Heating Large Shop in Alaska W/ Sequoyah Outdoor Boiler

AlaskaCoal1 wrote:Any idea on the price of this model. Shipping to Alaska has been the long pole in the tent.

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Well -30 again here this morning we have been running -27 to -30 for a few weeks now. Sun comes up and warms us up well but man I will be glad when it is above 0 at night. Come on Spring.

As I continue to use the cold weather to tweak the boiler I was wanting to get a guess and some confirmation on BTU calculations to see if I am in the right ball park..

--Alaska Coal=7500 BTU per pound
--Boiler loading = 200 pounds or 1.5 million BTU potential x twice day feeding = 3 million
--Assume 50% efficiency-- 750K BTU potential/ feeding and 1.5 per day as other is lost (total guess but Alaska is warmer because of me I am sure

Question-- what are your GUESSES on BTUs that IF inside would be captured (20% of the total loss??) I guess really looking to see what you guys think is the proportion on loss between up the flu and passive loss of the water radiating ... Up the flue is loss no matter where it is located -- well most anyways I guess some would be garnered from single wall pipe radiating

If you assume the 50% efficency and that 30% is up the flue that would leave 20% to the shop OR 300K= approx 12.5K per hour. Not sure what that would do to the temp of the barn since mid 50K is needed. Just ran these numbers to see how much moving might be worth it with the added mess and such.

I know this is all theoretical and no way to know but who knows maybe someone on here has actual results that they might share.

Hope all the NE members weathered the storm--- I would be fine with no more snow the rest of the year... Ready for some summer.

Wow! Don't know how you are losing that much heat but, 400lbs/day? That's 125k gross BTU's /hr. Bring it inside and turn it into a stove! At 40-50% It would give you the BTU's you are looking for. Bring it inside and take the jackets off!
How about trying to add some insulation to the existing situation????? The boiler outside in -30 degrees. That is a huge differential. It must be bleeding off heat terribly. Do the animals cuddle up to it?

Too late to go back and edit original...changes in red.

McGiever wrote:AC1,
I have a lead now on a Will-Burt S-30 Bituminous Coal Stoker and can even get it's mated "octopus type" warm air furnace w/ "donut h/x" with it also if you might like to explore going this route. Although this stoker alone might be able to be fitted under a boiler vessel, just as well.

I believe the S-30 can feed our bit coal at up to a rate of 30lbs/hr. YMMV w/ your sub-bit coal.

BTW: Fastenal would be a strong contender for the freight carrier service, as was mentioned earlier in this thread.

Clickable Link now: http://www.airheaters.info/coal-firing/stoker-firing.html

Scottscoaled wrote:How about trying to add some insulation to the existing situation????? The boiler outside in -30 degrees. That is a huge differential. It must be bleeding off heat terribly. Do the animals cuddle up to it?

Has it ever been determined what the drop in water temp is from the boiler to inside the building? If that pipe runs through the permafrost it has likely melted it so that now the pipe is floating in a tunnel of water, insulated or not.... Move the unit inside make a stove out of it or not!

waldo lemieux wrote:

Scottscoaled wrote:How about trying to add some insulation to the existing situation????? The boiler outside in -30 degrees. That is a huge differential. It must be bleeding off heat terribly. Do the animals cuddle up to it?

Has it ever been determined what the drop in water temp is from the boiler to inside the building? If that pipe runs through the permafrost it has likely melted it so that now the pipe is floating in a tunnel of water, insulated or not.... Move the unit inside make a stove out of it or not!

Waldo... I put new batteries in my IR yesterday and tried to take some readings... I measured water at the boiler input / output only about 5 degrees delta while it was at idle.. the water runs continually through the heaters with the fans controlling the shed of BTUs. (Freeze protection) I then went inside and measured input /output once inside the shop to see what the drop from the boiler is during that 70 foot run underground. was running about the same... hard to really tell exact delta as the IR gun sucks to some degree but overall I was not concerned about loads of heat shedding into the ground maybe 2-3 degrees.

I am going to test today while she is fired up to see what the temp difference is and will report back. I can tell you the heaters shed the heat and shed it fast. Other day with boiler idling and fans off the water temp was up to 203 degrees at the aqua stat ... I turned on the fans and within 30 min dropped the temp at the aqaustat from 203 to 150.

I ran across a thermal storage tank on craigslist. I have a question. How will a thermal tank really help me. I got it that it will make the boiler run flat out and heat the water then I coast for a while letting the boil idle and gives me more water mass to heat with.... BUT how would this help with tending times and coal consumption? In the end it is BTUs in BTUs out no matter if it is going through my heaters or being stored. Am I missing something in the math here.

AlaskaCoal1 wrote: BUT how would this help with tending times and coal consumption? In the end it is BTUs in BTUs out no matter if it is going through my heaters or being stored. Am I missing something in the math here.

Thermal mass or storage could allow you to burn more intensely and cleaner the gas phase of your coal while still capturing the heat. That would depend on how fast a circulator and available heat exchange could remove it. It could also store heat for those times when the boiler can't keep up. Other than that I see no advantage. If you were burning anthracite in a boiler large enough to meet demand under all conditions then no advantage at all.

I don't think you will ever achieve satisfactory performance with that outdoor boiler. The combustion & thermal efficiency is terrible, and the heat lost to the environment is large.

Am I wrong to think he's losing around 40k BTU's to the ground with a 5 degree differential? If he is figuring 150K with a 20 degree differential then he would be losing 37.5 k BTU's to the ground per hour with a 5 degree differential. If his unit is getting 50 percent efficiency then,,, each pound of coal would yield 3750 btu's. Holy cow!!!!! That means he is burning 10 pounds of coal per hour for the ground. 240 pounds of coal per day!!! Yikes.

But what is the heat loss at idle...
From the Boiler itself?...
How much insulation is on it?
What is room temp?
You could be loosing 8,000btu/hr out of the vessel...
go indoors go automatic...
then run the pipe from the shop to the house...
under fed stokers...
http://www.jonmargear.com/coal-and-wood-stokers/light-commercial-residential-hopper-stokers/
Interesting history of will-burt...
http://www.willburt.com/about/press-releases/will-burt-celebrates-90th-anniversary/

SC

You may be correct about shedding to the ground but remember the set up is a continuous water circulation through the heaters so the heaters are losing some kind of like a baseboard heater just not as much due to the design of the hanging heaters. I did this for several reasons.. 1 to not have to worry about freezing potential... 2 cost and testing before I spend tons of money all the parts. The set up works when I turn on the fans and the peace of mind knowing nothing is going to freeze is worth something. I think most of the delta is most likely from the heaters shedding.

I did talk to the original owner the other day... he was asking much more of the boiler than I am and he and I were trying to figure out the problem. One this we came up with was the way I was tending the boiler was much different than him.

He would shake down nearly all the ash even if he lost some hot coal.. then rake all the coal to the front and load to the back...

I shake very little only enough to ensure air has a way... then spread the coal out and load it like a steam locomotive ... just shovel it in

I was shaking very little because it has helped me in the house by keeping a larger bed of ash to reduce clinkers and control the fire more... now in the house I can shake a little to get more air if needed without having to move the damper or I can do both... took this same principle out to the boiler... will say very few clinkers in the boiler

CapeCoaler wrote:But what is the heat loss at idle...
From the Boiler itself?...
How much insulation is on it?
What is room temp?
You could be loosing 8,000btu/hr out of the vessel...
go indoors go automatic...
then run the pipe from the shop to the house...
under fed stokers...
http://www.jonmargear.com/coal-and-wood-stokers/light-commercial-residential-hopper-stokers/
Interesting history of will-burt...
http://www.willburt.com/about/press-releases/will-burt-celebrates-90th-anniversary/

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The Jonmar stokers look exactly like the coal stokers used for the Portage and Main Coal Stokers.

JONMAR Gear now owns all thing that have been or has used the famous Wil Burt Bit Coal Stoker product line.

Got a lesson on how the old owner operated the boiler yesterday.. totally different from the way I described I was doing it. Much less ash shook it way down and we pulled out lots of clickers and lots of flat pieces that look like ash melted and bonded together... really flat... All of that had to be restricting air movement. Anyway.. we cleaned out good.. pulled all the coal to the front and loaded it up full back to front. cranked it let her rip. Seem to do much better. I have now been burning for 14 hours and the water temps are 190 with the indoor heaters set on thermostat and running as needed. SO it held for a half a day without crashing and that is a significant improvement. To early to tell about fuel consumption or tending times this is just a first report.... but still not looking good since I loaded approx 200 pounds of fuel and turned the heaters way down to keep it around 37-39 in the shop on a -17 day.

I am going to continue to play with it with this new set up and see what happens.

As far as inside that is still an option the one main problem is that when I open the door smoke rolls out the front and I do not want that in the shop. Keeping that in mind and trying to use the last portion of winter to come up with a game plan for next winter.