Summer Coal Bin Project to Feed My Yellow Flame

StokerDon wrote:This will be Blaschak coal. The Blaschak seems a little on the light side, My 5 gallon buckets that I use to fill the hopper are about 35 pounds of coal. Other posts have listed 5 gallon buckets containing closer to 40 pounds of coal (rice). So the Blaschak will take up a little more space than some others.

-Don

It all depends on the 5 gallon bucket. My plastic 5 gallon pails hold well more than 5 gallons. I can get 41 lbs. of Blaschak Pea into them if I fill them level to the brim.

If 5 honest gallons = 35 lbs, then one honest gallon = 7 lbs.

That's 52.364 lbs. per cubic foot, or 1,414 lbs per cubic yard.

2,000/1,414 = 1.414 cubic yards per ton

Based on that I revise my guesstimate downward from 5.8 tons to 5.33 tons for your bin with your lot of Blaschak.

I just got my coal dillivery!!!

10,100 pounds. Larry I think your estimate of 5.33 ton was about right. 10,100 pound = 5.05 ton and it looks like another 500 to 800 pound would fit in the bin.
It's got 2 or 3 weeks to dry out. Then, if all goes well, I will be fire'in up the Yellow Flame to heat some domestic water!

-Don

IT"S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN!!!.

This bin that I built last summer holds close to 5.5 ton of rice coal. Unfortunately, I use more like 7 ton or so during heating season. So the plan is to build upward. I'm going to run 2x4's up to the ceiling and back them with a 2x6 attached to the ceiling. Then insert the 3/4" plywood.

I got most of the 2x4 up tonight. I got 3 ton delivered last week. Once this is done I'm ordering 4 ton more for a total of 7 ton. I hope that's enough! -Don

Yesterday was all about finishing the coal bin.

One of the more difficult parts to figure out was the wall next to that window. I had to get it opened up so I could remove that outlet. For now I just nailed the outlet up above the window. Then I put up some plywood and started framing up the coal bin slat doorway. After a lot of disscusion with my coal supplier, we determined that the best place to fill this type of coal bin is in the middle. Rice coal will NOT fly off the end of the coal shoot like chestnut does, once it comes off the end of the shoot it takes a nose dive almost strait down. The wetter the coal is, the more of a nose dive it takes.

It's best to have more than one loading port if your bin is long, like mine is. I cut a loading port on each side of where the garage door used to be. I put them up as high as possible. I braced it to the ceiling with a 2x6x12'. I cut the slats out of 2x8's, there 28.75" long. Ready for 4 more tons of coal! I still have a little bit of reinforcing to do at the bottom. 7 ton of coal is going to put a LOT of outward pushing force on the bottom of the bin.

This bin is now 7 feet high. The bottom of the loading ports is about 6.5 feet high though. My coal supplier says thier rice coal is right about 35 cu. ft. per ton. The bin is 4' by 12'. It is a little narrower where the window is, so I will take 15% off the final number to account for that and the reinforcing lumber that takes up space inside the bin.

4 x 12 x 6.5 = 312 cubic feet

312 divided by 35 = 8.914 ton

8.914 x .85 (15% less) = 7.569 ton

So, 7 ton should fit in there nicely.

-Don

Looks awesome Don! Pretty beefy, well built.
You shouldn't have any trouble getting 7 tons in there

Looking forward to seeing the next auger adaptation here.

Thank's Lee!

So, for the auger to the underfed stokers, I am going to build a coal annex in front of the slatted part of the bin. Basicly a big box with slats on the front of it, the feed auger will go into it. This way if I have any feed problems I don't have to dig out 7 ton of coal to get to it. If I can get to it before the next 4 tons arive, I plan on shortning my grain auger to about 8 feet and putting into the long side of the bin. Then I can auger feed the coal annex.

Well here it is all braced up and ready for coal! The long side braces make a good ladder so I can clime up and look at my coal.

-Don

Last night I cut 14" off of the grain auger tube. Then I cut the auger down so there is 1.5 flights out the bottom of the tube. Tonight I cut the cage off of the guard on the end of the tube. Then it was a big wrestling match to get the auger and tube down into the 3 ton of coal that is already in there.

I'm not sure yet how I'm going to drive the auger. The main thing is, it's in there! I can dump 4 ton of coal on top of it and figure the rest out later. There is the head sticking out the top. -Don

Last night 4 more ton arrived. There was 3 ton in there, that make 7 ton total. Looks like we could fit 1/2 to 1 ton more in this bin so the 7.5 ton calculation was very close.
Coal wise, I'm ready for Winter. Boiler, plumbing and wiring wise, not so much.

-Don

Lookin' good! Is that coal from Reese's?

YUP!

It's the red truck. The red one goes higher than the green one.

Speaking of which, we got to get to work on your boiler project! There was and EFM 520 on ebay today that sold for $780! I couldn't believe it.

-Don

I am jealous....I have been talking to mike for years about tagging a truck for MD and deliver across the line but he won't bite! I have been trying to get a buddy with a dump truck lined up for about a month to make a run up there for 10 ton but he has been too busy with his excavation business to carve out time for a coal run. It's good to be busy, but I am getting antsy to get my bunker filled!

As much as I like them, I just don't see a boiler in my future. Just not practical down here below the mason dixon line where I only burn 5 or 6 months and have minimal HW usage. I'd worry about it deteriorating since it is not firing for half the year. The stand alone stoker does well enough and is easy to shut down for the summer.

Somebody got a great deal on the 520!

A guy at the local grocery store gets TT loads of nut coal every few years. I was in there today, he said he just got his over the weekend. 25 tons, he says that's enough to go 8 to 10 years for him!

The boiler thing has become a crazy addiction for me. You can push heat to anywhere you want to. PEX is cheap, of coarse all the other plumbing bits are expensive. On top of that they are very interesting and affordable machines (used).

Somebody sure did get a good deal on a 520!

-Don

Are you building a doghouse for the Efm auger?

Rob R. wrote:Are you building a doghouse for the Efm auger?

I don't know if its called a doghouse or not. I'm just going to build a box about 30" x 30" 4 or 5 feet high with the auger in near the bottom. This will be right in front of the coal bin slats. I should be able to rake coal into the box from the top of the coal bin, removing slats as the coal goes down.

I hope it works!

-Don