New and Need Help Alaska 140 Dual Feed ?'S

Hello this is my first time posting and I'm very new to coal stoker's. I recently bought a new Alaska 140 dual feed and had it installed by what I thought was a good company but long story short they have left me high and dry. I understand the basics but I have a few questions before I try and fire this thing up for the first time.
1. How do you only fire one burner? Do you just unplug the side you don't want to use?
2. What does the thermostat control is it just feed rate or is it the feed rate and blower fan?
3.I have a plenum and what looks like a 10" line that ties in the the cold air return of my forced air furnace. what keeps the air from the stove from just coming out of the cold air returns threw out my house.
4. I have a power venter and the company who installed it put it about 2' under a sliding glass door under my deck. Is that safe?
Not to mention the company who made the wall penatration made the whole bigger than the cover plate the of power venter so now I have to patch that.

Any other info you guys think I should know please let me know I've been reading this forum for a couple weeks and you guys really seem to know what your talking about so any help would be great. Thanks!

ben21921 wrote:Hello this is my first time posting and I'm very new to coal stoker's. I recently bought a new Alaska 140 dual feed and had it installed by what I thought was a good company but long story short they have left me high and dry. I understand the basics but I have a few questions before I try and fire this thing up for the first time.
1. How do you only fire one burner? Do you just unplug the side you don't want to use?

Sorry to hear you got a bad installer.

Not sure about the Alaska but on my LL Hyfire II, I unplug the feed and the combustion blower on the 2nd grate until needed.

ben21921 wrote: 2. What does the thermostat control is it just feed rate or is it the feed rate and blower fan?

Look at your manual and see if it specifies what it controls but usually it would have to control both to satisfy the thermostat.

ben21921 wrote: 3.I have a plenum and what looks like a 10" line that ties in the the cold air return of my forced air furnace. what keeps the air from the stove from just coming out of the cold air returns threw out my house.

Most installs have a check system to prevent backfeeding through the cold air return. In a pinch you can make a plate to block off the return into the other heater.

ben21921 wrote: 4. I have a power venter and the company who installed it put it about 2' under a sliding glass door under my deck. Is that safe?
Not to mention the company who made the wall penatration made the whole bigger than the cover plate the of power venter so now I have to patch that.

Is the slider used during the winter?? On the LL website, they used to have a chart on there showing proximities to open windows or doors. If the slider is not used during the heating season, you should be OK. But do make sure you have adequate CO detectors to make sure there will be no CO brought back into the house.

ben21921 wrote: Any other info you guys think I should know please let me know I've been reading this forum for a couple weeks and you guys really seem to know what your talking about so any help would be great. Thanks!

We do have several members on here who do own the same thing you got. I'm sure they will be along to offer their advice.

In the meantime, please fill in the rest of your profile with mainly your general location. There may be a member nearby who could lend a helping hand or offer a look at your set up.

Welcome aboard,

Rick

Thanks for the response Rick. Does the check system usually go in the truck of my of my Cold Air return.

Welcome to the forum Ben.

Rick is correct about the items listed above, except possibly #2. If you have controls that look like this-
The thermostat will switch between the 2 feed rate settings HI and LO. The combustion blower runs constently. I had my combustion blowers plugged into the Vari-Speed control. This alowed me to turn the combustion air down if I needed to reduce Clinkering.

On the 140 I had, it was easiest to unplug the front burner for single burner operation.

MAKE SURE you only have ONE combustion blower running for single burner operation. Otherwise, you WILL have CO problems.

-Don

Here are some pix of the setup

Fan and thermostat

Plenum and Venter

Burners

Line going to return

Thanks for any input guys I'm excited about lighting it but nervous at the same time

Sorry the installers muffed up a bit but If they did the sheetmetal work then I'd be happy about that at least. Looks great BTW.

Nah. After asking them politely not to come back I got some one else to do the hvac

And I don't know that they even did bad work but after the days of them saying they would get there at 9am and not showing up until 2pm and then they butchered a hole threw my foundation wall with one guy on one side with a cold chisel and another on the outside with a jackhammer I had enough. I want there for the jackhammering though. My wife was.

ben21921 wrote:And I don't know that they even did bad work but after the days of them saying they would get there at 9am and not showing up until 2pm and then they butchered a hole threw my foundation wall with one guy on one side with a cold chisel and another on the outside with a jackhammer I had enough. I want there for the jackhammering though. My wife was.

Daaaaaum!!

Ben,

When I hooked up my 140, I wish I had a jackhammer!

After going through handfuls of hammer drill bits, I got out my trusty air chisle!
I started with the hammer and cold chisle, but that hardly dented my concrete block wall.

By the way, I'm only a 30 minute ride from Rising Sun. PM me if you need someone to have a look at it.

-Don