Keystoker KA 2, 4, 6 Ash Results

Outside temp is 14 degrees, stove produce 3/4 ash in a 1 bushel tub. Roughly burnt 80 lbs of coal in 13 hours.

Rigar wrote:

oliver power wrote:I dump about 50 - 60 pounds of buckwheat size coal in the hopper of my kaa-2 every 24 hours. At that time, I empty the ash pan, which is about 3/4 full.

...just curious-any idea what the ash weighs? (approx)...for the 50-60 lbs of coal burned?

I'm guessing 10 - 15 pounds (includes ash box).

1 bushel ash tub filled after about 50 hrs and about 200 pounds burned. Blaschak Rice

My general rule of thumb for coal in my KA6 is that I fill up two 1 bushel ash buckets for every complete load of coal filling the hopper. My hopper is bigger then normal and hold about 50% more coal. So guessing I would be about 1.25 bushels to 1.5 bushels of ash per full hopper. Understand, I remove the ash buckets when they are within a couple inches of the top and fill my hopper heaping full and take it to almost completely empty.

The above is using UAE coal with relatively low ash. My first semi load tested out to 17% ash content and produced probably 30% more ash per hopper load.

Hope that helps.

I really need to get better low ash coal, Kassa is producing appox 5 tub fulls per hopper load.

Sorry to hear that coal is kicking your ash! I am amazed at such a dramatic difference in ash production. How much coal do you go through each winter?

Actually, I compressed the ashes in the tub down last night and made more room. Just switched it out now. So about 63 hrs of burning and about 250 pounds coal burned.

Carbon12 wrote:Sorry to hear that coal is kicking your ash! I am amazed at such a dramatic difference in ash production. How much coal do you go through each winter?

Ka6 is on the second yr of running 24-7
Last yr was learning curve that resulted in a whopping 11 ton. So far coal usage is down from previous yr due to changes in system. So does less ash mean better BTU and less coal consumption? Kassa burns good but with high ash % IMO. . Actually is good to see how other ka units are running to help the wondering.

Not sure about BTU content and the amount of ash. Seems reasonable though that if the BTU content is lower then you will burn more coal and produce more ash. I've noticed some reddish "clinkers" in my ashes. Small grape sized or smaller. Very light. If you break them open, they are full of small "air" holes,....like volcanic pumice. Wonder what, if anything, that means. I was sifting my ashes to separate out the fine powder so I could use the crunchier stuff for traction materiel to keep in the cars and noticed these reddish clinkers.

Check out this 1932 US Department of Commerce : Bureau of Mines report on clinkers:

http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/techreports/PDF/ ... BM-364.pdf

Thanks lsayre! A tad dry read but informative, none the less. Now I need to break out the C6H6 and CCl4 to do a float test Now where did I put my old Acme Pyromaniac Chemistry Set???

Most people attribute clinkers to the iron content in the coal, which is the red stuff you are seeing. My Blaschak is giving me a reddish ash and plenty of clinkers. The Harmony I burned last year had very red ash, and it clinkered like crazy. I've never burned a completely white ash coal yet, but I'm told it will not clinker.

Yup, I kinda of figured I had some blast furnace slag action going.

I am producing half a tub of ash on around 100 lbs of coal per day. Its a mix of red ash and white ash rice. My current problem is that I am producing some clinkers...Heck, I am producing ash cakes. Regularly. I plan on switching to mostly if not all white ash and step up to buck instead of rice on the next load.

About 250 pounds Blaschak Rice burned produced about 25 pounds of ash. Confirmed an earlier measurement with a smaller quantity burned. Both around 10% ash by weight.