WAJAJAJA wrote:hi, Im Walter, in Lafayette, outside of newton, Trying to burn coal in my multi fuel outdoor wood burner, it burns wood, coal, so the dealer said, it has a shaker grate, and it also has separate chamber for burners for oil ,propane, or waste oil,
So far at best Ive only been able to burn a mix of firewood and coal, and the coal often get smothered in ash, I suspect that the coal get the water too hot, shut off the blower, and the system doesn't cool fast enough to turn on the blower to reignite the coal.
Im useing stove coal that I got from Wilson, in Sparta, the Dealer in Ohio told me he sells many tons of bituminus and it burn very well , but thats ohio, thats not available in NJ, is it. or desireable.
WAJAJAJA wrote:hi, there is power blower that is thermostat controlled by the water temperature which is set for 165 in the boiler, I cannot have it go higher or the hot air furnace in the basement trys to blow off the heat and just blows the heat into the house have had it go up to 95 degrees. and that also boils off the water in the system.
I suspect that I need to learn the right amount of coal vs thickness and time to balance this out with a minimum of wood that ashes it up
You migh already know this stuff but I hope it's worth bring up again so here goes...
Mixing anthracite coal and wood generally does not promote good, steady or thorough combustion of either fuel. Having said that, I've read post where some operators are happy with the results. There are some physical and chemical realities to combusting the fuels both together and separately.
- Wood requires considerably less air to burn properly than anthracite. It also does best with a mix under and over fire air because it burns as coals and generates smoke. Fort the smoke to burn, it needs the proper amount of heat and extra over fire air to make the smoke bunt into flames. Under these conditions the anthracite mixed in might not burn fully.
- Conversely, setting the air for anthracite combustion could/will over fire the wood mixed in and generate a lot of heat very quickly while the anthracite burns along nicely. Since you've got forced combustion air, maybe this is what's happening when your furnace dumps the excess heat as a safety feature. For Anthracite to burn controllably it needs a deep bed. Most if not all of the air should be fed from below the grate. Anthracite has little volatiles (smoke) in it and is mostly carbon. The entire bed will ignite only if there is enough air fed from below and controlling the amount of air will control the heat output. I've played around and put a chunk of firewood ontop of a coal fire and it just sat there and charred without flaming. Once I fed more air, enough oxygen made it thru the burning coal and finally the piece of wood flamed off.