I have been heating my home for several years with wood and a Quadrafire stove. This has worked well, but I tired of cutting, splitting, stacking, and moving wood to keep the heat coming. My brother, Ashcat on this forum, has been using coal with great success. I decided this past summer to make the switch and was easily able to sell my Quadrafire online.
First step was planning coal storage. I ruled out bagged coal in favor of bulk delivery, but I had no workable basement coal bin option. I considered an outside bin close to the garage and planned to build the bin myself, but a friend said "always build a shed twice as big as you need" and I soon saw that a larger shed could serve multiple purposes. I settled on an off-site manufactured 10' X 20' shed with one end planned for coal storage and the other to store my beekeeping equipment. I had the shed built with a coal delivery door installed high on one end and floor joists on 8" centers for added support. I prepared the site in conjunction with local authorities and used several tons of crushed stone to form a base. The shed was finally delivered via truck and placed on the site. So far so good.
Next up was the issue of actually building the bin inside the shed. I framed out an interior wall to subdivide the length of the shed and cordon off the bin area under the coal delivery door. I covered interior sides of the bin with OSB subflooring material–strong enough and inexpensive. Ashcat had a great idea for preventing the sides of the bin from bowing from the 5 tons of coal I planned to store–he suggested drilling small holes through all the studs surrounding the bin and threading them with steel cable. Great idea. Before installing the OSB, I drilled the holes 3' up from the floor and threaded them with 3/16" steel cable with ends held together by double cable clamps. The photo shows the joining of the ends and the extra cable–I did not feel like cutting it–trailing down on the right side of the photo.
I initially planned on 35 c.f. of space for each ton of nut coal stored, but I eventually worked with 50 c.f. to allow extra capacity and in case my calculations were off. I installed a 45 degree angle section of floor along the long wall opposite my coal unloading area. This angled section went up 3 feet on the wall and extended out 3 feet from the wall toward the center area of the bin. The thought was to allow gravity to move the coal toward the unloading area. Lacking an engineering degree, I did not do the same on the end walls.
I used perforated angle iron stock from Home Depot to make tracks for sliding door panels to use in unloading the coal. This worked out well and the panels were held in place on the inside with long pieces of scrap OSB–strong enough for the job and readily available. The reinforcing steel cable discussed above runs across the coal access door, but on the inside of the door mechanics and not interfering in any way. When the bin is nearly empty, one can step over the cable to enter the bin.
With coal delivery scheduled, I worked diligently to complete the bin and finished it just hours prior to the 6:30 AM delivery time. I was excited to see the coal truck the next morning, but soon was monumentally disappointed when the truck tires became stuck in soft ground following several days of rain. That small incline up to the shed became an impossible journey given the spongy ground and morning dew. Scrap pieces of OSB were thrown under the tires, but to no avail. I felt badly for the driver, who had to take the coal back to his coalyard.
About two weeks later and following several days of dry weather, the coal truck returned and had no difficulty backing up next to the shed and delivering the coal. Calculations for the capacity of the bin proved correct and the bin can probably handle 6 total tons of coal if necessary. Resolution for the future–schedule coal deliveries during the dog days of August when the ground is usually very dry (and prices low!).
Last edited by Richard S.
on Wed Oct 21, 2009 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total. Reason: Fixed image tags