Sub Bituminous Fines

Hi all,
I have a couple of questions for those who have tried to burn different sized coal. I work at a coal mine in far western Wyoming. We are discontinuing our local stoker coal sales because of a tipple upgrade. The mine is now only going to sell some large chunk coal and the mines fines for home use. The fines are almost powdered dust coal soaked in oil for sale. Its a byproduct of tipple cleaning and size screening. My father has used an old stokermatic for decades. Does anyone know if an old stokermatic can handle that fine of coal? Would a Harman furnace or Mark III burn fine coal or would it just fall through the grates? I've never used a hand fired coal stove, I grew up with stokermatics and want to try and find a way to use the mines fines. They sell it at a ridiculously cheap rate to employees. Any advice on burning powdered to fine coal would be appreciated.

You can put the bituminous fines in a bag and roll them into a log and just throw it on the fire like a piece of wood. Only in a hand fired stove of course. Some guys add a little used motor oil as a binder but most just roll them up and burn them. Old cardboard tubes are great for stuffing fines into as well.

Terry

Thanks man. I should have read through the all past topics before posting, there is a lot of good info in here. Does anyone have any experience with different coal sizes in a stokermatic? We have ran stoker coal for the last 20 years, and the old beast runs like a dream. Screening house coal to stoker size doesn’t sound like my cup o tea. I’m guessing pure fines would plug it up or smother the fire, but would it run a mix of stoker size and fines?

Although I've burned coal for many years, this winter will be the first with a stoker. As I understand, fines are undesirable in a stoker. I guessing they may jam the auger.

Terry

There are only a few stokermatic operators on this forum.. and it's summertime,, so your responses will probably be slow and few..

The stokermatic uses an auger to feed the underfed firepot,, and augers don't like fines,, especially wet or damp fines.. so I seriously doubt that the fines will feed in the Stokermatic..

I've used the paper bag full of fines roled up into a 'log'.. this works well in hand feed stoves..

Greg L
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Wet bituminous fines jamming up my auger caused me problems on more than a few occassions until I figured out where the rain and snow were getting into my coal bin. I get stoker coal delivered, but it seems that every coal load is a lot of fines. For the most part, it doesn't cause too many problems unless it's wet. I'm not sure what constitutes "wet" coal as we get about 24% moisture in our coal right out of the ground -nor would I know how to test it... except, "Yup, there goes the shear pin, again." The dryer fines don't seem to cause me problems with the auger or with the fire. If you decide to try it, make sure you have extra pins standing by!

Does anyone know if the bit fines are able to be pelletized into desirable stoker sizes? I can't imagine "rolling my own". I want convenience too, not just cheap.