EFM AF150 Stoker

hi
just finished cleaning painting and installing an efm af150 stoker that someone gave us for scrapmetal.......all appeared to be there till I went to hook up the wiring....it seems i'm missing the stoker feed timer......question is, where to locate an affordable one.......guy that gave me the stoker said it never had a timer for the auger..... I would think it would overfeed without a timer.....nothing like my alaska stove in the house.....going broke here, already spent a fortune on parts etc to hook up this beast.......currently burning nut coal in a antique hand fired stoker, and a warm morning.........i want to use the efm to heat a 3500 sq ft garage.......anyone have any experience with the efm stokers? btw this isnt a boiler,it's a hot air furnace
thanks
scott

Hello Scott, welcome to the forum. Take a look at the end of the auger drive, it has a toothed gear on the end. There is a ratchet pawl on the top of the gear. With every revolution of the gearbox the lever moves this pawl and it catches a set amount of teeth on the gear that drives the auger.

The pawl can be adjusted to catch only one tooth all the way up to 10 . But the amount of coal fed to the firepot varies from 2.5# per hour to 25# per hour.

I'm pretty sure you can leave the stoker running and adjust your heat and fuel use with the pawl adjustment.

If this isn't clear, PM me with your email and I'll send you a photo of the gear and pawl that may help explain what I mean.

Hope this helps Greg L

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lincolnmania wrote:hi
just finished cleaning painting and installing an efm af150 stoker that someone gave us for scrapmetal.......all appeared to be there till I went to hook up the wiring....it seems i'm missing the stoker feed timer......question is, where to locate an affordable one.......guy that gave me the stoker said it never had a timer for the auger..... I would think it would overfeed without a timer.....nothing like my alaska stove in the house.....going broke here, already spent a fortune on parts etc to hook up this beast.......currently burning nut coal in a antique hand fired stoker, and a warm morning.........i want to use the efm to heat a 3500 sq ft garage.......anyone have any experience with the efm stokers? btw this isnt a boiler,it's a hot air furnace
thanks
scott

hello scott try Rosenberger plbg & htg 500w arch st potsville p.a.622-6541 give them a call they are a efm dealer I am sure they have one or can get one good luck

LsFarm wrote:Hello Scott, welcome to the forum. Take a look at the end of the auger drive, it has a toothed gear on the end. There is a ratchet pawl on the top of the gear. With every revolution of the gearbox the lever moves this pawl and it catches a set amount of teeth on the gear that drives the auger.

The pawl can be adjusted to catch only one tooth all the way up to 10 . But the amount of coal fed to the firepot varies from 2.5# per hour to 25# per hour.

I'm pretty sure you can leave the stoker runing and adjust your heat and fuel use with the pawl adjustment.

If this isn't clear, PM me with your email and I'll send you a photo of the gear and pawl that may help explain what I mean.

Hope this helps Greg L

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thanks greg.......we got it goin! it's 72 degrees in my 3500 sq ft uninsulated garage....now mind you we got a nut burner goin, but it was 52 degrees in the shop 2 hrs ago and we cut the nut burner way back......maybe even to the scrap yard in a few days for coal money (it's a ? yr sunbeam with a huge chunk of the grate missing......we have the efm stoker set to 4 notches, we are burning buckwheat coal in it.....it was recomended by my roomates father who has been burning buckwheat in his efm boiler for years.......i switched my alaska stove that I have in my apartment over to buckwheat too....both doing well........glad to see many others are fascinated with coal heat lol........i'm not a coalcracker at heart, I moved to schuykill county pa a little over a yr ago cause I could not afford rent on a shop to build custom cars.......had 4 nut stoves running to keep the building warm last winter (it's 3 attached buildings, the garage, my roomates house, and my apartment........total of 6500 sq feet..........i'm hoping this efm stoker will cut down on my total coal consumption (i avg a ton every 10 days) when this was an auction house, they burned alot of oil......there was a 1500 gal underground tank.......i'll have none of that lol
thanks guys! great forum!
scott

Is that hot water boiler or hot air? Anyhow the hot water EFM's are similar to my Van Wert but I don't know if they are set up exactly the same. Ours will only feed coal under two conditions, A) the water temperature drops below whatever we set it at or B) once an hour when the timer kicks in for few minutes.

The timer is primarily for the milder and summer months because we burn year round, other wise the fire would go out.

Intermatic makes good cycle timers. Our Keystoker uses a 30 min similiar to the 8835. Approx 2 mins on/ 10 mins off.

Here are quite a few different models.
http://www.electricsuppliesonline.com/inti.html

Hello Scott [lincolnmania] how is the EFM furnace doing?? I ahve a question, have you burnt both rice and buckwheat in the stokers?? I am buying some coal next week and would like some feedback on the differences of burning the two different sizes.

I'm currious if the buckwheat burns fully to ash by the time it drops off the edge of the burner pot..

Greg L

doing well on the buckwheat....it burns it to ash in my efm stoker.....the buckwheat lasts alot longer in the alaska stove, but it does leave some tiny nuggets if I crank it up, but is powder on low (i got a 1/2 ton of rice for free and used it a few weeks ago....it went quick......so far this winter I have gone thru about 5 tons of coal lots of uninsulated space.....still 3 stoves an efm hot air, an alaska stoker and a kenmore hand fed stove (that heats 2,000 square feet).....i don't know if the efm could heat the whole 7,000 square feet......will find out, I have yet to get all my heat ducts installed....i have a 10" to the office and a pr of 10" dumps in the shop where the heater is located..........the alaska heats my apartment......i keep it on low all the time
i need to learn about proper draft......i'm here again for more answers lol and I still don't have a timer or a thermostat on this efm stoker........coal went up yet again!!! I come to you guys seeking knowledge on coal efficiency.....i don't understand how this barometric damper on my alaska is supposed to work, seems to me like all the heat goes up the chimney.......i got a manual damper on the efm, it's always closed

some other problems I've been having recently with the efm help!
the feed pipe gets real hot......there was a hole at the seam, I sealed it up till I can find a pipe and a coupling......the pipe is warm now, not burning hot since I repaired the hole......scary, it happened friday night.......there was smoke billowing out of the hole in the auger pipe and a little pile of coal poop.....the repair should hold till warm weather hits, but I will be keeping an eye on it anyway
blower motor quit on me a few weeks ago.......a trip to tractor supply and 100 bucks lighter fixed that

how do I wire up the timer and a thermostat?......i'd like to be able to set it to 50 when i'm not in the garage and forget it........this guesswork and forgetting sucks......i come out here thinking it turned it down and it's 70 in the shop.......tips on not burning 15 tons of coal a season?
scott

I just happened to spot this thread for no apparent reason. The timer, with relay, for your AF is easy to hook up. Hot wire to #1 terminal, nuetral to #2 and #4 goes to ZR on your aquastat.

We sell the Intermatic timers, but they are nowhere near the quality of the Wilburt timer, which is standard for the efm stoker. For all the efm stokers out there, we sell very few replacement Wilburt timers.

Because your pipe was hot, you must turn up your coal feed or you will risk ruining the pipe and worm, plus getting CO into the house. If you go to the Manufacturer's corner in this forum, I have posted a picture of a burned pipe and worm. Burning buckwheat will work, but it puts a strain on everything mechanical, and is not recommended.

All parts are available for your stoker. In fact, we are now producing new AF150's after being out of production for 20 years.

do you sell direct?
yes I looked at the worm pics.....eek! the worm wasnt in the best of shape when we installed the stove last winter......my roomate helped me set up the stove last winter, his father has been burning buckwheat in an efm stoker since the 60's.......we live a couple hundred yards from a coal breaker......rice isnt always available.......you're the builder tho.......this stove sat in pieces in a shed for at least 15 years.....i put about 50 hrs into the restoration (i painted it ford blue tho hehe).....so it's not good to run it at 2-3 teeth then hmm.....i definitely need a thermostat and a timer now...
thanks
scott

lincolnmania wrote:
some other problems I've been having recently with the efm help!
the feed pipe gets real hot......there was a hole at the seam, I sealed it up till I can find a pipe and a coupling......the pipe is warm now, not burning hot since I repaired the hole......scary, it happened friday night.......there was smoke billowing out of the hole in the auger pipe and a little pile of coal poop.....the repair should hold till warm weather hits, but I will be keeping an eye on it anyway

scott

I think you will find stokerman answers the question about the hot feed tube in th EFM section. I would put a baro on the EFM ASAP. I am on the other side of the mountain from you. I have an old Fields 8" RC that I think works that you can have and a slightly used one I would sell. PM me if interested. If you want to check draft let me know I could possibly stop by with a draft gauge some time.

thanks.....i don't understand how the barometric damper works and why it's so darn expensive? one came with my alaska stove....is the flap normally open or closed? (not much on stove speak, come see me if you want a hot rod lincoln hehe) is it worth the money to get a meter to check the draft, and all that? it sure is warm lol
i'd have to redo the stove pipe to the efm to install a barometric damper (future plans are block chimneys, but that's a pipedream at the moment) been running it since jan 07 with a manual damper (was more of a I need heat now....the grate in our hand fed stoker tunred to a fossil) been keeping the damper closed all the time, and we don't smell sulphur
mom asked me what I wanted for xmas.....my answer was coal hehe
scott

lincolnmania wrote:i don't understand how the barometric damper works and why it's so darn expensive?

It is just a trapdoor with a very delicate balance. As the pressure inside the stovepipe gets lower, the room atmosphere at higher pressure starts to flow towards the lower pressure pipe. The delicate balance limits the difference between the pressure in the room and the pressure in the pipe so that they do not get to far apart. $24.18 w/tax, picked up a new R/C yesterday.

The draft for a stoker is set by adjusting the draft regulator damper weight. When the stoker motor is running and the unit is warmed up, you would adjust the damper weight to obtain a negative .02 inches of water column over the fire and a negative .04-.05 inches of water column at the breech and before the draft regulator.

Too much draft will result in unnecessary heat loss up the stack and too little draft will allow coal gas odors to escape into the boiler area.

The draft regulator is set by using a draft meter. It's not something that can be accurately done without the draft meter. They aren't cheap.

do a search on this site for "manometer", while not technically a draft gauge it accomplishes the same goal.