New to Coal and Need Help

I built my own boiler last winter and was burning wood in it and I am now trying to switch it to coal,
but I need to know how to get the coal to burn well.

what I have is a 24 inch piece of pipe that is four feet long for the burn chamber with a piece of 30 inch pipe
to form the water jacket. I put in a grate for the coal to go on and have a blower blowing under the coal but,
it still doesn't seem to burn as good as it should. I also used a piece of plate on top on the chimney as a draft control.

So my question really is how do I get the coal to burn very well.

Your playing with fire here, I hope that thing isn't in your house? Good luck.

No the boiler is outside so it is not that dangerous and it is an open system so it cannot build up pressure

First, what KIND of coal? Bitumenous or Anthracite? what size? How much coal are you putting in?

How big is your burn area?

Can you shake the grates when/if you get the coal going to get rid of the ash?

A bit more info might be helpful.

Pictures will help as well, if you search for some of the older posts by LsFarm you'll find some examples. He built his own too but I'm not sure if it was a boiler. He has since switched to pre manufactured boiler he refurbished.

Coal must have ALL the air coming into the firebox going through the bed of coal. There cannot be any gaps or holes for the air to get around the bed of coal. Coal needs to be in a firebox with near vertical sides, with the grate underneath. As the coal burns from the bottom up, the bottom coal burns to ash, the whole bed of coal settles down, the ash falls through the grate or the grate is shaken to aggitate the ash to fall through the grate into the ashpan below.

A coal bed needs to be deep, 6" to 10" is best. if you are just adding coal on an existiing fire in your round firebox, you will not burn the coal on the sides very well if at all. You need to build firebrick walls down both sides of your firebox, to make vertical sides, fill this 'trough' with coal. Make sure air cannot get past the coal at either end or around the outside of the firebrick walls. From your description of your firebox this is the best I can describe for you to improve the burning of coal. With a firebox 4' long, you will be adding probable 80-100# of coal each time you load it up.

Hope this helps. Greg L

do you have a way to shake the ashes out? coal needs air to feed up from the bottom......too many ashes in the bottom will choke the fire out.....if you don't have a shaker grate, i'm sure you can handle building something if you built your own boiler
good luck!
scott