I Can Tell I'm Buring Blaschak Again, and I'm Bummed

Pacowy wrote:

Lightning wrote: Hey Fred seems them thar rice burners are a bit kinda fussy Wouldn't ya say???

Uh, Larry said he's burning pea; not sure why you guys are dumping on rice burners here.

Mike

Good call partner. Sometimes it's just fun to tap on the honest's nest and run hahaha

lsayre wrote:

Rob R. wrote:Larry, maybe you will get better burn-out of the coal once you have your timer hooked up.

I agree. That was supposed to happen this weekend, but then the "Kings Royal" World of Outlaws Sprint Car race came up, and now we are off to Rossburg, OH (195 miles from home) to see the race tomorrow. Tony Stewart owns the Eldora Speedway where this famous mud fest is held (1/2 mile dirt track), and occasionally he races in the event. I figure that if we come straight home after the race is over we will be arriving home at about 3:00 AM Sunday morning.

I just looked it up, and the Eldora track record lap time is 12.707 seconds. That's really flying to traverse a half a mile oval of dirt.

UPDATE: Got home at a bit past 5:30 AM this morning. Fastest laps were in the 13.2 second range for this race. Tony Stewart flipped over and demolished his sprint car, and then promptly blamed his team mate Steve Kinser (winner of no less than 574 World Of Outlaw Sprint Car events) for it over the public address system while being interviewed, earning massive boo's from the crowd at this his own track. I was shocked by both Tony's and the crowds reaction and I was just glad he walked away unharmed.

Sounds like an outstanding day Larry

I can get you good coal......

It looks like I've gone from burning 13.5 lbs. per day during the summer with Harmony to burning 17 lbs. per day with Blaschak.

Different coal, try different adjustments--Larry, this is not an exact science as ya well know. Play with her, you'll get back to a satisfactory amount of daily quantity.

freetown fred wrote:Different coal, try different adjustments--Larry, this is not an exact science as ya well know. Play with her, you'll get back to a satisfactory amount of daily quantity.

With the AHS there is not a lot that one can play with. I just took my water temperature up 5 degrees. Basically you can move your water temperature settings up and down, and your ashing temperature up and down, and that's about it. It either likes the coal, or doesn't.

2 years ago I was burning a blend of 2/3 Blaschak pea and 1/3 Mammoth pea. I was getting better results back then. Not as good as Harmony, but much better than what I'm experiencing now. Back then I figured the Blaschak was carrying the Mammoth, but now that I'm on 100% Blaschak I suddenly realize (or at least strongly surmise) that it was the Mammoth that was giving me my better performance and it was carrying (uplifting) the Blaschak.

Ahhhh, gotcha. I think this old hand-fired 50-93 has me spoiled

Aside from the Mammoth, the only other difference between 2 summers ago and this summer is that back then I ran my water temperature 10 degrees hotter. I just bumped it up 5 degrees, and may bump it up the remaining 5 degrees later if I notice improvement in coal consumption with this incremental change. OTOH, if I notice even more consumption, I will back it down again.

Try some of your fresh load and see if it burns differently. If it does, save the less responsive coal for cold weather. My thinking is that the other load might just need longer firing cycles.

Rob R. wrote:Try some of your fresh load and see if it burns differently. If it does, save the less responsive coal for cold weather. My thinking is that the other load might just need longer firing cycles.

Good idea Rob! That will be my next move after I'm done playing with the temps.

I raised the temp only 5 degrees (firing up the fan at 165 and turning it off at 175) and since that change I'm burning only about 15.5 lbs. per day. I wonder if taking the boiler back up to 170 (fan on) and180 (fan off) where I originally had it when I installed it would improve things even more for the 'old' Blaschak coal? Raising the temp sounds counter-intuitive, but burning less coal per day is what I'm seeing.

lsayre wrote:Raising the temp sounds counter-intuitive, but burning less coal per day is what I'm seeing.

More efficient combustion at higher temperatures could account for this. Less CO.

My local supplier offers Blaschak bagged coal and I would say that I'm not getting an efficient burn on the coal either. Also, I'm not as geared into what I can do with my S130 either. I've been burning coal since 2009 and would like to understand this boiler better than I do, but it seems there aren't any folks in northwest NJ that have much to offer on the AHS S130.

Not that I'm whining... I'd rather do what I'm doing than burn oil anyday, but I wouldn't mind finding someone in my area who knew more about this unit than I do.

So much for my higher temperature is better theory. I just went through 118 lbs of coal in 6 days. That's 19.7 lbs per day, and the worst summer performance my boiler has ever given me (yet) for coal consumption. The first inkling I had of what was coming was when I pulled out the ash pan and it weighed a ton. It had loads of partially burnt to what appears to be fully unburnt coal in it. It was also 2/3 full in 6 days, whereas for the previous 2 weeks it had been half full in 7 days.