Alaska 140 dual paddle. Help please!

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Agn5009
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: Alaska 140 Dual paddle feed
Coal Size/Type: Rice

Post by Agn5009 » Sat. Nov. 19, 2022 8:00 pm

Hi guys, any help would be greatly appreciated. I’m at a loss for what to do with my current heating set up. I’ve had an HVAC guy come check it out but he hasn’t been able to figure out the issue.

I have a 2700 square foot bi level house. The upper part of the house sits directly above the attached garage. The master bedroom, master bath and living room is on the upper end of the house.

The lower end of the house is the dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms and bathroom. I have 2 propane furnaces. One of which is located in the basement directly below the lower end of the house. The other is located in the attached garage below the upper end of the house.

I purchased the house 3 years ago (it was built in 2004) and I’ve used a Hotblast wood furnace in the winter. This unit did a decent job heating the house however it was time to replace it this year. The wood furnace utilized radiant heat to heat the lower end of the house (which always kept it warm) then there was duct work from the wood furnace to the propane furnace in the attached garage. This was tied into the cold air return on the propane furnace then it supplied the heat through the duct work and through the registers in my floors of the upper end (living room, master bed and bathroom) only. When it was extremely cold (single digits, I live in Northern PA) It struggled a bit to keep the upper end warm but it was “good enough” (probably like mid 60s.)

So fast forward to this year.. I purchased a used Alaska 140 Dual stoker furnace (paddle feed) which is in very nice shape. I hooked it up exactly like my wood furnace was (into the cold air return of the propane furnace in the attached garage). It’s doing a nice job hearing the lower end of the house through radiant heat. I set the thermostat to 68 degrees and it’s always within 1 degree of that.

However I’m getting absolutely no heat to the upstairs and I’ve tried everything I can think of. The heat is traveling to the garage perfectly fine but very little actually comes out of the registers upstairs. I’ve tried using the fan on the propane furnace to distribute the heat but it just blows cold air when I turn it on. I removed the duct work from the cold air intake and put it into plenum of the propane furnace and tried that… still nothing. It’s almost like the hot air is getting trapped within the duct work and not supplying through the heat registers.

I took the entire furnace apart today and meticulously cleaned it. I swept out all the fine grains under the heat pan, I swept everything out, cleaned the fins on the combustion fans, cleaned out the small air holes on the grates, sanded the grates (which honestly didn’t need it-they look brand new).

I’ve tried running the circulating fan at full speed (I believe it’s 1500 CFM) and still nothing. I plugged it into the vari speed control and ran it at its lowest speed.. nothing. And medium speed still nothing. I’ve run it with the fan/without the fan/every possible combination with and without the propane furnace fan on or off. Absolutely nothing works to push heat out of the registers upstairs. Which makes no sense to me. The wood furnace pushed heat out way more while using two 265 CFM fans. This unit has a 1500 CFM (approximately- I can’t remember the exact rating but somewhere in the ball park of 1500). How is this not pushing any heat through my registers? Does anyone know what I could possibly be doing wrong?

By the way, the draft seems to be good. I have a Dwyer Mark ii manometer installed. Its reading is typically between -0.03 and -0.04. The furnace vents out my chimney. And yes, I have plenty of CO alarms throughout my house and in my basement.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’m still trying to figure out the thermostat system on this thing and exactly what it does but I feel like that’s trial and error. It shouldn’t have anything to do with the amount of heat being pushed out of my registers. Here’s some pictures of my set up.

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waytomany?s
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Post by waytomany?s » Sat. Nov. 19, 2022 9:40 pm

Pushing burning coal off the grate is wasting coal/heat.

 
Agn5009
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: Alaska 140 Dual paddle feed
Coal Size/Type: Rice

Post by Agn5009 » Sat. Nov. 19, 2022 11:03 pm

I know. What do I do to stop that

 
waytomany?s
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Post by waytomany?s » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 6:43 am

Turn down the feed rate.

 
waytomany?s
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Post by waytomany?s » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 6:54 am

Fire up the second grate for more heat. You'll have.to find a manual for the controls, no idea. Block off the second heat duct off the plenum or tie that into another duct where you want the heat to go. I'm guessing that with no resistance, that's where most of the heated air is going. I was told that those plastic heat.ducts are.only to be used for.the last 10 feet of the run to a register.

 
Agn5009
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Posts: 74
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: Alaska 140 Dual paddle feed
Coal Size/Type: Rice

Post by Agn5009 » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 7:21 am

waytomany?s wrote:
Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 6:43 am
Turn down the feed rate.
How do I do that? There’s no feed rate control that I know of. The only things I can adjust are the t-stat, idle and fan limit for the circulating fan.

 
Agn5009
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Posts: 74
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: Alaska 140 Dual paddle feed
Coal Size/Type: Rice

Post by Agn5009 » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 7:26 am

waytomany?s wrote:
Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 6:54 am
Fire up the second grate for more heat. You'll have.to find a manual for the controls, no idea. Block off the second heat duct off the plenum or tie that into another duct where you want the heat to go. I'm guessing that with no resistance, that's where most of the heated air is going. I was told that those plastic heat.ducts are.only to be used for.the last 10 feet of the run to a register.
There’s no information at all in the alaska manual. It’s absolutely useless. Kind of discouraging that they would even print something so useless honestly. I have a block off valve on the second heat duct. I’ve closed it off completely and it doesn’t help at all. When I turn the thermostat up it doesn’t change the temperature in the house at all either. It just pushes unburnt coal off the grate.


 
Hootyburra
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Post by Hootyburra » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 8:17 am

To change the settings on the high fire hold the down button for a few seconds until the number blinks then lower it.
The buttons on mine are really finicky.
I don't think I've ever had my Stoker II above 42, idle around 7.

 
Hootyburra
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Post by Hootyburra » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 8:22 am

The thermostat on the wall only controls the high fire and low fire feed rate... You need to adjust the heat level on the controller to get it burning how you want it, hold the buttons down for the value you want to change till the number flashes then press the arrows to change the setting.

 
Agn5009
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Posts: 74
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: Alaska 140 Dual paddle feed
Coal Size/Type: Rice

Post by Agn5009 » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 8:31 am

Hootyburra wrote:
Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 8:22 am
The thermostat on the wall only controls the high fire and low fire feed rate... You need to adjust the heat level on the controller to get it burning how you want it, hold the buttons down for the value you want to change till the number flashes then press the arrows to change the setting.
I’m not sure why this makes no sense to me… I thought the idle was just that.. it’ll idle at that setting without the fire going out. So if it’s at the desired temperature it’ll go into idle. The t-stat I have no idea what that means. I assume that’s what you’re talking about when you say high fire. How does anyone ever know what to set this at? So if it’s 60 degrees in my house and I want it to be 70, how would I know where to put that t-stat setting at? And how do I get my fire to be smaller yet put out good heat? Right now it’s covering almost the whole grate and I’m not getting much heat at all. And all the hot coals just pour off. I have the idle set at 2 and the t-stat at 60. I’ve tried it at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and now 60. It doesn’t seem to do much of anything as far as warming it up or adjusting the size of the fire and unburnt coal falling into the bin.

 
Agn5009
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Posts: 74
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: Alaska 140 Dual paddle feed
Coal Size/Type: Rice

Post by Agn5009 » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 8:34 am

Hootyburra wrote:
Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 8:17 am
To change the settings on the high fire hold the down button for a few seconds until the number blinks then lower it.
The buttons on mine are really finicky.
I don't think I've ever had my Stoker II above 42, idle around 7.
Adjusting the t-stat doesn’t seem to do anything to the fire at all. I’ve tried so many different settings and I can’t get my house above 62 degrees now. Yesterday it seemed to be at least heating the lower half of the house. Now it’s just not getting warm at all.

 
Hootyburra
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Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Alaskan Stoker II
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Post by Hootyburra » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 8:47 am

Agn5009 wrote:
Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 8:31 am
I’m not sure why this makes no sense to me… I thought the idle was just that.. it’ll idle at that setting without the fire going out. So if it’s at the desired temperature it’ll go into idle. The t-stat I have no idea what that means. I assume that’s what you’re talking about when you say high fire. How does anyone ever know what to set this at? So if it’s 60 degrees in my house and I want it to be 70, how would I know where to put that t-stat setting at? And how do I get my fire to be smaller yet put out good heat? Right now it’s covering almost the whole grate and I’m not getting much heat at all. And all the hot coals just pour off. I have the idle set at 2 and the t-stat at 60. I’ve tried it at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and now 60. It doesn’t seem to do much of anything as far as warming it up or adjusting the size of the fire and unburnt coal falling into the bin.
You have a thermostat on the wall somewhere that connects to the Alaska control box, correct? It looks like you have the wires plugged in for one.
If the thermostat is at temperature / not calling for heat it tells the stove controller to burn at idle. When the house is 60 and the thermostat 70 it tells the stove controller to burn at "high fire". I'd set it around 30 and let it go for an hour or two. You want to have a nice hunk of ash at the end of the grate (I'm sure you know this).
You could also bump the idle up a bit so it burns hotter when it's not calling for heat and reduces the temperature swing when it does call for heat.

My stoker II single burner is currently running with idle set to 7, high fire somewhere around 30, and the wall thermostat 68F.
I'll take pictures of my grate when I go downstairs in a minute.

 
waytomany?s
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Post by waytomany?s » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 9:25 am

There is a manual on this site for this stove. I don't know how to do a link. Use the search function and look for Alaska 140 wiring diagram.

 
Hootyburra
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Post by Hootyburra » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 9:45 am

Hopefully it makes sense to you.
Once you make adjustments let it go for at least an hour to see how it is burning / reacting.

The thermostat on the wall tells the stove controller to burn on idle or high fire. The settings on the stove controller tell the paddle how frequently to feed coal. I have no idea what the frequency is, for this scenario let's say a setting of 1 means the paddle cycles once per hour. To keep the stove lit / burning at an idle you need 5 cycles per hour so set the idle at 5. To burn the stove on high without pushing hot coals off the grate you can't exceed 40 cycles per hour so you set the high / thermostat setting at 3. I picked 30 because it will give you some room of it gets really cold for more heat and it stops the stove from running at full blast.

Good luck.

As far as the air flow not getting through the house, try closing off some dampers closest to the stove so you are pushing more hot air further away, also make sure your cold air returns at the furthest point are open and clear.

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Agn5009
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Posts: 74
Joined: Sat. Nov. 19, 2022 7:57 pm
Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: Alaska 140 Dual paddle feed
Coal Size/Type: Rice

Post by Agn5009 » Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 9:50 am

Hootyburra wrote:
Sun. Nov. 20, 2022 8:47 am
You have a thermostat on the wall somewhere that connects to the Alaska control box, correct? It looks like you have the wires plugged in for one.
If the thermostat is at temperature / not calling for heat it tells the stove controller to burn at idle. When the house is 60 and the thermostat 70 it tells the stove controller to burn at "high fire". I'd set it around 30 and let it go for an hour or two. You want to have a nice hunk of ash at the end of the grate (I'm sure you know this).
You could also bump the idle up a bit so it burns hotter when it's not calling for heat and reduces the temperature swing when it does call for heat.

My stoker II single burner is currently running with idle set to 7, high fire somewhere around 30, and the wall thermostat 68F.
I'll take pictures of my grate when I go downstairs in a minute.
Yes I have a thermostat on the wall that connects to the control box. It doesn’t do anything when I turn the heat up or down. Maybe that’s my problem? Maybe it’s simply burning at the high rate and pushing all the coal off the grate?


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