Tip for coal hopper life and gaskets

Greetings,
I want to pass along something we do on the lager stokers when we rebuild them. We wire wheel the hopper and other parts that are in contact with the coal. After they are clean we paint them with truck bed liner. We just go to any hardware store and buy the kit. Brush it on and let it dry. We paint any item that comes into contact with coal and coal juices. This prevents the coal and coal juices from rotting out the metal. This stuff does work and we have found it prolongs the life of metal parts in contact with coal. I painted my carpet feed plate on my stove at home and its still as good as new.

One other item I want to pass along, I see a lot of folks forget about replacing gaskets on the boilers. I see this is my job as well. One over looks these cheap seals. You also need to replace your door glass gasket as well. This gasket gets over looked so many times. These seals can also save your life cause of co leaking.

Thanks.

Great Tip BRM..

Truck bed line, IE Rhino Liner ??

Going to have to try that, my Alaska Stoker 1 goes through a carpet plate every other season..

Thanks for the tips as I am new to coal this year . I did spray my hopper with the spray type of truck bed liner , just wondering if that is as good as the brush on type. I guess I will find out how good it works when I do the spring clean up at shut down . Between the spray and burning dry coal I'm hopeing for the best as far as the hopper is concerned.

Great tip. To avoid problems though, just don't put wet coal in a hopper. That's asking for trouble. I have a list of things I do to my boiler every spring to prep it for summer shut down. Cleaning, prepping and painting the hopper is always on that list but honestly I've never had to do it. The hopper still looks like new inside at 10 years. No corrosion ever and it's not even painted. Harman doesn't paint the inside of the hoppers. It has seen damp coal but never wet. On the other hand several of the mag stokers I've bought to refurb have had corrosion. Once prepped, I like the truck liner idea.

Nice tips. I change the gaskets on the stove doors every year. I'm going to try the bed liner stuff on the hopper and hopper lid this spring.

Great tips, thanks. My 1st yr running a "like new" 1994 Alaska Stoker II ( I love this thing more than my Channing III) I'll be sure to break it down and follow your recommendations especially seeing as how I burn Blashak Rice.

I'm On Fire wrote:Nice tips. I change the gaskets on the stove doors every year. I'm going to try the bed liner stuff on the hopper and hopper lid this spring.

I believe it may be best to consider this for stoves such as stokers, where the hopper isn't in such close proximity to the firebox.