Harman Stoker Stuck

I had to pull my feed unit apart today. Thank God it was a warm day. The place I get my coal was sold and the new owner gets Blaschak. I asked about having it oiled, but they don't oil anymore. So, it arrived early Dec wet. It is still wet. Well when it looked like the fines had formed a paste that stuck to the top and bottom of the push block and dried hard. It must have built up slowly until it got thick enough to jam. I have lots of rust from the wet coal. I am in New Tripoli Pa - anyone know where I can get oiled coal? I got 4 tons and so still have pretty much - less than I expected. I seem to go through a lot. But I might need another 2 tons...
Dave

Damp coal is fine in the harman stoker but you cannot use wet coal. If you have somewhere dry to do it, dump coal out on a basement floor and let it dry for a day or so. Otherwise buy dry coal.

I have nowhere to spread out four tons of coal to dry - never had coal delivered dry. Hoped to find oiled, but didn't find anyone local that delivers oiled.

Do you have buckets you could fill with the coal? The top half will dry out enough after a few days, the bottom will stay wet. If the bottom is more than damp, then just pour the top half of the buckets into the hopper then let the bottom dry for a couple more days.

It's not that I planned on doing this to dry my coal, I get mine a pick up load at a time and then fill my buckets when i get home and keep them in the basement. I just happen to notice the coal in the top half is dry when pouring it in the hopper.

Thanks for the suggestion titleist1. I get my coal delivered. I got 4ton and will probably need 2more. It is rice coal, so it seems to stay wet longer. The coal in my bin seems pretty dry. But when I pulled out of the hopper, the coal about 1/2 way down and walls of the hopper were wet - much wetter than what I was putting in. Seems strange now that I think about it a bit....

If you were putting in dry coal and the sides were then damp later on, I believe you were getting exhaust into your hopper before you went through your clean out process. The moisture is the symptom of that. Probably the plate on the combustion fan was open too far, pushing more air into the firebox than could be exhausted out the breech so it looked for other paths out - the hopper. I have the flapper on my combustion fan only open about the width of my index finger. Depending on the coal size I happen to pick up that gets adjusted slightly, but i never get open more than 1/3.

My coal goes in the hopper damp quite often and the hopper sides will be damp if I move the coal around with the small coal shove soon after loadingl. But it dries out after a couple hours in the hopper from the heat of the stove.

That makes sense. I closed off the flapper quite a bit over what it had been before the jam. I had been thinking about oiled coal, but haven't found anyone that sells it near me - New Tripoli Pa.

llama99 wrote:I had to pull my feed unit apart today. Thank God it was a warm day. The place I get my coal was sold and the new owner gets Blaschak. I asked about having it oiled, but they don't oil anymore. So, it arrived early Dec wet. It is still wet. Well when it looked like the fines had formed a paste that stuck to the top and bottom of the push block and dried hard. It must have built up slowly until it got thick enough to jam. I have lots of rust from the wet coal. I am in New Tripoli Pa - anyone know where I can get oiled coal? I got 4 tons and so still have pretty much - less than I expected. I seem to go through a lot. But I might need another 2 tons...
Dave

If, as you said, your pusher block jammed, you may have spread the *Fork* open wider than it should be.
It should be 1-3/4" wide opening inside forks. It will be hard to get as much coal pushed while spread open wider.

Thanks folks! I have her running like a champ now. Forks are good.

Dave

I get my coal delivered in a big pile and then bag it into 50lb bags that I saved from back when I used to buy it in bags.

When it is wet, what I do is...

if it's not terribly wet, I add it to the hopper while the hopper is still 1/2 to 1/3 full. Then I leave the hopper lid slightly ajar. The heat from the stove will dry the coal but with the lid cracked, you won't get the condensation inside the hopper. If you leave the lid totally off, you won't get as much heat build-up in the hopper so the coal won't dry as fast.

If it's really soggy (dripping) I bring the bag in in advance and set it on mat or piece of cardboard in front of the stove and open the top of the bag. The heat from the stove drys the coal pretty well right in the bag.

If your coal vendor sells bagged coal, they'd probably sell you a few bags or maybe even give you a few for free. Otherwise, if you could find some other kind of strong porous bags you'll be in good shape. I've tried to dry coal in non-porous containers (buckets, plastic totes) and that didn't work too well as the water tends to pool at the bottom and never evaporates. Though you could probably drill a few holes in them to help with that.