Stokers Etc.

Have any of you burned pine cone bits or ground black walnut shells in with your
rice sized coal stokers for fuel??

We have an annual overabundance of pine cones which I can grind to burn for fuel.
I currently burn them in my hand fed boiler to make heat.

It will make good heat, just don't run it straight, mix it with more coal than cones. You would find the feed and air settings too far out for 100% cones.

I too have an abundance of smaller pine cones (size of whole pecan) right next to my house, in my case I am thinking to try using them whole as my Axeman likes anything that will not plug it's auger.

There is a fellow over at The Hearth forum who lives in the Northwest US and has burned crushed hazelnut hulls that he is able to get for little or no cost in multiple wood pellet stoves to heat his home there. He has done the necessary tweaks for his specific stoves burning this specfic fuel. It is nearly impossible to switch up fuel too much without consequences.
Other wood pellet burners, as well, burn cherry pits and some other dense bio wastes.

AH,

I forgot about the cherry pit burners, I think they had them for
sale at tractor supply as well as bagged cherry pits last year.

awhile back I had a play with wood pellets in my stoker......running them straight was a bit interesting.....but running them mixed with coal was no problem.....like McGiever says run them at 50/50 or less with coal.....one thing I did notice was that the flame in the firebox was alot larger with wood in the mix

FYI in my Buderus hand fed wood pellets where scary at best. Kind of like Kerosene on the fire, just sayin'

2001Sierra wrote:FYI in my Buderus hand fed wood pellets where scary at best. Kind of like Kerosene on the fire, just sayin'

Yes sir, been there done that when I bled the Reillo free of air and poured the kero into
the fire box of the Switzer and then lit it off from the ash pit YOWWWEEEE plenty of
heat in the firebox after that.

I dump the pints of kero back in the oil tank now so thats the lesser of the two issues
and no chance of blowing the fire doors and ash pit door off the boiler.

It can still get bad if too much pellets are mixed with the coal and fed in at one time, but a stoker does have the advantage of to meter them in rather slowly. As I been saying, It's best to not have too much pellets mixed in with the coal.

I'll report my findings after I mix in some small pine cones this season.

When I ran a flat/inclined stoker I would use a handful of fuel soaked pellets in a bottomless tin can over the grate air holes as a starter for rice coal...and yes, it is a intense fire right quick.

Just my two cents. Mixing coal with other fuels is just asking for grief. Who needs it?

I successfully ran a 40-60 mix of wood pellets with rice coal in a little 70K Leisure Line stoker as an experiment one time. It was just a trial to see if it could be done. The price of the pellets didn't make it feasible to keep doing it however. The rice coal was much cheaper than the pellets.

That's good to know for anyone paying higher coal prices to be a better deal.

I wouldn't risk my family's safety for a few dollars savings. It is recommended to never run anything but anthracite in our stoves.