Coal Dust Got You Down?

I considered not burning coal this year, because of the coal dist issue. Instead, I decided to go blitzkrieg on the dust, and tried a bunch of counter-intuitive measures. The results were so overwhelmingly positive I thought I would try to put them down in this post. Nothing here is new to this forum, but I do believe all of these measures taken together have helped manage my coal dust issue considerably.

1.) Remove fines. Buy coal that has been screened and/or build yourself a screening apparatus. Also, consider coal coated in oil. Pay the extra money for the "washed" or "screened"coal. Even if you get "clean" coal, having a sifter will help remove fines as you get to the bottom of your bin. There's no reason to bring fines into your house, unless you like a mess.
2.) Water. Spray or saturate your coal with water before bringing into the house. Newbies might say "what the 'f'?" and that is understandable - it's hard enough to keep the stove going when you are learning, so the thought of saturating your coal with water might sound ridiculous. But, once you know your stove, and your burn profile, no amount of water will put your fire out.
3.) 1 shot coal delivery. Build yourself a tool to load coal into your stove using one motion. I built a "bazooka" using stove pipe that acomadates a full load of coal, that can be filled OUTSIDE, and delivered to the stove in one shot. Shoveling multiple scoops of coal into the stove only makes a mess.
4.) Vacuum LESS. Sounds crazy huh? I believe vaccuming spreads fine ash particles b/c the filter on most vacuums does not have a small enough pore size to trap these particles. Instead, wet mop, or hand wash immediate areas around stove to remove ash and dust.
5.) Open stove door when shaking down. Ever notice the blue ladies going crazy when you open the fill door? The rush of ambient air into the stove, that causes the ladies to dance, will also draw the ash produced during shakedown up the stovepipe.
6.) Ash clean-up. Ok, this will only be feasible if your stove is close to a window. When you HAVE to vacuum ash, place your vacuum OUTSIDE, and use extension cords and vacuum pipe extensions to vacuum the ash.
7.) Slow down. Wake up a little earlier. Take time with ash disposal. Move like a sloth when shoveling, dumping, and moving with ash.
8.) Become an expert The quicker you become an expert coal burner and can go an entire winter "on one match" the sooner you won't have to shovel out another stove full of partially burned fuel. Don't be afraid to use this forum, these people are professionals!


I went from cleaning black soot off the floors, windows, tables etc, to NOTHING. Coal is King, but it can be dirty. It doesn't have to be, as long as you take a few simple measures. Good luck!

Millworker wrote:I built a "bazooka" using stove pipe that acomadates a full load of coal

You should post a photo of the "bazooka".

I wet the coal for both stoves-with a spray bottle for the hand-fed, and a gallon bottle with holes drilled in the lid for the stoker-before the coal goes into the stove (Harman) and hopper (Alaska).
Yes, it seems odd. "Here, let me soak the fuel I am about to add to the fire in my heating appliance with a generous amount of water immediately before I add it to the fire".

I can set that working well for nut but it doesn't work so well for rice. You spray and you only cover the top pieces of coal. When you shovel, it's all over. My strategy next season is going to be a sealed coal bin area with an auger into the hopper. The hopper will also have a sealed cover over it with a 4" pipe passing through the top.

I run two stoves, one hand fed, one stoker on the same living floor.
I store the coal in the basement. Dust and soot are minimal. Just
don't trip when you are carrying an ash pan and pour the coal slowly.
Spring cleaning takes care of the rest.

rockwood wrote:You should post a photo of the "bazooka".

I know this isn't a 'bazooka', but I imagine it must do the same thing.
This is a scuttle.
Advantage is, you only open the door once, dump, and close.
Cuts down on the mess and smell...

Millworker wrote:1.) Remove fines. Buy coal that has been screened and/or build yourself a screening apparatus. Also, consider coal coated in oil. Pay the extra money for the "washed" or "screened"coal. Even if you get "clean" coal, having a sifter will help remove fines as you get to the bottom of your bin. There's no reason to bring fines into your house, unless you like a mess.

Washed coal shouldn't cost you anything more, it's part of the process. Generally speaking the coal is perfectly clean when it comes out of the breaker. It's what happens after that where the issues start. For example maybe they might have chute coming out the breaker, the coal falls off the end of the chute and each piece creates a little bit of dust as it hits the pile. As the pile grows the dust will stay in the middle and more desirable rounder pieces fall off to the sides. If you get a scoop from the outside it will be really clean. Get a scoop from the middle and you're going to get a lot of flat pieces and dirt. If your coal delivery guy gives the loader operator a $50 bottle of booze every Christmas the loader operator will try an make sure to save the nice clean stuff on the edge for him.

Many breakers will have hoppers for loading delivery trucks. After the coal comes out of the breaker it will either go onto the stock pile or into the hopper. This is where it will get washed again right before it goes into the truck but again we have dirt and dust that is created as it falls into the truck. A lot of places don't operate these in the winter because they are very hard to keep open because of freezing so you'll be getting the fresh coal or from the stockpile. Then when the guy gets to your house the delivery process creates more fines... every time you move it you create fines.

Bottom line is get it in the warmer weather for the cleanest product. Of course that may not apply to bagged coal because you don;t know when it was bagged.

3.) 1 shot coal delivery. Build yourself a tool to load coal into your stove using one motion. I built a "bazooka" using stove pipe that acomadates a full load of coal, that can be filled OUTSIDE, and delivered to the stove in one shot. Shoveling multiple scoops of coal into the stove only makes a mess.

There has been a few of them posted, a similar idea is to get 5 gallon bucket and cut a hole in the lid and add a length of PVC pipe. If you have bagged coal and a stoker/stove with a hopper put the bag right in the hopper, cut it with a razor on the bottom from one end to the other and pull the bag put.

been burning for 4 years and never really had a problem with black soot, always careful loading and getting either wet or oiled coal.

For a coal scoop, I use a feed scoop I got at the local farm store - about like the 'bazooka' but a bit smaller. My rice coal is quite wet from the source, so dust is minimal..

however....how about fly ash containment?

appropriate for this thread?

I have taken to covering my ash pan with a wet towel before I pull it out of the Reading Susquehanna Furnace.

I leave the towel over it until I get outside (right out the basement door).

Yeah - I have had an issue with the dust from bagged coal. I try to stay away from the coal that comes in the nylon grain sacks. Its pretty dusty stuff. I did have to get some this year beacuse my dealer ran out of Blaschak.

This is how I deal with the coal in these bags when putting it in the hopper: take the wifes flower watering container and fill it full of wter - cut the top off of the nylon bag - sprinkle water over the top of it slowly trying to cover the whole top area. It helps allot - not 100%. The water will go down thru the coal pretty quick - thats why I do it slowly - too much water and it will come out of the bottom of the grain suck - eeer sack

I am not getting any dust in my bagged rice. It is always damp or wet, so it has not been an issue. There is a thread here
about using a 5 gal pain can that has a 5" pipe attached to the lid. As it is dumped into the hopper, the displaced air and dust
are sucked back into the can. Pretty cool, and would be a score if using bulk coal.

I have my coal in a bin that hold 6 tons of bulk coal. It was wet when I got it, but is now dry. Everytime that I load coal into my 55 gallon drum, there is a ton of coal dust floating through the air.
I would love to be able to contain this, would make my life easier as I would not have to worry about draggin the dust/dirt up into the house.
I guess this is why guys pay a little extra to get the coal oiled.

coalkirk wrote: My strategy next season is going to be a sealed coal bin area with an auger into the hopper. The hopper will also have a sealed cover over it with a 4" pipe passing through the top.

This is very similar to what I did. but I didn't build a sealed hopper, instead I covered the top of the hopper and stick a
shop-vac hose in the top of the hopper and run the shop-vac when I am filling the hopper with the auger.

here a lots of pictures of the project.
homemade auger feed coal bin

the problem with using the shop-vac to suck up the coal dust is the filter gets clogged with the fine coal dust pretty fast,
after about 10 fillings I have to remove the filter from the shop-vac and bang the filter against a tree in the woods, pretty messy job.
I am thinking for next year I will try building up the hopper and sealing the top with a piece of glass in the top so I can see when it is full.

After the bulk coal is in the bin. I use used motor oil and spray the top real heavy. Most of the oil makes it's way to the bottom. When I use the shop vac. I have the hose that came with the unit , attached to the blower side , out the basement window. It's permently mounted there. I use the nice flexable hose (extra $$$) to do my vacing. If you have an first floor window close to the stove , you could do the same. Just open the window and put the blower side out the window. I got rid of almost 95% of the mess. Before I did this I could see black dust on my chair tires. Now there always clean.