Channeling in Keystoker hopper..

Woke up this morning to a cold house, on my second day of Keystoker 90K ownership. Drats. As it turns out, the hopper I'd filled with just one bag the evening before at about 4pm had made a channel all the way through about 8" of coal in the hopper and wouldn't feed the stove as a result. The hell?? If the hopper doesn't feed with nearly 30# of coal in it, what's the use of this thing? Anyone with a workaround for this, or having similar results?

Mike

I guess the obvious thing is to keep the hopper as full as possible. Some here have fabricated a slanted plate in the hopper to keep the coal heading the right direction.

That is typical with a flat bottom designed hopper since it feeds from the front, it will valley like that. They need to slope the bottom more and feed from the middle. I usually keep mine 3/4-full all the time. Kinda of pain in the butt, but it works.

I did a mod to mine and angled the back bottom to help push it forward. BUt I always push the coal forward every so often when it start getting below the 50#'s in the hopper. MIght angle it a bit more, it works, but could work better.

Here's my mod.
Coal hopper modification

Good luck.

I have the same issue with my Keystoker, and both the sides and rear are sloped to the front on my hopper. This morning was particularly noticeable - I had coal at the rear corners within 2" of the top of the hopper, and the pusher was almost sucking air. I loaded a fresh bag of Blashcak (which is damp and has quite a bit of fines) the other day and hadn't touched it since. It stuck together like a sand castle.

Normally I'll rake the coal down once or twice a day to keep it flowing between bags. It certainly will NOT feed a hopper full on it's own. Just the nature of the beast - they are all like that. To remedy the situation, you would have to build a much taller hopper with more of a cone shape or have much steeper sides.

bottom line , keep the hopper full all the time.

Get some car wax and put on the slopes. Or some pledge furniture polish.
Should work like a charm.

Oh, that kind of channeling .... I was hoping you could contact my great-grandmother.