Coalpail.com Forum

The day finally came where I fired up my boiler partly to test it before winter and partly to heat my hot water. I ran four full baths today plus the dishes and a couple loads of laundry off about $1 worth of coal. :love7: This thing rocks. The concern I have is standing right next to the boiler it smells the same as when you open the door, the "coal smell" I'll call it. Not sulfur, but like a faint smoky smell kind of like what used stovepipe smells like. I put my CO detector on top of the boiler and it didn't read anything on the LCD readout, I then opened the door and left it like that for a bit and it read 42ppm after a while so I know the CO detector works. So I went and bought some furnace cement and sealed all the joints in the stove pipe, just in case they might be leaking some. No difference. I also tightened up the barometric damper so the chimney is running full draft. There is a 1/4" hole in the fire door for a draft gauge I imagine, could that small hole be the culprit? Is it just normal to smell the coal burning? If so it's not a big deal I just want to be certain everything is OK. My CO detector will read down to 30ppm so I'm pretty confident that we're not getting gassed. The only other thing I can think of is the cement seal between the boiler and base is leaking under the insulation or it's just the paint curing on the pipes. I'm so excited, there was just a news story about how Propane and Oil are going up this winter, that just means more savings. :happyhippy:

e.alleg I would say new paint on pipe or stove but check all seals and seems for leaks that paint stinks for a while until it cures you should make a small fire in it first before burning it full blast but I know you are excited nice Job on the stoker By the way I still have the ash pan for that looked at it the other day not to good it formed pin holes in the bottom but if you still want it let me know

A new unit will have a few smells as it burns off paint, oils and other compounds used in its manufacture.

Coal Berner, thanks for the offer but I have 2 large ash pans the guy gave me with the boiler so I'm all set for now. The high temps are in the low 40's today so I opened the valves to the hot water coil and let gravity do it's thing. It actually works really nice for mild weather, the boiler has to remain hot to heat the domestic hot water and keep the fire from dying so it runs for 2 minutes every 1/2 hour so 4 minutes/hour on the timer which equals about a handful of coal a day. I didn't run the fan but just the natural flow of water and air through the coil has the house up in the 60's and that's with the basement windows open to get the paint fumes out. The smell is going away so all should be good.