Burn coal in an outdoor boiler ??

[bassman]

I was going to get a coal port on my boiler but never did and now I am thinking that maybe I can just build some sort of rack and place it in front of the blower on the door and shovel in some coal .
has anyone tried this ??
wood is working good and my burn times are in the 12 to 18 hour range so I am happy with how it is working but maybe coal will burn longer and help when it gets real cold and my heat requirements are higher??
just to let ya all know the coal I can get is the bottom end stuff but it is cheap.

shayne

 

[ktm rider]

Yep, i tried it when i had my OWB. It didn't work. In order to get a good coal fire you need 99% of the combustion air to come up from under the coal. If not, you will have a very poor burn and it isn't worth the effort.
I did have some success with using large lumps of coal and putting the lumps on top of the raging wood fire. But,, it did not give me a longer burn time.

If you don't have actual grates in the OWB it isn't going to be worth trying.

 

[ghitch75]

grates are a must with coal and blower under them