WASTE NOT

Series

Series Name: Mining Review 10th Year

Issue

Issue No.

Date Released

May 1957

Stories in this Issue:

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 4

Summary

NoS synopsis: a fuel-saving boiler house where the boiler has been adapted to burn slurry at Llay main colliery.
NCB Commentary - Llay Main Colliery, near Wrexham, is the site of a new coal-saving procedure.
A waste material from all colliery washing plantss is slurry, a muddy residue, hitherto regarded as unsaleable.
Usually, it is pumped out from the washery and dumped at the colliery in ponds or pits.
Now, at Llay Main, a water tube boiler plant has been adapted with a mechanical stoker to burn this material previously written off as useless.
The slurry is loaded into rail wagons and goes to the new boiler-house where it’s fed into bunkers.
The new boiler is automatic. It very nearly looks after itself. Turning out fifty thousand pounds of steam an hour, among its advantages are the faccts that it can be looked after by one man and that it is practically smokeless in operation.
The new boiler chimney is on the right. The left-hand chimney belongs to the existing old boiler plant.
Down there, a team of stokers still put in hard graft firing the old Lancashire boilers; and to keep them going really does mean hard work. The new boiler, on the other hand, fires itself.
Through the observation port, you can see how the previously useless slurry is made to burn on the constantly moving grate with a strong forced draught.
When a second unit replaces all the existing Lancashire boilers, Llay Main will be saving one thousand tons of coal a week to boost the colliery’s output figures.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 8th April 1957.

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