Coal Bin Pictures and Designs

reicharb wrote:Here are some pic's of my basement coal bin. It has about 3 tons in it, full it will hold 4 to 5 ton.

What I would have suggested there is that you had built the bin where the window is. If for example you could get truck anywhere near that window I'd be able to fill it almost to the rafters without touching a shovel or going in the basement, truthfully. Understandably you might not have been able to do that if you have particular circumstances.

When you're building a bin the window should be as far away from your access point as possible and centered as much as possible.

I fought with the idea of doing that, but I want to finish my basement someday and I didn’t want to block the window. I still shoot the coal thru the window, I just put my shoot on a angle. It worked ok, I just had to push the coal down the shoot, not enough angle and the coal was wet. I used a large wooden crate and a my friends rollback truck to bet the coal at the breaker. When you tilt the bed, it lowers it too close to the ground, not giving the shoot enough height. I want to find a conveyor or something to allow me to get the shoot higher next year and hope that it flows better.

You need about 40 or 45 degree angle for rice, if you can't get that conveyor won't help. If you're getting it from the breaker and they have the ability to wash it get it as clean as you can, you want to avoid them loading you from the middle of the pile if its right from the sizing house bins. Water doesn't make a lot of difference but dirt will. The coal itself makes big difference too. If it's real "round" without a lot of flat pieces it will flow better.

If you really want to "turn it around", how about a 275 gallon oil tank or two with a hole in the top and bottom or end

These 4 55 gal drums I got for free and they do great job holding my coal.

how do you get the coal out of the drums?

I used a five gallon bucket to scoop the coal out of 55 gallon barrels.. after the barrel is near empty, I put them on their side,and used a shovel for the last bit.

Greg L

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I use a 6 quart feed scoop

This is what I currently use to bin my fuel - field corn!




Then material feeds out the bottom and is moved into the boiler room with a 4 inch farm grade auger.

Will this work to bin and move coal? I worry about two things ONE will the material freeze and bridge in the outdoor bin? Two is the "farm" auger robust enough to move the material in?

WOW! That should work!! I hope your are not trying to put thru the upstairds window hahahahaha.

I would think as long as you get coal that's not too wet. I get oiled coal, keeps the dust down and you don't have to worry about it freezing, however my bin is in the basement. I know some of the bagged stuff the dealers store outside freezes hard as rocks, since they bagged it wet.

naaaa

I cannot even check it from that third story window - I just used it as a safe place to hand winch the space shuttle to take off position! There is a nice safe ladder on the back side ( house side) to crawl up and peer in. I would have to load this thing with a 20 foot long 4 inch farm auger also - does that move pea grade anthracite? or bituminous? I could fall back to bagged but I am handling 10 tom of bagged this year already since I ran out of corn and thats no fun!

pretty cool set up. hope it works fine. I would like to find a 4" auger about 10' long for something I want to try. I have searched the web and can't find anything.

One more tidbit to toss in - one of the old coal bins for the house is still there ( bin doors are the house side of the space shuttle and there WAS one behind) but the floor is flat - the old engine must have been a hopper style ( material shoveled from bin to hopper) - or hand feed maybe but this was a hi end house in its day. So if I take the space shuttle down and build myself a conveyor to load the bin from my dumper ( or if I split a jillion bags into the conveyor and store bulk in the bin) - and if I taper the coal floor so I pull out the fuel with an old 5 ton bin feed system I have - Well I don't really need the space shuttle. Its just there now and if it would work it would save a lot of rework time.

Anyone else use a bin like this? There must be some lost knowledge of dead plumbers that they all stored in residential basement bins rather than exposed towers like this!

Hey key you and I might have the same idea in mind with the auger. I was just quoted on friday $265. for the auger, auger tube with hardware and bearing for the bottom.(4in 11 foot long) That was at a local Ag. supplier. I told him thanks for his time but my crazy idea probably wouldnt work anyway so 265 was too much to spend chasing my dream. Jim......Nice setup Sting

Thank- you

Heck yeah its sweet - best part it was mostly made from junk or salvage - I call the feed company - the truck backs in - I hand the boy a check and a 6 pack of soda - he swings the stinger over the space shuttle and 1o minutes later I got 6 ton of corn fuel. I never touched the stuff till it was ash with the augers and savaged combine parts to feed Baby Boiler.

Also works great with wood pellets but I have been to lazy to load the system so I been packing my bags into the basement with a grocery conveyor and filling the hopper by the bag. I may as well hump chunk wood!

Ethenol has taken my corn fuel source out of reach. Wood pellets are an unknown. I haven't been around much coal since I was a young teen.

I anguish if the outdoor bin system using agriculture grade auger systems will be as sweet with coal.

Or do In need ditch the space shuttle and to go back to basement bins???