New to coal furnace, need advice

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megamike
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: keystoker
Coal Size/Type: rice

Post by megamike » Sat. Dec. 15, 2018 3:18 pm

We bought a house with an oil furnace, but it also came with a keystoker hot air furnace and a pallet of rice coal. They ran the duct directly into the main duct work that the oil furnace uses. I'm not sure exactly which model it is, I can't find it on the unit, but it looks like this: http://www.keystoker.com/product/stoves-koker-lite/

I cleaned it out and plugged it in. There were a lot of leaks around where the duct connects to the heat exchanger, so I patched them up. The problem is, I'm not getting any air flow from the vents in the house. I know that the fan is running because it was coming out of the leaky duct with a good amount of force. So before I start taking the duct work apart so see if something is stopping it up I thought I'd check here and see if I'm doing something wrong.

I did think that maybe pushing air toward the oil furnace could be a problem, but it seems that the previous owner wasn't doing anything about it. There isn't any way in the duct work to keep air from going in that direction, it just dumps into the duct work. So I assume this is how the previous owner was running it.


 
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Hambden Bob
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Post by Hambden Bob » Sat. Dec. 15, 2018 6:42 pm

Interesting! You seem to be trapped in the Twilight Zone of Thermodynamic Hot Air Flow! Perhaps it would help Us to help You if You could post some pics of Your Set-Up! Two Dumb Thoughts-is it possible that he stuffed something in there to block flow off when running the oil burner towards the end of the heating season,part of the "Shoulder Months as we call them. He may have had airflow going down toward the Keystoker when it wasn't online and pushing toward the Main Plenum that he Half-Assed this whole deal into... The other thought was the possibility that there was some controllability on the unit's jacket that,when opened,focused airflow in the room around the unit,and denied a flowforce up the pipe and into the Plenum... Hey,i had to ask,and We have to try! We've seen some real Home-Made Screamers here,so any and all bets are off! Let Us know and Welcome to "Der Coal Board"

 
cabinover
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Post by cabinover » Sun. Dec. 16, 2018 6:44 am

Yup, sounds like there is either something physically shoved in there...insulation maybe...stopping it or is there a damper that isn't being seen? Pics would help for sure. Welcome to the forum, you're gonna love that coal heat.

 
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WNY
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Post by WNY » Sun. Dec. 16, 2018 8:03 am

Coal Stoves do no have large blowers on them, might be too much duct work for the air flow. or they were using the furnace blower to pull the air, depending if it's hooked to cold air return or not? maybe they have a baffle in the ductwork somewhere to block off one or the other when running. Definitely post some pics so we can see what the install looks like and give more tips.

Does it have a coaltrol or just a thermostat to control. ? Just plugging it in, the convection fan (to house) may not run until it get hot enough, unless you have the override switch on the side. If you have a coaltrol the feed rate has to be above a certain threshold until the heat blower kicks on.

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Sun. Dec. 16, 2018 8:44 am

You need someone that knows what he's doing to look at it. Post up your location and you may have a board member local to you that can take a peek.

 
megamike
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: keystoker
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Post by megamike » Sun. Dec. 16, 2018 9:16 am

Ok I have some more info, thank you for your responses. I found a spot near the oil furnace that he cut a square out of duct. It was screwed back in and sealed. My guess is that he would turn off the oil furnace and stuff something in the duct as Hambden Bob suggested.

I found a damper closed in the system. After opening it I get a little bit of air flow from my vents. I assume it will be a little better once I get a damper near the oil furnace.

@WNY, I know he wasn't using the oil blower to force it around, because I can't turn it on as it was never wired to the oil furnace thermostat. It's also not hooked to the return, it pulls air from the basement. I also don't think it would work because of where it ties into the duct work. Honestly, the duct work is a mess. I'm going to completely re run it with the help of an hvac friend planning it for me in the spring.

 
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Hambden Bob
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Post by Hambden Bob » Sun. Dec. 16, 2018 3:25 pm

Now We're gettin' somewhere,Mega! Since Flow is the Master,I think You've started to unveil this Mystery in order to get this Deal working this year. I do believe that You are also going to want to check for any flash buildup in your exhaust pipe to Your chimney. CO Alarms placed in the stove and living space levels are a very wise precaution to have no matter what You're using to heat Your Home with! Keep the story going,as You're helping Us to Help You and Yours! Pics posted will help too!


 
megamike
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: keystoker
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Post by megamike » Tue. Dec. 18, 2018 11:58 am

I do have a CO detector in the basement with the furnace. Tell me what you think of my plan.

I'm going to move the furnace to the back of my basement in a smallish room, roughly 10ftx20ft. In the ceiling of that room is the return duct that pulls air from the master bedroom. It is the furthest return duct in the house. I plan to run the main duct from the coal furnace into the return duct, and wire up the oil furnace fan to the oil furnace thermostat so that I can run the oil furnace fan while the oil furnace is off. I will have the coal furnace pulling heated air from the smallish room in the basement, and into the return.

The reason for this is the way the previous owner had the coal furnace installed is very inefficient. It is pushing hot air into the duct work in a way that it travels through backwards. It is also going into the system from a 6" duct. So right now it's basically losing all of it's heat into the basement, then heating the house by the hot air rising upstairs.

Is there a better way to do this? Due to the layout of the basement, there is no way to pull air from the return and add it to the system without completely reinstalling all of the duct work.

 
xackley
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Post by xackley » Wed. Dec. 19, 2018 2:24 pm

That 10 by 20 room needs some way of sucking air from your living space. Your description might even be dangerous if it sucks the combustion fumes out of the chimney.

You need to cut a hole in the floor of your living space on the opposite side of the room from the stove and existing cold air return. This would be the new cold air return specific to the coal stove.
In your scenario you should also add a pipe to the intake for the combustion fan so it uses air from outside the room.

 
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McGiever
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Post by McGiever » Wed. Dec. 19, 2018 3:13 pm

Cutting holes in floor for a cold air return can only be effective if ducting of entire hole is continued downward to within a close proximity of the basement floor.
The reason being is that a plain cut hole has the warmest air from below butting heads with the coldest air from above floor and nothing moves.
So, you think why can't I just shove a fan in there?...you could, but that would just become a "air mixer".
It's so easy to just go with the flow. 😎

 
xackley
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Post by xackley » Wed. Dec. 19, 2018 4:10 pm

Also you might consider setting the oil furnaces convection fan to it's lowest speed. Run it 24/7 with the switch on the Oil Thermostat. The idea is to equalize the temps in the coal stove room which might get very warm when the fan is off, with the rest of the house. Coal stoves are not like oil or gas furnace. Coal is always on, even when the thermostat is not calling for heat.

 
megamike
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Post by megamike » Thu. Dec. 20, 2018 12:02 am

Ok thank you for all of the help, I'm glad I found this forum because heating with coal doesn't seem to be very common. I don't understand why that is when it's so cheap. Even in upstate NY where it's $250 a ton it's still at least half the cost of oil.

So I'm going to cut a new return hole through the floor into the small room in the basement with the coal furnace. Then I'll have the furnace take combustion air from the other part of the basement (it's closed off from the 10'x20' room). One part of my plan wasn't addressed here however. Is it ok for me to send the hot air from the coal furnace into the return for the oil furnace? I would be running the oil furnace fan if I did this. I can't think of any other proper way to send hot air through the existing duct work in the correct direction.

Also just for background info if anyone is curious, we used to live in my father's house, I think it was close to 3000 square feet victorian. We used a wood boiler and piped it into the existing radiator system, and used the natural gas boiler as backup. It used to run from around 3am to 5am when the fire went out. We never paid for wood. We cut up trees from people's property after storms and split it. In hind sight, the amount of work collecting, splitting, and constantly keeping a fire going was not worth it compared to coal. I wish we knew more about it back then. But our $700 a month heat bill went down to like $100 so...

 
xackley
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Post by xackley » Thu. Dec. 20, 2018 2:54 am

See my post directly above.
I use the cold air return for my stove, but my stove is right next to the oil furnace. Worse case scenario is the fan life might be shortened. But if you set it to continuous On, the temperatures of the air flow will probably never get above 100 when it is really cold outside. Most times I see duct temps in the 80s and lower 90s.

If everything works out, you will be saving way more than half the cost of oil.
Don

 
megamike
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Post by megamike » Thu. Dec. 20, 2018 9:20 am

Sounds like a plan, thanks xackley. I should probably also leave the coal furnace fan always on to move the heat from the furnace room to the house.

 
rodhotter
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Post by rodhotter » Thu. Feb. 28, 2019 8:56 pm

hands down coal is economical with minimal xtra work. nut in my area is $170 a T picked up so $250 is more but not so bad. running coal + oil at the same time in the same chimney is not safe, maybe thats how the former owner operated + closed off one system. i lived in a half double house years ago i had 2 hand fired coal stoves, one small coal + gas kitchen stove in basement kitchen + a heatrola on second floor, neighbor had oil furnace installed on same shared chimney + i would on occasion see the pipe from the heatrola blowed out, laying on the floor when i got up for work, NOT GOOD!!!


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