cheep stoker---will this work?

I have an indoor wood / coal boiler in my shop with a fire box about 45” x 20” x 36” tall with shaker grates and combustion air under grates. Could I constantly slowly drop Bit coal in on top of the fire down a tube fed by an auger about 5 feet above boiler? Would this reduce the smoke by not feeding shovel fulls at once? If the auger was sealed at the top so it would not be a chimney would this work? I thought about a will-burt stoker but then I could not use wood at all or much and this would not cost much to build.

What size/kind of auger is it?
Would the auger turn off/on by thermostat or by existing boiler controls?

I thought I would use a 4" or 6" ag auger controlled by aquastat and a 4" drop tube

catpowrd wrote:I thought I would use a 4" or 6" ag auger controlled by aquastat and a 4" drop tube

Same idea as many pellet stoves, and it should work fine aside from ash handling. Probably going to need a way to shake the grates or break up clinkers as they form unless you plan to do that a few times a day manually and just let the stoker feed coal at a controlled rate.

But, it would definitely minimize soot and smoke production. Neat idea!

Ash and clinkers handling are not a problem since I am there most of the time in the winter. I don`t mind hand stoking with wood or coal or both several times a day I just want to reduce the locomotive effect of the bit coal

I think most augers that feed into a firebox are slightly pressurized, so that smoke, fire, etc does not try to move up the auger into the bin. From what I've seen, they just take a tap off the combusion blower to pressurize the bin/auger together. But since you will be so far above the bed, maybe you don't need that.

Interesting idea. GIve it a try, but let us know how it works. I too do not like the hour or two following bituminous loading - things just get out of hand if you try keep it hot enough to burn smoke/volatiles, and you get lots of soot if you let it smoke.

Steinke in WY

catpowrd wrote:I have an indoor wood / coal boiler in my shop with a fire box about 45” x 20” x 36” tall with shaker grates and combustion air under grates. Could I constantly slowly drop Bit coal in on top of the fire down a tube fed by an auger about 5 feet above boiler? Would this reduce the smoke by not feeding shovel fulls at once? If the auger was sealed at the top so it would not be a chimney would this work?

Did you ever try this?

Still gathering all the parts, hope to have it going for next winter. I need to build a new bin inside my shop against an outside wall with a coal door to fill with an endloader from the outside. If it works I should never have to touch any coal.

This sounds like the creation of a large bituminous Axman Anderson or AHS boiler system. Drop the coal on the fire from above. They have some sort of automatic grate movment system that senses temperature, I think.

I built something similar to this a few years ago to play with. An epic fail. unless the coal comes up from the bottom with forced draft it has all the complexity of a stoker with none of the benefits - no smoke reduction, very tempermental (clinkers and frequent ash removal) and just a generally useless setup.

Having said all that, If you removed the shaker grates and used a grain auger to auger the coal in from the bottom and placed firebrick with holes drilled through them around the end of the auger - then fed the underside of the firebrick with a blower, you would be able to make a poor man's stoker that would work and reduce/eliminate smoke production. But dumping the coal from the top won't work with eastern bit, it does little to nothing for smoke reduction.

When your're hand-firing the coal like you do now, try banking the coal if you're not doing so already, this will give a much better and less smokey burn.

Sounds like dropping coal on top might not be the best route to go. I did get some specs on an add on stoker that Will-Burt Co. builds but kinda pricey and I would still need to auger the coal over the top of the boiler to the rear to stick an under fed stoker in it. Second problem with under fed stoker is that I still burn some wood. I guess I still need to get my bin built that I can fill with a front end loader and probably still build an auger in it to get coal to the rear of boiler. Another reason I thought I would try top feeding is because I end up with a lot of fines or screenings to burn and if I bank that stuff it doesn't seem to burn till I stir it a bit then I get smoked out, but I noticed if I spill it off a shovel very slow it seems to burn nice.

I have been thinking of building a stoker for a radiant or circulator stove. I was thinking of something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-AUTOMATIC-C ... 35c3cee474 . I think it would be simpler to make the tuyer like that than to force the coal to make a right angle up.

Interesting...it reminds me of the overfeed stoker shortbus posted about a while back. http://www.ags.gov.ab.ca/publications/a ... EP_46.html To this day, I have never seen this type of overfeed stoker.

I wish I had the time to experiment with this idea of the overfeed stoker because I do think it could be done with a stove design similar to wood pellet stoves that use an auger that delivers the fuel to a tube that runs down to a firepot. Since anthracite stoker manufactures have no interest in bituminous (untapped market IMO) maybe a pellet stove manufacturer will some day tackle it. It would be quite easy for one of these companies to add a bituminous stoker line if a proven prototype could be developed. Imagine...a simple modern pellet stove design that could burn either soft coal or wood pellets....There would be a lot of bugs to work out but I think it could be done. I think there would be a market for such a heater in places where soft coal is available and where coal heating is still well known (Central Utah).

carlherrnstein wrote:I have been thinking of building a stoker for a radiant or circulator stove. I was thinking of something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-AUTOMATIC-C ... 35c3cee474 . I think it would be simpler to make the tuyer like that than to force the coal to make a right angle up.

WOW!

I'd like to get my hands on that bad boy!

Jam that under a boiler vessel and see what would happen.

That's basically an over feed stoker. They don't work well with most soft coals.