Anthracite Ash

I have a mound of Anthracite ash out back of my house.........can I use it to fertilize mulch beds and shrubs? Or is it bad for them.
Chris

There's a thread ot two about this, you can find them using the search feature. I have no concrete information myself but someone had posted in a previous thread that it's neither good nor bad. Basically you're not doing anything... The old timers in this area would probably give you argument about that. It would make an interesting experiment.

Speaking of concrete I think it was Yanche another member here that mentioned making "dirt-crete" with it. Basically you mix the ash, some dirt and some portland which will give you pretty good road bed or any other area you want to firm up. FYI ash makes a excellent replacement for sand and gravel in regular concrete.

concrete plants buy fly ash by the trailer load.

Duengeon master wrote:concrete plants buy fly ash by the trailer load.

That's true but, it's fly ash not residential coal burning ashes. Coal fired electric generating plants collect the ash in the exhaust with Bag Houses and Electro Static Precipitators. This is a much different product than residential coal ashes. The temperatures in an industrial boiler are much, much higher resulting chemical reactions that make the fly ash desirable as a cement-like material. Residential coal ash is more like a poor or weak aggregate for concrete. The other ingredients needed to make concrete are portland cement and water.

I don't know how prevalent it was, but older construction in the Anthracite coal region used cement-coal ash mixtures. One of the 'cons' is it eats up piping going through it (a friend of mine, when working as an electrician, encountered a bank building using coal ash cement; steel conduits "ate through " where they went through the wall).

It was also used for 'cinder blocks' - dimensionally identical to concrete blocks, but using bottom ash clinkers milled to size. Cheaper than cement blocks, but also inferior in strength.

Went looking for info on how ash refuse was used in NEPA for building - didn't find any yet - but did run into these interesting citations.

http://whyfiles.org/shorties/205coal_ash/
http://www.answers.com/topic/bottom-ash
http://www.siu.edu/~perspect/02_sp/concrete.html
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/conserv ... tomash.htm
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome/t ... /fs34f.pdf

I've posted this before but when I was a kid I had my own workshop. An old outbuilding that once was a chicken house. It was built like a brick $hit house. I never could understand why the solid block was stuccoed. Only recently did I realize it was made with home made solid Anthracite cinder blocks. Someone long before me or my parents made a lot of solid cinder ash blocks. The stucco was made from regular building sand and portland cement and protected the weaker coal cinders from the weather. The building is still in use today and is at least 100 years old. It still has the original PA slate roof. Looking at old family photos of homes and buildings in northeastern NJ shows many with stucco construction. I suspect many were solid coal ash block construction. One interesting addition to the stucco finish was crushed glass. Mostly crushed glass beer bottles. It was not something you wanted to run into while playing as a kid. The sun shining on it would make nice reflective effects.

HEY Yanche don't forget my place the whole house is made of them top to bottom 59 years and still standing it has stucco stone over it at the bottom of foundation and the rest of it is covered with aluminum siding that was pretty common around here lots of coal ash and cheaper to make then cement blocks .

I used ash straight from the stove to fill in a low spot in front of my mailbox.

The mail & paper guy used to sink when it was wet, then light up the tires trying to get out, making it even worse. They'd pull up to the box & be tilted downward!

The ash, all by itself, hardened enough to keep this problem from happening again. The street sweeper went by & it didn't even touch the coal ash!! Even coarse, hydraulic-powered brushes wouldn't move the stuff!! It picked up everything else though -- now I can see the spots I missed!

My next concrete job at the house is definitely getting some ash mixed in!

while i was at the Anthracite museum yesterday i seen they had a cinder block press. operatered by one person. would make 2 cinder blocks. you just take it to your work site and make blocks by hand. pretty cool. 8)

I too have used the ash to fill in potholes on my dirt driveway. It works really nice. The problem was I had just a big pile of the ash outside. I had several layers of snow in it causing some of it to harden up. Is there a good way to store the ash, especially if it still warm. (i.e. I just emptied the ash pan from the stove) I though about a metal container but figured the ashes would just eat through it. What about a rubber or plastic container? Thanks for the help.
Robert

I emptied the ash straight from the pan over the course of a few months (deep rut).

Don't think the metal would rust as long as it stayed dry. Most of the corrosive properties seem to be in the gases, when burned.

Thanks for the info smitty. I am going to look around to see what I can find. I would rather store it for the winter instead of using immediately. I have a pretty long driveway and it can get mighty cold in the winter.

Hey rt42:

Stick with a metal container for storing ash. If any hot coals fall through the grates into the ash bin and dump it into plastic, it will melt through and/or start a fire. An old fashioned metal ash can is the way to go. Once a week I dump the cooled ashes from the ash can into a plastic trash bag and put it out with the trash.
John

That does sound like the safest way to go. I don't like the thought of melting anything or starting anything on fire accidentally.

Hey rt42 see if you can find a old or new metal garbage can i think they are 33gal. you could store the ash until you are ready to use on the icy roads / driveway