How do you store your coal

[jimbob]

How do you store your coal ...in a bin, a barrel, a hod, just out on the ground?do you keep the rain off of it

[Hillbillysmith]

I have mine stored in four 55 gallon barrels. they have lids with seals.

[whitebear]

i have a small shed maybe 9' by 9' with a roof which acts like a coal silo. i buy it by the ton normally 10 tons at a time which fills the silo pretty well. it has a little sliding door on the side i have jsut open that and coalpours out into a bucket or scuttle ..

Son Daughtry

[Glenn]

A ton of coal is roughly a pallet in size a little over 4 feet deep. A ton of coal will fill 5 each 55 gallon drums, or about 400 pounds to the drum.

Weather is not a concern as the coal is shipped by river barge and rail road car uncovered, and stored uncovered at the loading facility and at the power plants. They even sprinkle water on the outside of the ring of green coal on a forge to keep the fire small and under control.

If you were to put it on the ground, put roofing tin, heavy tarp, or some other type barrier between the coal and the ground so when you get down toward the last of the coal you do not have it mixed with dirt.

[Archie Zietman]

When I was using coal with another blacksmith, he stored it outside the forge, just on the ground hemmed in by a few walls to keep it from washing away.

[teejay]

WE buy coal by the semi-load about 20tons, We lay down heavy sheet plastic with plywood sides and open top as we use it just take down a panel and so on. Don't let it mix with too much dirt or you will be winning clinker contests!Inside the shop I use a 30gal. plastic barrel

[R Funk]

There are 2 answers if coal needs a cover....

1) If you plan on using your entire coal inventory in a short period of time (a year or less you probalbly will not have any problems.

2) If your coal inventory will last you more than a year I would cover it as some deteriation can occur. A $5-$10 dollar tarp may be a good investment if this was the case.

[Sam Salvati]

I buy it by the 50 pound bag, and dump it right onto my forge table for easy access.

[tbrforge]

I keep a thirty gallon tub of coal next to the forge, it is laden with water, I don't worry too much about freezing here. The bulk is stored on a pallet in real burlap sacks, not occupying too much space in a far corner of the smithy. I will create a coal bin ( two more sides to the corner wall) for the next purchase which I anticipate to be a large bulk purchase. Always looking for the best deal and least travel to get it.

[jimbob]

your only about 35 miles north of me. Where do you get bulk coal up that way?

[Timekiller]

I keep mine in 5gal. buckets outside. Obviously I dont have much coal around.

[hdwarner]

i keep mine in recycled coolant buckets with lids on outside ,
i buy coal via mail order ,
chuck

[mcraigl]

Mine's stored in the bags on the pallet they came on. On the north side of the shop with a tarp over it. I figure the tarp is more to protect the bags than the coal. The bags break down in UV light, but I think the coal is pretty much Ok with being outside. I bring one bag at a time into the shop, and fill a 5 gallon bucket, then sprinkle a couple of cans of water on it before I use it to keep the dust down when I pour it on the forge and to help with the coking process.

[the_sandy_creek_forge]

Half of an old gas barrel (seems to always be plenty of them on an old farm/ at old farm auctions) it'll hold somewhere between 600-700 pounds. sits right outside with a sheet of scrapped steel roofing over it. Inside i use an empty grease drum for storing usable amounts by the forge.
-Aaron @ the SCF.

[Nick]

I fill a large plastic garbage can with a lid in the main part of my shop, and keep all the rest in the bags in my storage space.

[ThomasPowers]

Water + Coal will eat metal barrels pretty fast, the sulfur will leach out some and make sulfuric acid. Kept Dry there is less of a problem.

When SOFA was looking into storing coal they found out that the "official" standard required catching and treating all water that ran through the coal pile. Much easier/cheaper to put a roof over the coal storage and not have to mess with that.

Me, I have a big wheeled metal bin in the shop I stack the bags of coal in. When the coal fore extension is built it will go out to that and may get extended to handle larger coal loads, now it only holds about 500 pounds.

For demo's I have a relatvely small rubbermaid trashcan with a tight fitting lid. it holds about 1 50# bag of coal and has nice handles for moving it around.

I have a pot metal scoop---like you would use to buy bulk beans/seeds that's dandy for moving a bunch from the store to the fire.

[sdf35]

I do not use coal. I use home made charcoal and I put it in trash cans

[jayco]

Some kind of floor(sheet metal, plywood,etc) makes shoveling up the coal much easier and keeps the coal out of the dirt and the dirt out of your coal.

Putting a tarp over the coal is good......under a roof is better.

there's nothing quite like digging down through the snow to find your coal.

[yesteryearforge]

at least it should be easy to see :)

[Blacksmith Jim]

The bags they came in and in 6 gallon plastic buckets. Some coal I get from friends big coal piles, and I've found I need to clean that. So I drilled holes in a bucket, and I fill it a bit, then run a bunch of water through to clean it, then dump the clean coal in a different bucket. Some stuff I've bought is pretty clean though and I don't need to worry about it, so I leave it in the bag..

[hammerkid]

I keep mine in a plastic 55 gal. drum witha lid that has a band. I get mine Free useally a truck bed full at a time:D

[Dave Leppo]

Coal bin in the corner of my little shop is the top of an old metal wheel barrow, with some oak supports underneath. It'l hold about three bags at a time. i spray water right on this bin with the hose. This time of year, putting big chunks of frozen coal right on the fire is interesting. I think I like frozen coal even better than wet coal!