I think I have gophers

I went downstairs this morning to check the stove before going to work and lifted off the hopper lid to find this:

I had filled up the hopper early yesterday morning with a new bag of Blaschak, and as I've stated previously, this is a recently bagged batch and it is SOAKING wet. I have to be careful otherwise I'll drool water all over carrying the bags, NASTY water.

Anyway, I thought it was amusing to find this gopher hole all the way down to the pusher block. I don't think it would have gone too much longer before it was sucking air, unless the pile decided to collapse down. Anyone want to make coal castles???

You must have water dripping out of the bottom of the coal hopper!!

BTW: how many inches of additional snow did you get?? Aren't you at record snow fall amounts??


Greg L

That's interesting. The coal I'm burning in the Alaska now is really soaking wet, because it's outside. I don't have a bin built yet for it. I've been filling buckets and carrying them in. Today I filled a plastic garbage can in the cellar, shoveled it down my aluminum siding chute. I haven't had that problem in the hopper. It looks like there is a lot of fines and powder down by the bottom and it caked up.
BTW, I don't have a cover on the hopper, I sealed the grate all around and used gaskets on the hopper base, I think that would eliminate the dreaded hopper fire possibilities. Should I be worried?

Wood'nCoal wrote:...eliminate the dreaded hopper fire possibilities. Should I be worried?

Nope as long as you have a -.04" WC draft and the grate is properly sealed you are ready to go with no worries.

LsFarm wrote:You must have water dripping out of the bottom of the coal hopper!!

BTW: how many inches of additional snow did you get?? Aren't you at record snow fall amounts??


Greg L

Only got an inch or two, a lot less than they were expecting. But yes, we're VERY close to the all time record here for snowfall, second only to the '78-'79 year where the entire Midwest was a blizzard. We did get almost an inch of rain on top of 15" of snow, a lot of which melted in the 40F temps. Now it's 3F outside and howling wind, so now all the standing/flooding water is freezing solid. A real mess.

Matthaus wrote:

Wood'nCoal wrote:...eliminate the dreaded hopper fire possibilities. Should I be worried?

Nope as long as you have a -.04" WC draft and the grate is properly sealed you are ready to go with no worries.

I haven't worried about it at all, I just had a "moment" while looking at the photo of Europachris's hopper. The draft is more like .025 to .03, though. Should I reset the baro so it's around .04?

EDIT:
I raised the burn rate for more heat, the draft is holding at -.04" WC, so I would say it's OK at the present settings.

Gophers?
Chew up a stick of Juicy Fruit gum and then stick it in their hole. Gopher eats the gum and can't digest it. Gum blocks Gophers gut up. Dead Gopher.

Never had mine do that extreme, usually when it get low, it will valley, ...! WOW.
I dump my wet bags into 40# cat litter buckets to get them moved around and dry out a bit and let them sit for a day or two until needed.

helps if you drill some drain holes in the buckets too.......why i dont use rice......too messy

lincolnmania wrote:helps if you drill some drain holes in the buckets too.......why i dont use rice......too messy

I was taking the bags and sitting them over a 5 gal. bucket after poking a hole in a bottom corner to let some of the water drain out. I'll have to start doing that again, but the stuff is still really wet and gloppy. At least it burns well....

I'd much rather run buckwheat - I think it was some Superior buck that GregL gave me to try. VERY clean and evenly sized with no fines. Burned really well until I had a hopper fire and melted the nylon bits on the stoker......