Jammed up Feed machanism

I woke up this morning cold and that isnt normal so immediately I checked on my channing and found the coal bed barely burning and the feed motor gear grinding like a ford power steering box. I scooped out the hopper to find a chunk of coal lodged in there about the size of a chicken leg( from KFC) now I love chicken but this pissed me off. Luckily I woke up when I did or we would have been really cold. Everything is ok now, I know this must happen alot but this is my first time.I have been burning bulk Jeddo but the chunk came from some bagged blaschak I bought because my truck was broke down this last week. Oddly enough while I was at the coal yard this morning another guy showed up with a big ziploc full of huge chunks that came out of Blaschak bags.My bagged coal came from another supplier in another town than his. Anyway I brought home 1150 lbs this morning,that sags the heck out of my old F-150. Now Ive got to go to KFC. Jim

What you can do to prevent that is get a mesh screen to put over your hopper, screen it as you fill it. Might make a little more dust but shouldn't be much. There *shouldn't* be any large pieces but it's really not possible to prevent all large pieces. There's just to many places they can from, the loader, piece in the truck... even kids screwing around on their ATV's on the piles or near the piles making a mess of things.

Isn't strip mined coal great?

But all kidding aside I watch the coal as I pour it into the hopper out of a coal hod with the narrow spout (4" across at the opening), and pour kinda slow so big things can be noticed. This method also keeps the dust down.

I watch it flow into the hopper as well, I usually end up with a handful of bigger chunks about the size of half a Halloween butterfinger bar and I just toss them onto the fire to see if they burn.

e.alleg wrote:... about the size of half a Halloween butterfinger bar ..

Just make sure they are not cat turds! I got some free coal last year that was loaded up with cat turds, it seems the pile was in the basement where the cat had access, guess those cats like the rice size coal for their litter box.

I burn buckwheat now.

Matt, You are killing me!

i'm having problems with the cats pooping in the coal......they like buckwheat too.......you would think after getting their noses rubbed in it, they would stop.....o well cat crunchies burn well in the efm stoker