Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1918 — HOW TO BURN THE INDIANA COAL [ARTICLE]

HOW TO BURN THE INDIANA COAL

Since it looks as if Indiana would be asked to use Indiana coal for another year retail dealers and consumers are showing an unusual interest in the “nature of the animal.” Very little information can be obtained about Indiana coaly there having been no study along this line by the state institutions. For this reason the following from W. D Stuckenberg, president of the Commercial Testing ' and Engineering Company of Chicago, is of unusual interest. In a recent isue of “The Coal Scoop” published by the Indiana Retail Coal Merchants Association, Mr. Stuckenberg said: The coals found in Illinois and Indiana are higher in volatile matter or gases than the Eastern coal. It is these gases or volatile matter that we must learn to handle or better still, burn. Remember, Illinois and Indiana coals have from 35 per cent

to 45 per cent volatile matter in them, hard coal has less than 10 peY cent and Poe shrdlu shrdlu nu nun 18 per cent. When the householder learns how to take care of these gases, the generation of heat, the formation of clinkers, the deposit of soot, the maintaining of the fire, etc., will take care of themselves. The house heating furnace might really be called a gas producer. When the gases are once disposed of the economical operation of such a furnace is a simple matter. The following suggestions if carefully studied will materially assist in operating a small furnace: 1. Wet all soft coal before firing it. 2. Remember, that the smaller the coal is in size (screenings, No. 4 or No. 5 washed nut,) the more surfaces are exposed to the action of heat and, therefore, the gases are given off very rapidly. 3. The larger sizes of coal (lump, egg or nut) have fewer surfaces exposed and the gas is distilled off slowly. 4. Remember that when you throw a shovel full of fine, dry coal onto a redhot fuel bed the gases are driven off so rapidly that an explosion really takes pace and you get a “comeback” by the fire and smoke, coming out of the firing door. 5. Remember that it takes heat —a relatively high temperature to ~bum this volatile matter. 6. Remember you can burn the gases if you do not crowd your fire —don’t smother it—give it a chance to live, it has to have air just like a human being. 7. Fire lightly and often. When using a mixed size, such as mine run, fire part lump and part fine in the same shovelful. Break up all pieces of coal to the size of a cocoanut.

8. Alternate firing (mentioned below) means to fire the coal on part of the fuel bed at a time, green coal on one side or half of the grate so that the hot coals on the other half can ignite, the gases distilled off from the green coal. ' 9. During zero weather your furnace must usually run at full capacity and the alternate method may not do, then fire the green coal along the circumference of the fire pot, leaving the center of the fuel bed a red, glowing mass. This hot, half-burned coal will help materially to burn the gases from the green fuel. 10. Remember that the deposit of soot is caused by the gases not being burned and by their coming in contact with relatively cool surfaces. This causes a decomposition of the gas and a consequent deposit of soot. One-sixteenth-inch deposit of soot on heating surfaces means 25 per cenVloss of coal. One-eighth-inch deposit of soot on heating surfaces means 45 per cent loss of coal.

Three-sixteenth-inch deposit of soot on heating surfaces means 76 per cent loss of coal. Soot is one of the best non-con-ductors of heat known. 11. Remember to keep your equipment clean, your ashpit empty, your fire free from clinker, your dampers regulated so that to admit enough air to the fire, but not too much. 12, Remember if you have been using a base-burner for hard coal and must use soft, do not feed this soft coal through the magazine. The gases will be driven off and fill your house. Fire through the side doors with small, frequent charges. Ludd Clark, of Monon, was in town today on business. a