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Coal dust

MtB

By MtB
in General Boating

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MtB Veteran II

MtBDonate to Canal World

Posted
Posted

My coal bucket usually seems to contain about a kilogram of coal dust each time I get to the bottom. I've no idea where it comes from as there never seems to be much in the coal bags!

 

Anyway, as it obviously contains the same heat energy as coal (ok, 'smokeless fuel'), I generally attempt to burn it by putting it in the stove anyway. However, I'm not certain this is a good idea for reasons I find hard to verbalise.

 

What do you do with yours? Burn it or chuck it? And why?

 

 

Mike

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John Holden Proficient

John Holden

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My grannie used to stuff it into an old tin and put it on the fire

 

Mind you, she used to put anything on the fire

 

Richard

 

What, like potato peelings and cabbage stalks?

 

The coal dust used to get mixed with a little cement, moulded in flower pots and left to dry before burning, don't know how that would work with smokeless though.

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John Holden Proficient

John Holden

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Makes an interesting noise, a tin of potato peelings

 

Richard

 

Doesn't it just!

 

Mind you a lot of what they burnt sounded interesting - I dread to think what it did for air pollution though.

And I just had a flash of sitting round a rubbish fire that seemed to suck all the heat out of the room.

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billh Rising Star

billh

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It is a fact that the first engine designed by Dr Diesel ran on coal dust. So there we have it- blow it into your JP/ K/DM/ whatever, with a hair drier and we have a diesel engine that runs on bottom of scuttle waste, got to be better than chucking it in the cut........

Think of the savings and miss all those "discussions" about 60:40 etc .

Bill

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MtB Veteran II

MtBDonate to Canal World

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It is a fact that the first engine designed by Dr Diesel ran on coal dust. So there we have it- blow it into your JP/ K/DM/ whatever, with a hair drier and we have a diesel engine that runs on bottom of scuttle waste, got to be better than chucking it in the cut........

Think of the savings and miss all those "discussions" about 60:40 etc .

Bill

 

SHHHHHHH.... we don't want them to put road tax on coal too

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PhilR Experienced

PhilR

Posted
Posted

My coal bucket usually seems to contain about a kilogram of coal dust each time I get to the bottom. I've no idea where it comes from as there never seems to be much in the coal bags!

 

Anyway, as it obviously contains the same heat energy as coal (ok, 'smokeless fuel'), I generally attempt to burn it by putting it in the stove anyway. However, I'm not certain this is a good idea for reasons I find hard to verbalise.

 

What do you do with yours? Burn it or chuck it? And why?

 

 

Mike

 

I'll take the coal dust off your hands for free. Can you bag it first?

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Radiomariner Rising Star

Radiomariner

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Dross, I think it's called. I remember my mum used to make a bucket of thinish Paper mash. She would then thicken it up with dross. We would then take handfulls of the stuff and roll into balls that she would stack up behind the Raeburn to dry out. Unfortunately, I can not remember exactly how they performed. I think she used them mainly for damping the fire down at night but sometimes I believe, probably if the mix was wrong, she would use them as firelighters (Suspect she may have dipped them in paraffin first!)

 

 

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PhilR Experienced

PhilR

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Dross, I think it's called. I remember my mum used to make a bucket of thinish Paper mash. She would then thicken it up with dross. We would then take handfulls of the stuff and roll into balls that she would stack up behind the Raeburn to dry out. Unfortunately, I can not remember exactly how they performed. I think she used them mainly for damping the fire down at night but sometimes I believe, probably if the mix was wrong, she would use them as firelighters (Suspect she may have dipped them in paraffin first!)

 

 

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Mike asks about those thingies that compress wet newspaper to make paper bricks for burning on fires/stoves..............

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Manxcat Contributor

Manxcat

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I use the dross when banking up the fire for the night, with a layer out of the ash pan on the top.

Sometimes decent little bits of coal/clinker end up in the ash pan, so this way they go back in and get burnt.

Learnt to do it this way from my Granny, who had been thro the 30's depression and then the rationing of WW2, so she knew how to get the best heat from her fire!

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cheshire~rose Veteran II

cheshire~roseDonate to Canal World

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As others have said - sprinkle it over the coal when you have banked up the fire for the night. If you then sprinkle or spray a mist of water over it tends to set into a hard crust over the top.

 

I was taught to do this by Nan-in-law on an open fire at home and in the morning I would crack the crust with the poker to reveal a glowing fire inside ready to heat up the room again. Nan was married to a Yorkshire miner and had 5 mining sons so coal was never scarce, nor was dust but have you ever met anyone from Yorkshire that was not frugal?

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the grinch Experienced

the grinch

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Put it in a thin poly bag, (paper bag if available)

 

When keeping the stove in overnight (i.e. Nov>>March), throw the bag on top of the last loading of coal.

 

It helps damp the fire down, and aids slow burning throughout the night

 

 

on a similar vein, mixed with some ash and put on the top of a fresh load of coal will keep it in overnight but allow it to slow burn.

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