Coal-Trol Settings

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Brown86
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Post by Brown86 » Sun. Dec. 15, 2013 7:55 am

This is my first year burning coal. I have an early 1900s 2 story home in the Northeast. I have always burned wood as my primary heat with oil backup. With getting older and time restraints do to my job, taking care of wood was becoming more difficult. So, I did some research and decided on coal over wood pellets. Many people I know are also burning coal and love it. I purchased a LL Hyfire II and have it in my basement. I had a plenum and some new duct work professionally installed. It works really well. My house is at a consistent 74. The problem that I am having is that I feel I am burning more coal than I should. I am basing this only on what others who burn coal have told me. I am going through 3-4 bags/day during our current cold snap (some nights -10 degrees). So, is this the norm or is there something in my coal-trol that needs to be changed? I have it mounted on a first floor inside wall where my oil therm. has always been. I have the min at 6, max 40, and cft 8. It's in the round robin mode. This is pretty much the factory settings. I have both burners running at the present time and the feed rate rarely ever gets above 50. Usually is much lower. 1 burner works too hard at our current temps and coal is wasted by falling into ash pan before completely burning. I freely admit that I don't understand all the different settings. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 
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Flyer5
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Post by Flyer5 » Sun. Dec. 15, 2013 9:46 am

Brown86 wrote:This is my first year burning coal. I have an early 1900s 2 story home in the Northeast. I have always burned wood as my primary heat with oil backup. With getting older and time restraints do to my job, taking care of wood was becoming more difficult. So, I did some research and decided on coal over wood pellets. Many people I know are also burning coal and love it. I purchased a LL Hyfire II and have it in my basement. I had a plenum and some new duct work professionally installed. It works really well. My house is at a consistent 74. The problem that I am having is that I feel I am burning more coal than I should. I am basing this only on what others who burn coal have told me. I am going through 3-4 bags/day during our current cold snap (some nights -10 degrees). So, is this the norm or is there something in my coal-trol that needs to be changed? I have it mounted on a first floor inside wall where my oil therm. has always been. I have the min at 6, max 40, and cft 8. It's in the round robin mode. This is pretty much the factory settings. I have both burners running at the present time and the feed rate rarely ever gets above 50. Usually is much lower. 1 burner works too hard at our current temps and coal is wasted by falling into ash pan before completely burning. I freely admit that I don't understand all the different settings. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
If you have hot coal falling in the ash pan you are wasting coal. min 6 and max 40 are just defaults. They are variable for a reason. The max needs to be lowered. There are a lot of info on this already . From experience most 90k burners are about 4 min and 36 max. Again different size coal, draft and other factors make everyone different.

 
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Post by WNY » Sun. Dec. 15, 2013 9:51 am

I have a Hyfire 1 (only difference is one burner is 40K and the other is 90K). Yours, Running a 180K Hyfire II does use coal if it's really cold outside. using 40-80#'s+ a day is NOT uncommon when it's cold depending on how warm you keep your house and how big of a house you are trying to heat.

Every heating situation is different and your comfort level depends how much the stove is running. We have old house and running at 65 Degrees is optimum for us. The FR varies between 20-65 with 2 burners running. I can go thru 60#+ a day when you get down into the single digits.

Do you have a Baro Damper installed and calibrated correctly. that can affect some heat going up the chimney and maintain proper draft on the stove.

Post a pic or two of you setup.

SOunds like it's working perfectly for your setup. The Min and Max settings are pretty close to mine. I Think I have 8 and 48, but every stove slightly different.
If you are running at FR 99 and pushing hot coals off the grate, then you have to reduce the MAX down a few points at a time. It takes time to settle out, so only make small adjustments at a time and check after an hour or so.

 
Brown86
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Post by Brown86 » Sun. Dec. 15, 2013 10:43 am

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I do have Bar. damper. I closed it completely to see if my flue would cool down some. Quite hot to touch. I was wondering if I'm losing too much heat up the chimney. This first year is definitely trial and error.


 
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Post by WNY » Sun. Dec. 15, 2013 11:45 am

You need to set the baro damper up with a draft gauge, that maintains proper draft on the stove. Too little draft you could get CO into your house. Too much draft, sucks more heat from the stove. It should be set to approx. .04" at a full burn.

the pipe will be quite warm/hot before the baro, but once your baro opens, the upper part of the part will cool down going up the chimney to maintain proper draft on the stove. Mine runs about 1/4-1/2" open all the time, sometimes more, sometimes less, I have a 40' chimney and has very good draft. When it's running hotter and colder outside, it should open more, since draft will increase with more heat and colder temps.

If you close it down, that also increases draft and sucks more heat from the stove.

 
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Post by pvolcko » Tue. Dec. 17, 2013 10:44 am

First, beyond doing fine tuning on the MAX setting there isn't likely any changes to be made on the Coal-trol to address any coal overuse.

Now, some other ideas:

If you are using a power venter make sure you have a rheostat on it and have it setup to draw only what is needed for you're setup to maintain proper draft. If you have it plugged into the wall running at full speed and use only the baro damper to get the draft set properly in the stove, then you will likely be wasting heat (both drawing from the stove direct and also pulling from the room the stove is in through the baro damper.

Also, quite a bit of heat is radiated through the sidewalls of these stoves. If it is your intent to be heating the basement then this setup will be fine, but if you are wanting to heat the basement as little as possible you may want to consider adding a hot air jacket to your sheetmetal work to grab as much heat off the stove as possible and get it going to your heated space upstairs.

It looks like you are driving heat into the duct work through the normal stove convection blowers. These blowers work well for open air installations when they are pushing air through just the stove's air channels and into the room, but on duct work they often do not have the "oomph" to move air through the duct work. This will result in overly hot temps in the duct work, especially right above the stove, but lower than expected outlet temps at registers upstairs. You may want to consider ducting the stove into existing furnace's return air and use the furnace whole-house blower to move the air (remove the convection blowers from the coal furnace to have unrestricted flow). Others have boosted fans installed into the duct work to move the air through.

Lastly, and connected to the prior issue, is that return air into the coal stove is an important part of it. You are pulling out of the basement near the floor, which creates a low temperature for the stove to overcome to heat the air it is sending into the house. This wastes energy and thus fuel. IF you duct the return air from the return air ducts in the whole-house system into the coal stove's convection inlets then it will complete the air circuit and the stove will only have to heat the already relatively warmer air from the heated space.

Some more details on your existing heating system and how this new coal furnace element is plumbed into it may help us help you.

 
Brown86
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Post by Brown86 » Wed. Dec. 18, 2013 9:53 pm

Everything you described (over heated plenum, hot basement) are exactly correct. I did have 2 new trunk lines installed. 1 has new ducts running from it to a newly renovated area of the house. The other is connected to existing (old) ducts. I wanted to prevent ducting through the hot air furnace because it is old and will have to be replaced soon. I do think you are correct about the cold air return. Just not sure how a cold air return could be hooked up. If you have any pics or diagram as to how that could be done on the Hyfire II, please post. I also have been researching the possibility of a higher cfm, variable speed blower that will work with this stove. Is this possible and would it work with the coal-trol? With the current cold snap ( -20 night, single digits day) I have been burning 3-4 bags/day. As I said in original post, I have never had such an even, consistent heat as I do with the coal stove. House does not vary more than +/- 1 degree from setting. Just want to get the most "bang for my buck".

 
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Post by pvolcko » Thu. Dec. 19, 2013 3:00 am

Unfortunately this is getting pretty deep into general HVAC installation issues, quite aside from the Coal-trol itself. I can only offer some general comments/recommendations, so you need to consult an installer in your area to get things done "right". You should contact your stove dealer, Leisure Line, or a local HVAC installer, preferably with coal stove or solid fuels furnace experience.
  • If you wish to not route through your existing furnace:
    • Make sure there is a damper installed which you can use to prevent the coal-stove's convection airflow back feeding into the existing furnace. The big drawback to this is that if you use the furnace in a "backup" capacity in case the coal-stove goes out or runs out of fuel, the damper will prevent the furnace heat from getting to the duct work. There are electronic dampers which can be rigged to automatically close or open when needed to prevent this from happening.
    • Think about installing a booster fan in the duct system to aid the coal-stove blowers. I've seen some people use a single large booster inline above the stove before the ducts branch out. I've also seen people use smaller boosters in the duct branches. When either approach is used many opt to not use the stock blowers on the stove and depend entirely on the boosters to move air through the system. The booster fans can be run off the convection blower output of the Coal-trol but there is a total current restriction to consider as well as the need for any motors on that output to be matched. Mismatched motors often result in confusing electrical characteristics to the speed control circuit and will result in the fans just running at full speed no matter what speed is intended by the Coal-trol. If you want to run multiple motors off the convection output of the Coal-trol I'd highly recommend contacting us to run the specs by us first.
    • Consider not using the Coal-trol convection blower output at all. Instead use a temperature limit switch installed in the plenum above the stove. This will run any motors attached to it at full speed, but you can hook a combination of blowers up to it without regard to matching or any rating limitations imposed by the Coal-trol's output.
  • Recommendations for any basement installation of a large "furnace" type coal-stove:
    • If possible duct the return air of the existing system into the convection blowers of the coal-stove. This will close the loop and make things more efficient. If not possible, try to get the return air duct near the convection blowers. The closer it is the less basement air and floor cooling effect there will be. There must be some return air path. Without it the coal stove has no where to pull air from and it will end up being inefficient. Sometimes this can be as simple as opening a door to the basement. Sometimes people will cut alternate return air holes into the house floors to the basement. Others will duct a branch off the return air duct work to the coal stove. Your particular installation will have to drive the decision.
    • A lot of heat is radiated off the sides of the stove. If you are not wanting to heat the basement consider installing a hot air jacket around the sides feeding into the plenum above the stove. Some stove makers offer kits of pre-cut sheet metal and screws for this. Others will provide instructions for you to either cut and bend metal yourself or have a professional do it.
    • If possible run the coal-stove convection air duct into the return air side of an existing home furnace. This will simplify the ducting (at least from a flow standpoint), eliminating the need for dampers to prevent backflows and loop flows that sap efficiency and never reach the house/heated-space. It also allows you to use the whole house blower in the furnace.
    • If using the existing furnace's whole house blower, consider removing the stock convection blowers from the coal stove as they often reduce airflow in such an installation.
As to your question about a higher CFM, variable speed blower. They do exist, though I'm not sure what models they are or how well they interface to a HyFire II stove. The Coal-trol convection output has a continuous current limit of 3A if I remember right (the specs are in the back of the manual). If you find a motor you'd like to use, ping us with the specs and we'll let you know if it should work or not.


 
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Post by Flyer5 » Fri. Dec. 20, 2013 11:41 am

I added this to our tips and tricks give me some feedback. Thanks, Dave
ts cycle.jpg
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Post by pvolcko » Sat. Dec. 28, 2013 2:05 am

HI Dave,

Nice crib sheet. :)

Some quibbles:

FR is 0-99 and it is in fact 0-99 in the stoker time control logic. You will notice that when FR is at 99 and MAX is at 99 there is at least a 1 second period where the stoker motor turns off. There are historical reasons why it is this way in the current software, but I fully expect that in the next rev we will be switching this over to a full 0-100 display and updating the control logic to allow for a full on cycle.

Also, while fan speed % will track more or less directly to FR, there is a delay possible when there is a step change in the FR and the fan speed is catching up to that new percentage. For instance, if you make a large setpoint change the FR will jump some amount. It can take up to 15 minutes for that new FR percentage to be reflected in the fan speed observed. But, while FR is tracking gradual changes throughout the day there is effectively no delay between FR and fan speed. The greater any change in the FR the more delay there is for the fan to catch up.

I'd have to check the code to be sure if it is a 100 second cycle or a 120 second cycle. For some reason I'm thinking it is 120 seconds now, where as V1 and some earlier V2 models may have had a 100 second cycle. I'll check and report back on a definitive answer.

 
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Post by Flyer5 » Sat. Dec. 28, 2013 7:10 am

pvolcko wrote:HI Dave,

Nice crib sheet. :)

Some quibbles:

FR is 0-99 and it is in fact 0-99 in the stoker time control logic. You will notice that when FR is at 99 and MAX is at 99 there is at least a 1 second period where the stoker motor turns off. There are historical reasons why it is this way in the current software, but I fully expect that in the next rev we will be switching this over to a full 0-100 display and updating the control logic to allow for a full on cycle.

Also, while fan speed % will track more or less directly to FR, there is a delay possible when there is a step change in the FR and the fan speed is catching up to that new percentage. For instance, if you make a large setpoint change the FR will jump some amount. It can take up to 15 minutes for that new FR percentage to be reflected in the fan speed observed. But, while FR is tracking gradual changes throughout the day there is effectively no delay between FR and fan speed. The greater any change in the FR the more delay there is for the fan to catch up.

I'd have to check the code to be sure if it is a 100 second cycle or a 120 second cycle. For some reason I'm thinking it is 120 seconds now, where as V1 and some earlier V2 models may have had a 100 second cycle. I'll check and report back on a definitive answer.
Yea the cycle time would be helpful. Thanks I was trying to make the concept as simple as possible so I left out a lot of detail and summarized. Its not easy to do and still get the concept of operation. :)

 
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Post by coalnewbie » Sat. Dec. 28, 2013 11:02 am

Some thoughts to add to generally very good ideas and guidance.

Great install and ductwork but for efficiency in this type of installation I would have chosen the AnthraKing but no matter.
I am basing this only on what others who burn coal have told me. I am going through 3-4 bags/day during our current cold snap (some nights -10 degrees). So, is this the norm or is there something in my coal-trol that needs to be changed?
Yes that's about right if it's flat out. Inspection of the ashes will guide you as to whether you are turning MAX too high. With my application MAX of about 32 seemed to be about all there was to give. As pointed out your mileage may vary.

I used my Pocos for a few years - great stove.

 
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Post by pvolcko » Fri. Jan. 03, 2014 1:38 pm

Flyer5 wrote:Yea the cycle time would be helpful. Thanks I was trying to make the concept as simple as possible so I left out a lot of detail and summarized. Its not easy to do and still get the concept of operation. :)
Its 120 seconds.

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