Coal for Sale

Pacowy wrote:This week I've been testing the Newport vs. Jeddo. Both are called buck, but both have a lot of undersized pieces. The testing consists of "normal" offseason DHW runs of 7-30 minutes plus a few longer runs to make some steam. Stoker set on 8 teeth = 40 lb/hr of feed; air varied based on fire appearance in steam runs to try to approximate EFM fire pattern.

The Jeddo went first. In a little under 4 hours of cumulative run time spread over 3 days, 154.9 lb were burned and 20.1 lb of ash and unburned coal were produced, for a total of 13.0% ash and unburned. I believe Jeddo normally runs 8-9% ash in lab tests, so 4-5% of the coal went unburned. To those who aspire to 0 percent unburned this may seem like a lot, but the OE manuals I've seen say the normal amount of unburned should be around 10-15%, and that an excessively low unburned coal percentage is a sign of too much air. In fact, the ash ring during the test was bigger than ideal, indicating too much air. If the test were repeated I'd expect the unburned percentage might be higher.

Then came the Newport. Early on I got the impression that this coal needs long runs to fully catch, so I stretched out the runs (most between 14-37 minutes). It also seems to be less dense than the Jeddo. In a little less cumulative run time than the Jeddo, 133.9 lb were burned and 30.2 lb of ash and unburned coal were produced, for a total of 22.6% ash and unburned. The visible amount of unburned coal was higher than it was with the Jeddo, the fire looked different and the ash removal system worked harder. The coal did hold the fire for over 10 hours without the stoker running, and gave overall performance closer to reasonable than I was expecting.

Mike

anthony7812 wrote:It isnt the ash that's a bitch it's all the damn rocks

tight-group wrote:

anthony7812 wrote:It isnt the ash that's a bitch it's all the damn rocks

I'm looking at the same thing the buckets of ash are as heavy as the coal coming in
I may be able to do my driveway with the stone I'm pulling out, couldn't keep it going
first two burns so I'm still in the adjustment stage does burn nice and hot clinkers the
size of my fist.

tight-group wrote:

anthony7812 wrote:It isnt the ash that's a bitch it's all the damn rocks

I'm looking at the same thing the buckets of ash are as heavy as the coal coming in
I may be able to do my driveway with the stone I'm pulling out, couldn't keep it going
first two burns so I'm still in the adjustment stage does burn nice and hot clinkers the
size of my fist.

steamup wrote:Fired the AA130 earlier in the week because of cool nights. Loaded a bucket of last years ash in and about 15 -20 lbs of my normal coal. Put in the 130 plus pounds of buckwheat/pea mix I got from NA. Fire off the unit and after it came up to temp and stablized, I put in a clean ash pan and leveled off the barrel over the auger with coal. I have run the past few days but loads have been light as the weather was warmer than predicted. I have been heating DHW and taking the chill off of the house in the mornings.

Proceedures are less than scientific but the only thing I have to test coal by.

The results are 116 lbs coal burned with 40 lbs ash produced. This is 34-35% ash. Some rather large clinkers spit out as well as various unburned material.

I do not know what my normal coal runs but will try to monitor it this next week. However, at $100 a ton, this high ash still results in about a 20% savings over $180 a ton premimum coal. Less if you get your premimum coal at a lower price.

I am curious as to how much ash my normal coal will produce with the AA runing at low loads. This next week may tell. Obviously, the coal is not burned as completely at low loads.

I plan to shut down the AA in a couple of weeks and fire up the keystoker burning 100% NA rice coal. I will monitor the results and post them as they come available.

Weather has been too warm for my friend with the hand fired to burn his nut coal yet.

edit - update 9/24/12 7:30 pm. Last 30 hours of cool weather and hot showers burned 81 lbs of coal with 15.6 lbs of ash. About 19%. I am sure I am at the end of the NA coal in the AA130 hopper.