Slow Blue Dancing with Red Dressed Ladies in a Clayton

wow i am really intrigued by your science experiment doug! tell me, in the clayton 1600, how big are the openings in your shaker grates? unreal, as greg stated, that the buckwheat will burn without it being a stoker. must be a hell of a draft. hey charles, there is buckwheat out here in western new york, i ll pick some up in my dump trailer when i come out to do your roof next week. supposed to be pretty warm, like a high of ten.

mudman: I never really measured the grates or the openings on the grates.This is what the Clayton 1600 and 1800 grates look like. The grate openings are just big enough to get my poker through. Yes, sometimes coal will fall through the grate, but it has to be small.

Hi Doug, I'm still impressed that you can get Buckwheat to burn well in a hand fired stove.. usually Pea is the smallest size that will burn well with natural draft.
I suspect that with the smaller size coal, that the ash removal is very effective with your shaker grates,, instead of trying to grind up larger husks of burnt-out coal and large pieces of ash, the smaller pieces just fall through, this would keep the air passageways open and the fire burning better..

The lower burn rate and burn temperature is keeping the fire temp below the AFT, the Ash Fusion Temperature. If you burn the fire really hot, the ash will fuse into a big sheet of clinker, which blocks the airflow, and won't shake down.. This is what happened every week in my big handfed boiler..

Your Clayton firebox has nearly vertical walls, this helps it burn with out compacting the ash, which also creates clinkers..

I wish I was nearby,, I give you a few hundred pounds of pea coal and you could see what the furnace burned like with a slightly larger coal..

I'm surprised that the draft was the same at the flue compared to the inlet of the ashpan, were you useing the long probe throught the ashpan spinner?? that would make more sense.

Take care,, Greg L

Yes Greg. I was using the long probe of the draft rite gauge in the ash door spinner to get the reading. I started to burn buckwheat coal long before I had any experience with a stoker. Now that I have a stoker fired furnace and a hand fired unit which burns buckwheat so well, it only makes sense to buy and use buckwheat coal for both units. I never ran the stoker with rice, other than to initially start it. I was wondering how well rice would burn, but no dealers around me sell it in bulk. The Reading buckwheat coal is burning so well in both units, that I really don't want to experiment with anything else. I guess I've become a little complaisant with the Reading buckwheat coal.

Thanks for the response. Talk to you soon. DOUG

DOUG wrote:mudman: I never really measured the grates or the openings on the grates.

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This is what the Clayton 1600 and 1800 grates look like. The grate openings are just big enough to get my poker through. Yes, sometimes coal will fall through the grate, but it has to be small.

Nice Experiment Doug wondering what size is your buck 9/16 x 5/16 is the standard size for Anthracite have you took
any measurements of the coal Pea is will be close in size 13/16 x 9/16 standard size I know some breakers will be on the larger end & some will be on the lower end Just curious what size Reading is Putting Out lately . By looking at your grates they do look Pretty tight with smaller slots then alot of hand fed grates Probably why you can burn buck # 1 in it . Expecially if The coal is on the larger size of the scale . Good work very interesting . Here are a few Anthracite standard sizing charts to look at . Keep her stoked up .

http://www.readinganthracite.com/mining_sizes.html

http://www.lcncoal.com/sales/size_usage.php

coal berner: Thanks for the info.This stuff seems to be all over the map.I don't know if this is really what buckwheat coal is supposed to look like.But,this is what I've been getting in bulk and it's been burning great!

I have an old book on burning coal and it says that buckwheat coal is the smallest size that can be burned in a natural draft stove, and only those with a very strong draft. That said, it looks like you are getting wonderful results. I bet the buckwheat shakes down easily.

DOUG wrote:coal berner: Thanks for the info.

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This stuff seems to be all over the map.

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I don't know if this is really what buckwheat coal is supposed to look like.

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But,this is what I've been getting in bulk and it's been burning great!

looks like you got Rice Buck Pea Nut & maybe some Barley in there Oh well as long as it burns who care's keep it stoked up

Barley is 3/16 x 3/32 Rice 5/16 x 3/16 Buck is 9/16 x 5/16 Pea is 13/16 x 9/16 Nut is 1 5/8 x 13/16
Stove is 2 7/8 x 1/58 Egg is 3 3/4 x 2 7/8

coal berner wrote: ...88

Just like the bulk Reading pea i burn in the VC VII. There's a lot of smaller sizes that fit the b-wheat #1 and #2 size distribution similar to DOUGs mix. Just more pea sized pieces. Like J.C. says - it sure does burn well in my stove.

doug how is that buckwheat doin in that clayton? you got me wonderin, im thinkin about gettin a few bags of pea coal (that is bigger than buckwheat, right) and tryin that in my hotblast. try it when it gets warmer out when i dont need so much heat. looked at your pic of your shaker grates and i dont think there is a big difference in size of the slots. let us all know. charles, i know your gonna try!
john

Hey, John. The buckwheat is doing great. It has been burning better than I remembered.The house is 72 degrees.The temperature outside is 10 degrees and falling tonight close to zero tonight.I just charged it for the night. I have the ash door spinner set at 2 1/2 turns out and the draft fan flap closed.I fired up the Clayton 1600 stoker because it is supposed to get really cold tonight and the school district is already called for a two hour delay tomorrow because of the wind chill and possible snow accumulation we're supposed to get. I don't want to push the hand fired Clayton too hard and risk the coal to clinker. Besides, I get to sleep in tomorrow and don't want to have to recharge it during my usual early morning routine.The two Clayton's fired in tandem will allow both units to fire at a moderate rate. Therefore giving me a more complete combustion of the buckwheat coal and a longer burn time from both Clayton's. Both the Clayton's are being fired on Reading Anthracite buckwheat coal. Here's a picture of the main tools I use. The poker on the left is homemade, the three different coal shovels, and the all metal hoe, to rake mainly the ashes in the Clayton stoker. The buckwheat coal settles itself pretty well after a gentle poke through the coal, so I rarely have to rake the coals to the rear of the furnace when recharging the hand fired Clayton. But the hoe does help shape the mound of buckwheat coal away from the sides of the Clayton firebox.

Just thought you'd be interested to see what the Clayton stoker fire looks like.This baby is HOT!!! I'm spoiled with my Clayton's and love how they operate. Talk to you soon. DOUG

Doug, what kind of square footage are you heating with those two units? Any idea what the heating load is in btu's?

The house is about 3700sq.ft. and built in 1889. It's a big old shack but inside is beautiful to me and I really like it. I once calculated the needed Btu's to heat the house when it is -10 degrees outside to 72 degrees inside, in all of the large, high ceiling rooms and came in the neighborhood of approximately 265,000 Btu's. I'll tell you right now, there is no way I'd keep the house above 65 with natural gas. It would take most of my paycheck to do what coal does on a ton or two a month keeping the house at a cozy steady 72 degrees. Besides the natural gas would really struggle and I'd still be cold if it was -10 degrees outside. The gas is now only a back up. Once you experience the steady warmth of coal, you never want to go back to anything else. DOUG

Well, 10 hours later.It's -2 degrees outside with windchill around -10.The house dropped to 68 degrees because I didn't have the stoker thermostat set at 72 degrees. Dummy me.This is what the hand fired burned down to handling most of the heating load.The ash from the hand fire. It really burns the Reading buckwheat coal completely.Look at the difference in the ashes between the hand fired Clayton and the stoker fired Clayton. The hand fired Clayton is kind of whitish and fine and the stoker fired Clayton is kind of gray with clinkers and a few unburnt small pieces of coal. I guess that is the price you have to pay for added convenience. I haven't figured out how to get the stoker fired Clayton to burn anymore completely then this. Any suggestions are welcome. So far I'm pleased with the Clayton's performance.

Talk to you all soon. DOUG