarily what the fire looks like.

smokeyCityTeacher wrote:Im dying to get my hands on some Superior brand so I can see purple ladies

I'm stuck with bagged Reading and Blaschak. That's all I can get within a 100 miles and I'm not able to deal with bulk once it gets to my subdivision - can't get a truck between the houses and I have no basement. More's the shame because you save more money with bulk. Have a great New Year, Lisa

keep in mind that all the thermometers wont do you as much good if your forcing air over the stove with a room fan. It will blow your temps way down and make it seem as though your getting no heat. blower is one thing, but to test things out you might wanna turn off the other fan for a while.

Just got a call from a guy who will tri-axle me 10 ton of Superior. He's getting back to me with the price as son as he map-quests it out.
Id like to split that load up and maybe get 3-5 ton depending on how many others want to try some.

If you are East of Pgh. and wanna try some Superior lemme know.
Ill post the per ton price of the load as soon as he gets back to me.

Of course this is assuming he'll make stops for the same price. Ill know soon either way.


edit - Krap! this really is a another thread.. sorry... I don't know how to delete/move it

I'm wondering if anyone else is having this problem: This is my second year burning Blaschak in a hand-fired boiler designed for coal burning(cast iron buderus-type). I can fire it with or without shaker grates, and have done both, this year and last. I have been burning bagged Blaschak nut. However, no matter what I do, I can never seem to go more than 5 days or so with out losing my fire, or very nearly so. I have taught myself how to "riddle" this boiler, and have run it with shakers as well, with no appreciable difference. I have read and consulted every forum and member on NEPA and others that I can find. Recently, I have considered trying a mix of X% of stove coal to the nut, but Stove is not easily found in N. New Hampshire. In speaking with a bulk dealer in the region, he advised I read the back of the Blaschak bag which states that a large portion of their coal is "reclaimed" from slack heaps at old mines, and re-processed. The reclaimed coal has been sitting on the ground anywhere from 60 - 150 years. Dealer advises that in his experience, and that of customers, that the reduced BTU's and high ash content produced by this reclaimed coal is what is choking off my boiler so frequently. The sizing of the Blaschak nut as well is highly inconsistent ranging from rice to pea to nut in each bag, although i do occasionally come across several bags in a row on the pile that have nice consistently large chunks of nut, then back to the mixed junk again.
Is there anything to this assessment/opinion of the dealer? I am at my wits end. Any help is appreciated. Thanx

i too have noticed a lot of small coal in the bags of blackshack coal. had a ton that was awesome. was able to keep the spinner on the ash door alost all the way closed and had awesome heat. then i got into about a half ton that had a lot of pea and smaller. even the larger pieces were on the small side. i have had to run with my air wide open to get some heat out of it. i even shut down twice to do a complete top to bottom cleaning of the stove and chimney hoping that was the problem. but it wasn't. it was literally like you flipped a switch and the heat output dropped drastically. and i am using a greater amount of coal when its the smaller stuff. would be great for the warmer times, but it is hard to know what is going to be in a bag until its opened. hopefully tomorrow when i buy more it will be the good true nut size.

I went from Kimmels to Blashak, & the differences are amazing. With Kimmels, I was never able to get anywhere near a 24 hour burn out of either my Mark I or III. With Blashak, 24 hour burns are the norm, unless I really turn it up on those real cold nights. The Kimmels ash looked exactly like the first pic in this thread, only with more granola & molten metal. Blashak is just like flour -- super fine, powdery, tan colored with very little trash present. Also about 1/3rd less ash with those extended burn times to boot.

Sizing seems to be more consistent with the Blashak, with no rocks, & not too much wood so far. Bagged coal gets shuffled around so much that it's normal to have varying sizes regardless of brand. All depends on how it was handled.