Outside Coal Bin / Frozen Coal

Hello all, I plan on building a 4.5 ton coal bin just outside my house to store my coal. I was talking with my Dad and he mentioned that the coal could freeze (long time coal user)... Does anyone storing their coal (Rice) outside have any issues with frozen coal (clumps)? or does it not matter if the coal is clumpy? Thanks in advance!

Chris

With the right combination of weather, the entire 4.5 tons could freeze into one solid lump... You really need to keep the bin covered to protect the coal from rain, snow and ice..

Greg L.

I plan on having a lid on the top.. should be fairly weather proof... but you can't escape the dampness in the winter... maybe it won't be an issue.

There is NOTHING worse than trying to break off frozen chunks of coal out of the coal bin... Like Lsfarm said, be sure and kep it weatherproof,,,,

As long as you keep the rain/snow off of it you won't have a problem. The ice will even evaporate in the winter, just takes longer. The rice is particularly bad with this because you have so many more surfaces for it to freeze. Generally the piles at the breaker will have about a foot of frozen material on the top and it will be not be frozen underneath however those are very large piles and yours won't have the stored heat inside. They actually let off steam if you dig far enough into them.

i store my rice coal outside in bin.just kept it covered with a tarp last year. I had no issues with freezing in any major way, the coal was mostly dry. on occasion I would get some moisture but it resulted in very little frozen chunks of any significant size. any that did were easily broken with a shovel. good luck! Rich.

I buy alot of my coal during the winter months due to lack of storage. most coal is wet so I have had it freeze 12in. deep in half ton containers. what I do is when I think it is going to get down to very cold temps I fill 5gal. buckets and set then in my garage so I bring one at a time in to the house to thaw.