COAL BIN Pics

The reason for the barrel is that I can screen the coal so the big chunks of coal and other junk dont get to the auger in the first place. I screened out at least 5 big chunks last year out of 8 tons that I went through. I will never trust coal to be perfectly screened . I'll let you know when it blows apart Freddy. The coal this delivery is supperior, I'm stoked, Pun intended

kevin12973 wrote:I'll let you know when it blows apart Freddy.

I wasn't talking about yours...the post before yours. You'll like the Superior. Mine was screened perfectly & not many fines at all.

Freddy,
There are several 3" screws holding the walls together that go through the 2x4s and 3/4" plywood at each corner and the 3" l-brackets are extra protection. I will add some lag bolts for further insurance. Thanks for the suggestions. I would rather be safe than sorry!

vandalay714 wrote:Freddy,
There are several 3" screws holding the walls together that go through the 2x4s and 3/4" plywood at each corner and the 3" l-brackets are extra protection. I will add some lag bolts for further insurance. Thanks for the suggestions. I would rather be safe than sorry!

That sounds good, similiar to what I did. 2 x 4 framing, 3/4" plywood, and held together with construction glue and Exterior bugle-head screws. Mine is holding up fine. I also ran a 3/4" pipe thru the center of the long sisdes, so they wouldn't bow out.
COAL BIN Pics

Sorry for the confusion Freddy. By bin is constructed of 2x4 studs and 1x10 boards all rough cut. I lined the inside with 6 mill poly with no seams, just folded the corners over. The bottom plates are glued with const. adhesive and laged every 32" with 1/2" wedge anchors. The one wall has joist hangers to suplement the typical nailing detail. The other wall is leaned into the beam so it is inherently stable, only gets tighter when pressure is applied. The 2x4s have about 1/2" bow with all that coal loaded in it though After shoveling 26 ton of supperior coal by hand I found not one out of size chunk of coal or other material. I probobly should of augered right out of the bin directly. I guess I am gun shy with the lousy coal of last year and will continue to screen my coal.

I added a 3/16 cable to shore up the upper bin thru 3/8 x 4 1/2 galvanized eye bolts which are going thru the 3/4 plywood and 2x4 studs the long way. I will probably add some lag bolts in the corners as well.
Just got my Keystoker A-150 delivered! 8" chimney will be installed this week then we get that furnace hooked up. Can't wait! 5 tons of rice coal coming soon!!!

vandalay714 wrote:I added a 3/16 cable to shore up the upper bin thru 3/8 x 4 1/2 galvanized eye bolts which are going thru the 3/4 plywood and 2x4 studs the long way. I will probably add some lag bolts in the corners as well.
Just got my Keystoker A-150 delivered! 8" chimney will be installed this week then we get that furnace hooked up. Can't wait! 5 tons of rice coal coming soon!!!

I like the cable system. Very nice ! That Keystoker is really nice too! Start a new thread, with Pics on the install of it?

DVC500 at last wrote:

vandalay714 wrote:I added a 3/16 cable to shore up the upper bin thru 3/8 x 4 1/2 galvanized eye bolts which are going thru the 3/4 plywood and 2x4 studs the long way. I will probably add some lag bolts in the corners as well.
Just got my Keystoker A-150 delivered! 8" chimney will be installed this week then we get that furnace hooked up. Can't wait! 5 tons of rice coal coming soon!!!

I like the cable system. Very nice ! That Keystoker is really nice too! Start a new thread, with Pics on the install of it?

Will do! Unfortunately they delivered the wrong furnace. The hot water coil comes out of the wrong side. So I will have to wait a while for them to swap out the firebox and then will document and post our progress.

2 tons in it now. After seeing it 3 should be no problem.

kjb197 wrote:2 tons in it now. After seeing it 3 should be no problem.

Yep, she'll hold more. Looks nice!
BTW.... Did you happen to drill some weep holes thru the bottom? Looks like you got a load of freshly-washed coal.

1x6's for the floor. Should drain between the boards. Only the plywood is not preassure treated, scraps I had stashed away. Just needs painted now. Thanks.

Well, put 5 tons in my bin without a problem. No bowing at all. Thanks to all for suggestions on how to make it strong. My coal guy was "impressed with the workmanship"!
Cable held the top tight and three lag bolts on each corner was the key.

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I had a dilemma....After only 2 months of schlepping 50 pound bags of rice coal from my garage, across 1/2 the back yard, down my hatchway, and to the front of the basement near my stove, I had it! My poor, 62 year old back wanted an easier solution! I got my stove in February, and I knew I had to come up with a better idea.

In looking at the great coal bins in this thread, I considered what I wanted to do. Yea, I'd like to build a 5-6 ton size bin near my stove and have loose rice coal dumped in from a hi-boy coal truck. But the only option was to put it in the other front corner of my basement, necessitating a back-up across my front yard for the coal truck. I also had to find someone who could/would deliver loose coal in the Springfield MA area, as well.

So, I decided on a mini-bin in the same corner as my stove! It's also the corner of the house closest to the front of my 1 car detached garage (the bags are in the rear of the garage), and would make for easy access. I've been a faithful follower of "This Old House" on PBS and have built a couple of projects in the past 20 years or so, so I figured I could do this. I planned on something akin to the old railroad coaling towers from the steam locomotive days, where the steam engine would drive under the coal tower and the coal would drop directly into the tender. In my case, a 5 gallon "Homer" bucket from Home Depot and thence to my Alaska Channing III.

Unfortunately, that corner of my house is 'home' to a 200 amp circuit breaker box (and main lead into the house), an outside water faucet, my telephone junction box with DSL "home run" attached, a GFI protected outlet, and grounding wires for my telephone and electrical service. But as it's the wall with the chimney from the former oil furnace and fireplace above, I didn't have a choice.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking from here on.




I didn't expect the cinder blocks of the wall to break up so easily from using a 10 pound sledge hammer! I wound up using about 140# of cement to fill the hole after putting in the 4" PVC pipe!!!


I figured the area would become a muddy mess during the winter, so I put down a dozen foot-square patio stones before putting down the legs of the funnel.


Although not obvious in the picture, there is no left side on this thing. I still have access to my hose faucet (only with doing some contortions, however).




Yes, it's lag bolted to the wall with 15 3/8" x 4" lag screws! And yes, it's over-built, too! But I had some used 2x4s and plywood at hand, and it's easier to work with 2x4s than something smaller. All framing joints are attached with Liquid Nails and 4" long screws. Having diligently watched "This Old House" for many years, I even tried my hand at a couple of lap joints!




I used the cheapest caulk I could find at Home Depot ($2.95 a tube, as I recall) to caulk all the joints to the outside of the bin. My goal was to have ZERO coal dust in the air when I poured coal in from the outside. I used caulk to seal a couple of gaps here and there, including where the PVC pipe comes into the side of the bin, as well. The caulking did the job. There is no dust cloud, even after pouring in the coal.





OOPS!!!

Looks like "Plan A" didn't do so well!!!!

I had two problems! First was coal spilling over the sides of the bucket (caused by not putting the bucket far enough in under the bin, which, was caused by putting the center support leg of the bin too far forward to allow the bucket further back!). And, the metal slide door closed with difficulty on my first bucket of test coal (100 pounds poured in), and by the end of the 3rd and last bucket of the 100# test, wouldn't close completely!

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So, it's on to "Plan B".

On of my co-workers who also heats with coal suggested a vertical slide-gate on the front of the box. Sounded good to me. So off with the front panel (note, the fast setting caulk from Home Depot works so well as a glue, the first layer of the plywood came off when pried apart from the studs!).

So, I cut out the front of the floor, ahead of the opening, and fashioned a ramp that I covered with sheet metal glued and screwed down. I experimented with the angle until the coal would slide down the ramp, and then screwed and Liquid Nails'd it into place. I then glued and screwed 2x4 pieces to the front, fashioned a slide-gate from plywood, and another 2x4 glued and screwed to the first with appropriate spacer material between to seal it all together.







As the last picture shows, I am now a happy camper! I fired up this past Tuesday, the 13th!

And, of course, my "stash" for the season...



As it turns out, my mini-bin holds about 475 pounds, with some of that still in the chute and a bit still in the funnel. It came out better than I expected! After 5 days of use, the bin is still 1/2 full (I looked in the trap-door) and the chute/slide gate works very well!

Lessons learned the hard way: (in no particular order)

1. Pour coal more slowly into the funnel. My 2nd bag lost about 2-3 pounds to the ground as I was pouring faster than the slightly "bashed" 4" pipe could handle. I messed up in building the metal funnel, so it's really a "D" shaped affair at the bottom making it effectively a 3"+ funnel. Maybe I'll re-build it next summer.

2. Don't "slam" the slide-door down. Press it down gently. Slamming it down only makes the coal it hits scatter all over the floor.

3. Use a spayer liberally as the coal comes out of the chute to minimize dust. It also minimizes dust when pouring it into the hopper of the stove.

4. "Think out" and plan and draw it out more carefully. I just sort of built the bin with the "oh, that's about right" for measuring and planning. Had "Plan A" worked, the floor of the bin would be 3.5" too high, limiting what I could hold in the bin. As it turned out, though, that was a blessing, as it worked out that installing "Plan B" didn't lose much space in the bin.

5. Figure out why, 2 days after completion, all 4 front legs of the bin are 1/2" off the ground! Everything was plumb and level when I built it! Could the kiln-dried 2x4s I used on the front have shrunk THAT MUCH in 2 days???

In all, I estimate it took about 120 hours to do all the work, spread out over 5 weeks or so of spare time. Counting my screwups first with the sheet metal for the funnel (several attempts were made with several heat register housings and sheets of metal), messing up the front panel of the bin doing 'trick' sawing with a circular saw to get the cutout for the trap door, etc, I spent about $100 for materials. I was suprised I went through 5 boxes of 4" screws! I figured 2 would have been enough. But then, I tend to overbuild stuff.

Overall, I'm quite satisfied with my results. I owe many thanks to the members of this website for all the ideas and considerations I found on building a coal bin! Hopefully, my efforts here will help someone else, as well.

Bruce