The Little Muncie Stoker in a Furnace

I've decided to install the little Muncie stoker in a furnace, this is kind of an experiment to see how much noise a stoker makes, and how to burn coal . If it makes more noise than I can live with there is another solution, but I need a new roof and chimney before I can install a boiler in that location.

This needs to be a one, maybe 2 day install, night time temps are going into the teens this week, so I need to make sure everything is ready to go before I rip out the Creosote King. I know I need a manometer, ordered that today, pretty sure I need a barometric dampener, and maybe a manual dampener?

The furnace is the Sunbeam furnace I picked up last month, I do not see any rust spots or cracking inside the firebox, so I think its good. Its a big tank looking thing with what I believe is called a kidney hanging off the back. The furnace had a big sheetmetal enclosure around it, do I need to use that or can I just use the bare furnace? There is no ducting to attach to and the purpose is heating one room, I was thinking of just having a fan blowing across it.

I have several timer units that I believe control the stoker, and several Iron Fireman temp probe things (these were installed in the metal shroud on furnace. Do I need a thermostat too? I'll get pics of all the timers/temp probes tomorrow.

The Muncie gear box is ready to go, the rest of the parts have fresh paint and are presently curing. The only part not getting painted this year is the hopper, I want to use some good automotive paint on it, yet its too cold and no one here has a paint booth, so it will be a project for next summer. I did get the Muncie manual from ebay, it has an acceptance date of Jan 15, 1938 by ??? Furnace Co, no Model ST20 is listed, but dimensions are the same as the Model 35 (35lbs per hour), only the ST20 has a 3 speed gearbox and the 35 has a 5 speed gearbox, both use 1/6 hp motor. There is info on anthracite stokers too, I'll see if I can get it scanned and figure out how to load it here.

Anything else I need to get?

Nice restoration! You should record the first fire and post it

...looks great!...and not a minute too soon!
..good luck with the install-all I can add is you shouldnt use a manual damper with a stoker feed furnace....baro for sure
stay warm!

Here is something interesting, or puzzling? So I was just working on cleaning up the motor and wiring in a new power cord when I looked up and noticed the casting # on the gearbox cover, ST35-2, ok thats odd, every other casting has ST20- on it, even the little shaft plates on the top of the gear box? So I went and got my cheater glasses and sure enough there is a 4 and 5 in the casting behind the speed lever, just someone put a pin in the way so it will not feed that high. Best guess at this point is the folks at Muncie saw a market for a smaller stoker and decided designing a whole new unit was not cost effective so this was the answer . I'm going to leave that pin in for now, but if I need more coal its coming out

It got COLD this week, like blizzard condition cold, friday morning they were digging touri out of 8 ft snowdrifts on the highway . I've been burning wood at a furious rate and room temp is 64

Here is the Sunbeam furnace, I'm going to have to spruce it up a bit before installing it, its clearly too cold for painting, thinking about trying the black "stove polish" stuff.

Electrical control parts, first pic is the Honeywell timer, I have 3 of these, hopefully one works.

Second and third pics are of Honeywell temp probes, I have 2 or 3 of these, guessing they might be the same as the Iron Fireman temp probes in the next post.

Iron Fireman probes, both of these were installed in the shroud over the furnace that the Muncie stoker was removed from.

Going to look at 2 more stokers today that people want removed from their basement

Is this what I need for a barometric damper? Is that a good price? Local plumbing supply guy said he could order one, but it would be $120?http://www.ebay.com/itm/161145031448?ssPageName=S ... 1438.l2649

Yes, and if that unit has free shipping, then that is a good price.

Ok guys, I really need to know a little bit more about how to control this thing, I'm guessing the temp probe things are worthless for my application, but I might be guessing wrong. The room is a massive heat sink, its kind of hard to imagine it getting too hot in here, I'm a Texas girl, 80 is comfortable . If I just install the furnace and stoker (no shroud on furnace), can I just control the stoker with a timer and adjusting feed rate? Maybe I just need to watch surface temp of furnace to make sure its not too hot? Or do I need a thermostat and a ................?????????

regarding controls - not sure if this addresses your questions but.....the stokers are generally controlled by a timer to keep the fire burning in the coal bed in between calls for heat from the 'stat. combustion fan and feed are turned on for x minutes every xx minutes. the 'stat of course turns on the combustion fan and feed upon a call for heat. you could also use the 'stat/timer to control the fan you are blowing across the stoker for heat distribution (or just leave it on all the time).

intermatic timers are popular, number of on/off pin pairs for time settings vary from stoker to stoker depending on the coal quality, grate / firepot design and draft conditions. you will have to experiment a little to get yours dialed in.

I would use those "temp probe things" to control the distribution fan only.

They are adjustable. When the temp sensor reaches a certain temp, it would turn on the fan. A pretty simple operation.

Rick

I would bite the bullet and put the shrouds on. It would make it easier to draw the heat off, set up controls and increase efficiency. Just put one piece of duct on top directing the heat across the room.

My furnace has the exact same honeywell fan/limit control that you have pictured (the one with the 11" probe) and it works great. That unit, along with the hold fire timer that you have (with 1-7 minute setting) and a wall thermostat is all you need to control this furnace.

Without the "shroud", it probably will be more difficult to automatically control this furnace. You could try and mount the fan/limit control on some kind of bracket where the probe would be a few inches away from the heat exchanger, but that's not the way it's supposed to be used. In this case, the limit function of the control and not the fan control function would be used because you won't be controlling a circulation blower. I've never run a furnace in this manner so I can't say how it would behave...I suspect that the furnace would have wild temperature variations without the shroud and fan using a fan/limit control.

Here's how this type of furnace (with shroud and fan) would've functioned:

Thermostat calls for heat and turns on the stoker...Furnace heats up until "high" fan control setting is reached turning on the air circulation fan...fan will run until furnace reaches low fan control setting (this would only happen if the stoker can't keep up) or the thermostat gets satisfied (whichever occurs first). Once the thermostat is satisfied, the stoker would shut off and the circulation fan would run until the low fan control setting is reached and shuts down the circulation blower until the next call for heat, or the next hold fire cycle.

If the high temperature limit is reached (not to be confused with the high fan control setting), the stoker will be turned off until the furnace is cooled off by the air circulation fan.

As far as the stoker being noisy...If it's in the area where you sleep it will take some getting used to, but it's much better than being a slave to that wood stove.

Be sure to have CO detectors in place before you fire up this furnace, just to be safe

Nice job

I would fit the sheet metal shroud around the furnace so the blower fan can cool off the furnace and get the heat into the room where you want it. This is just my thought but I would have a temp switch up against the outside of the top of the fire box that will shut the stoker off if it gets over about 200* then turn back on when it cools off a little. That way if your blower can't cool off the furnace for some reason it will never get too hot.

There is a wiring diagram for a combustioneer 77B about 12 posts down in this thread by forum member Willis, it should give you a idea of how to wire it up. Combustioneer Model 77