Anyone Have Luck With Reading Coal?

I Just found out that the crap coal I was fighting all winter was Reading nut coal. Anyone have any luck with that stuff? (I sure didn't!)

My first load of Anthracite was Reading,, I brought home 5.5 tons of nut/stove mix to burn in Big Berta when she was a hand feed... I had LOTS of hard crusty ash, and lots of clinkers.. I had to clean out the firebox about every week or two. My grates in Big Berta were slider grates,, they didn't have inter-meshing fingers to grind up the ash,, so it accumulated..

It sounds like from your frustrations with the Harman Grates, that the fingers/leverage isn't enough to grind up the ash anyway..

When I did burn some bagged Blaschak Nut-size coal, it burnt to a white powder, so I know Blaschak is much better... Personally I don't recommend Reading at all.. The bagged reading I bought also had lots of wood, fines and the odd oversize piece as well.. not good..

Too bad Superior or UAE don't have a bagging plant,, now that would be a great product!

Greg L

LsFarm wrote:My first load of Anthracite was Reading,, I brought home 5.5 tons of nut/stove mix to burn in Big Berta when she was a hand feed... I had LOTS of hard crusty ash, and lots of clinkers.. I had to clean out the firebox about every week or two. My grates in Big Berta were slider grates,, they didn't have inter-meshing fingers to grind up the ash,, so it accumulated..

It sounds like from your frustrations with the Harman Grates, that the fingers/leverage isn't enough to grind up the ash anyway..

When I did burn some bagged Blaschak Nut-size coal, it burnt to a white powder, so I know Blaschak is much better... Personally I don't recommend Reading at all.. The bagged reading I bought also had lots of wood, fines and the odd oversize piece as well.. not good..

Too bad Superior or UAE don't have a bagging plant,, now that would be a great product!

Greg L

Actually the finger mechanism is quite good at breaking up ash with the Harman, but when it jams it's because it hits a very hard chunk/clinker that I'm afraid may break off a finger if I really force it. Not worth the chance, so I just let the stove go out & clean it out. A real pain!!

I burned Reading all season. I agree that there are a lot of wood and stones mixed in. I have not had problems with burning it. There are more clinkers and chunks in the ash pan as compared to other coal I burned last season. The only convienence with Reading are the sturdy bags they use.

Same, bought some late in the season, supplier was out of bulk, had to get bagged. It seemed like a lot more ash and misc. other debris.

I burned just under 4 ton of bulk Reading in my AHS S-130 this year. Had absolutely no problems with it. Had some redish clinkers, but you could break them with your fingers. I didn't find any stones in the ash, had a few bit of wood from time to time, looked like small tree branches, about the thickness of my pinky finger, and 1 - 2" long.

I bought some a few years back, I wasn't really pleased with it.

My dealer gets either Reading or Blashack. He said I was getting Reading this year. It was bagged pea coal. It did vary a lot in size, which was no problem for my Hitzer. I could see quite a bit of rust on many of the chunks, and it did produce some red ash and a few clinkers. The Hitzer single grate with masive fingers had no problem breaking them up. I had no stones or sticks in mine. It burned well but did leave some wafer like chunks in the ash. I don't have anything else to compare it to being I only burned for 5 weeks and this is my first experience with coal since I was a kid. Overall I would say I was satisfied.

Reading? Yuck!
The coal you get depends on where the company is pulling it from. Coalberner knows where it's coming from. To me it's all the same except Blaschak which is probably the best strip-mined coal around. Once you burn the good stuff all the strip-mined coal is crap.

"...an adequate, ambling coal. Displays additional mineral finish, sun-dried tomato, wicked earth and lingering dried berry, with a hint of chestnut. Excellent with pork. Consume now through 2009."

where I bought Reading this year, the rice was good, other sizes not good.
Rice is bright and shiny, burns to ash once I installed a 3/32 stainless welding wire to build a small speed bump to increase the depth.
I tried their buckwheat, it looked like they included a lot of root material and rock.
Others tried their nut, and couldn't get the expected amount of heat.