About to Burn... Baro for an AA?? Question!

Can we get a close up photo of the dry well?

I'll have to do that later Freddy... I won't be home till later tonight. Good news is that the aquastat is working, kindof... that being the boiler shuts off at a high limit and then when reaches the diff, turns back on! I still have a fire from last night... and we have hot water. The temps were around 170 this morning with lots of read coals the whole way around the inside of the observation port. The aquastat was set at 160 degrees (high limit) but was still burning to maintain a 170 degree temp. I lowered the high limit lever till the AA powered down... looks to be more like 155, but the water temp is right at 170. I guess it's a silly question to ask if the calebration of these aquastats can be off by 15 degrees...?? Last night I had the diff set at 10 (sorry about the cheese and crackers...) afraid that the fire would go out. I have since changed that to a 20 degrees differential.

The drywell seems to be... dry this morning! Maybe the unit was able to rest enough last night for the furnace cement to dry. The slow leak just kept the furnace cement wet and seemingly non-binding. I'll have to check on that when I get home as well.

On an extremely positive note - NO CO! The level was zero this morning - and only reached 37 when I started her up again last night (lots of smoke and what-hav-ya)... very pleased with that.

Well fellas it's Sunday! Time to kick back and relax... take it easy - play with the kids and enjoy the good life we have the live in these United States!

Hi pret, yes the aquastat's pointers at their temperature scales are often off by quite a bit.. mine are off about 5-10* depending on what temp on the scale I'm using.

Did you keep a timer running overnight?? or did cooler overnight temperatures keep the draft strong enough to keep the CO at zero??

Greg L

How well does the AA keep up with multiple showers/high hot water use after idling all night?? Have you gone downstairs and watched it 'work' and monitor the water temps??

Greg L

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Gone the ENTIRE day, back at 11pm and the water temp is 170 degrees - stable... that's what it was when I left this morning, and ZERO carbon monoxide.

Greg, the cooler temps may have kept the draft up - the timer is not hooked up at the moment, still in the middle of wiring it.

My pointers on the aquastats are definitely 15 degrees off. Anyway I can recalibrate them?

The AA does really well at keeping up with multiple showers. This morning, gave the kids a bath and both my wife and I had about a 10 min shower each. I immediately went to the basement to see 'what changed'. The temp only dropped 5 degrees. I'm happy... just got to get that timer working and the leak in the drywell fixed.

Freddy... I'll have to get you that pic tomorrow.

Pret

I'd be real cautious about not running a timer.. the fire needs a blast of fresh air and some fresh coal every hour or so.. When you get home and look at the fire after 8-10 hours of idling, you probably see nothing but ash around the edge, with a 'cap' of fresh coal.. or you may see all ash and burning coal all the way up into the feed tube..

I'd get that timer wired !! My AA 260 did not like summer use, idling for hours or all day long.. the fire shrank to the center of the firepot, with nothing but ash around the perimeter. The ash crumbles to powder, then fresh coal falls into the cylindrical gap around the fire,, leaving a lot of unburnt coal days later.. The fire in the firepot doesn't burn very well from the center out.. Especially in warm weather with little load on the boiler..

I just emptied my ashpan after 8 days.. it was 90% fine powdery ash, with a few small clinkers [normal for AA's] and some partially burnt coal on the edges of the ash pile.. I may warm up the shop floor for a few hours, just to put a BTU load on the boiler and get the fire nice an cookin'.

Greg L.

Timer is now wired and running at most 2 minutes an hour. My emergency shut off aquastat - the L6006 - is set at 160 and my high limit set point on the aquastat that controls the temp of the boiler water is set at 155/160 - it's not real accurate at the moment My water is staying constant around 155.

Greg I do notice that the pile of coal I had in there yesterday has shrunk considerably. Should I move the 'cone' of fresh coal over to the edges - at the moment there are still hot coals around the edges.

It sounds like your getting it zero'd in. You'll get it perfected soon.

I won't need that photo...tomorrow at this time I can just look at mine!

pret wrote: My emergency shut off aquastat - the L6006 - is set at 160 and my high limit set point on the aquastat that controls the temp of the boiler water is set at 155/160

Shouldn't you have the emergency aquastat set below the low limit setting? Maybe like 135* so if you are useing alot of hot water and it pulls the temp down below 160 it won't open the contact and the stoker will keep firing.

pret wrote:Timer is now wired and running at most 2 minutes an hour. My emergency shut off aquastat - the L6006 - is set at 160 and my high limit set point on the aquastat that controls the temp of the boiler water is set at 155/160 - it's not real accurate at the moment My water is staying constant around 155.

Greg I do notice that the pile of coal I had in there yesterday has shrunk considerably. Should I move the 'cone' of fresh coal over to the edges - at the moment there are still hot coals around the edges.

The L6006 should be set 20 degree's with a 5 Diff. below your 8024 aquastat low set point if you have it set at 155 then
your 6006 should be 20 Degrees below that at 135 That will shut the boiler off If your fire goes out or if you have a Power
outage It will shut everything down so you don't come home to a boiler full of fresh coal and your hopper or bin will not
be empty

I had to shut her down... about two weeks ago - woke up at 4am to the CO detector going off. The digital readout read 80 - for those that don't have digital units, the alarm sounds at 30. Draft Issues!

Well... to begin, this is a new construction. I was told the heat loss on the place is 50,000 BTU/hr at zero degrees outside. I'm not sure If I can trust that figure - but rest assured, the place is tight. The house is situated at the top of a small ridge in a clearing about 40 feet from the drop down the ridge. The house is facing south. There are two chimneys - one houses two flues, one for a fireplace on the first floor and the other for an old kitchen cook stove in the basement. The flue in the basement is TOTALLY OPEN - no stove there yet... no damper... nada! This chimey is facing west. When I was having my draft issues a couple weeks back, the damper on this flue (fireplace) was closed. The other chimney houses the flue for the AA-130 and is situated on the back of the house which faces north. I don't know if you can picture it... but the west and north sides of the house are about 40 feet, both sides, from very tall trees. The other sides of the house - no trees, just wide open space.

I don't know if I have corrected the problem yet... but I lit her up tonight...

I set the baro up per the AA manual - weird configuration, but I followed the specifications. I also set up the pipe as Greg instructed (see attached pic).

MISTAKES I MADE:
1. When we moved into the house, I closed the A/C vents into the basement... because hey - it's cool enough down there!
I'm sure this created a negative pressure in the basement (location of boiler room) which adversely affected the draft.
2. Inspection plate hanging only 1/4 inch open during idle stage
Simple mistake... 'remembered' that it should be 1/4"... but when I went over the installation instructions I discovered the error.
3. Damper of the fireplace tightly closed.
I actually don't know if this is a mistake - I have it wide open now, and the draft has improved - maybe . I would think that pressure changes outside would have an affect on air exchange processes with the house. Maybe this was affecting the draft as well.
4. Stove pipe configuration: two elbows (45's), and a baro not installed as AA has recommended.

I know that there was negative pressure in the basement because if I were to close the door to the basement stairs... it would close by suction - had to be careful not to slam the door. I drilled three 1.5 inch holes to the outside for 'replacement' air - rather than pulling air from the house, I wanted it to pull air from outside, and put a 60 CFM blower on the one hole blowing air into the boiler room. This and opening the A/C air vents to the basement has significantly reduced the negative pressure. When A/C blower is off - no neg. pressure. When it kicks on, the door will draw shut if it is within an inch of the door frame. The draft is affected by the fan... about +.01 difference when fan in off as opposed to when fan is on.

I was reading about draft problems and read that homes that are built next to tall trees often experience higher pressure at chimney height than at ground level or inside house do the the air coming down over the trees into the open area. This, I read, cannot be cured by an automatic draft unit ($1000 price tag for the DIY-er). Right now, I'm at .01 - .02... oh there it dropped to -.005... DUDE! I just stepped outside and the tree tops are blowing pretty good, but no breeze in front of the house (faces south). It's supposed to get down to 60 tonight, but it's about 77 and humid outside right now.

Question: If I can watch the manometer drop and rise... and it's windy outside, do you think that one of the vacu-stack caps for the chimney would help my draft woes? (http://www.woodlanddirect.com/Chimney/Wind-Resist ... himney-Cap)

Okay... I'm all out of steam. I think I've done everything by the book here... anyone have any ideas or can point out a problem I haven't identified yet?

One more thing... I have the baro set at .o6 - don't care if I burn a little more coal... just want to live

Later... Pret

I'll be down next week with a load of coal and some encouragement! Oh yeah plus a timer, motor and an extra manometer to measure the boiler room reference to outside. We are gonna fix this thing and get you up an running! Hang in there buddy and give me a call.

Hey Pret, long time no hear....busy summer. Bummer you're having draft issues. What's the top of the chimney like? Might you be able to add height? Maybe Matthaus can come up with some good ideas when he comes for a visit. I hope you get this mystery solved.

Yep... busy summer Fred... Matthaus - you like flavored coffee? You'd be a site for sore eyes man...

I'll give you a call sometime today if I can.

Thanks fellas. Pret

Woke up this morning to .01 draft once again! Doesn't make any sense. It's 60 degrees outside, about 76 inside the boiler room, and I'm pumping air at 60 cfm constantly. Maybe I'll just get a bigger blower. 1200 cfm do it fellas

That vacustack thingy might help. I suppose too you might look into a draft inducer. Draftinducers.com have pics of them.

That vacustack thingy might help. I suppose too you might look into a draft inducer. Draftinducers.com have pics of them.