Putting my AA130 to use

You should not have any leaking solder joints if you are following some basic steps and using the right products. Do you have a picture of one of the leaking joints? What are you using for flux, solder, and torch?

Also- I would put a strap on that pipe the expansion tank is hanging from. When that tank finally fails it will be very heavy. Next time get a floor mount model and mount it out of the way.

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Thu. Jun. 30, 2022 12:16 pm

I'm super excited about this!

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Thu. Jun. 30, 2022 12:16 pm

I was blown away at how fast this thing cranked up from 68 degree fill water.

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Thu. Jun. 30, 2022 12:16 pm

That ramp up speed is insane, I have no doubt I will be putting this in my house.

I'm sensing some Axeman fever over there! You won't be disappointed with her performance

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Thu. Jun. 30, 2022 12:16 pm

What's the proper way to seal around the popes hat flange?

I used flat stove gasket, 3/4 inch wide, about 1/8 thick.

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Thu. Jun. 30, 2022 12:16 pm

Also same question in regards to transfer tube and transfer tube plate.

I didn't use any gasket there, my plate sits pretty flush so not really needed.

Rob R. wrote: ↑

Thu. Jun. 30, 2022 1:16 pm

You should not have any leaking solder joints if you are following some basic steps and using the right products. Do you have a picture of one of the leaking joints? What are you using for flux, solder, and torch?

Also- I would put a strap on that pipe the expansion tank is hanging from. When that tank finally fails it will be very heavy. Next time get a floor mount model and mount it out of the way.

Thanks Rob, I did notice the tank jiggling while the motor was running, but didn't think to stabilize the pipe holding it in order to stabilize the tank!

Regarding the solder, I was very careful to clean and flux properly, my mistake was using some really thin solder, (not your typical fat stuff) also I should have been using tinning flux and I was just using Oatey5 . **this section corrected, it was plumbing solder**

I fixed a joint the other day with the fat stuff and it held fine. I think it was just too thin of a wire and I couldn't supply it fast enough to draw into the flux. I'm no solder expert. Tips accepted. Should I break free all the joints and resolder them you think, or should I just fix them if they leak?

You can pipe the expansion tank to anywhere you want to place it. I piped mine to the closest wall and strapped it in place.

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Thu. Jun. 30, 2022 12:16 pm

I do have some minor questions: What's the proper way to seal around the popes hat flange? I used some high temp tape temporarily. Also same question in regards to transfer tube and transfer tube plate.

Wow, this is an unexpected surprise!!! Just when things were getting a little bit boring on the forum, you come up with this, Awesome!

The Pope's Hat gets a piece of rope gasket and Hi Temp silicone around the edges before you install it. Then more Hi Temp silicone around the outside to seal it. I use Hi Temp silicone on all the stove pipe joints too. If this isn't sealed up it will huff and leak flyash everywhere. The transfer head cover does not need to be sealed at all.

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Thu. Jun. 30, 2022 12:16 pm

That ramp up speed is insane, I have no doubt I will be putting this in my house.

That's why we warned you about trying to run it with no load!
A fresh fire in one of these boilers is WAY bigger than any little flat grate or pot stoker!

-Don

StokerDon wrote: ↑

Thu. Jun. 30, 2022 7:28 pm

A fresh fire in one of these boilers is WAY bigger than any little flat grate or pot stoker!

-Don

Yeah so funny story, I stole a small shovelful out of the Keystoker to supply the axe with some already burning coal (which didn't work anyway, hello charcoal) I must have disturbed the bed enough to make the fire go out. So as we speak (er, as I type) I re-lit the keystoker and am waiting (forever!) for it to get back up to temp.

Ok guys so I'm missing something here. I've not near the experience to explain this. So I re-soldered the joint and it actually held! Refilled the system with water, took maybe 2 gallons. By the way, the boiler had crept up to 165...since noon...when I turned it off. So I just turned the circulator on to try to purge the heat, now I know that the finned baseboards I have on the floor are not in the casings so they're not going to convect properly but it's taking FOREVER to dump the heat. I mean...like maybe 1 degree every 5 minutes...it's only about 30 feet of fins and I know the circulator is probably pushing the water fairly fast since it's such a short run...but the inside of the building is noticeably warmer so it is shedding. but man o day if I had this thing hooked up to my house it'd be running two minutes an hour in the winter. So I stuck a dipstick down there to see if the fire was still good...pulled it out and sure enough some of the dipstick was quite hot (not red mind you) so I'm sure that 30 minute fire I had 10 hours ago is still there.

Anyway this causing me some confusion (and now I get to my point!) if I turn on the heat, say on a day like today, in my house, my boiler will drop easy 20 degrees in a matter of 5 minutes. In the winter, even with a nice hot ripe firebed, the keystoker will NEVER stop stoking if the thermostat is calling (whole house 1 zone, approx 100 ft of finned baseboard, not including connecting runs)... to me it sounds like I've been blaming my keystoker when maybe something else is off? Would a large airbubble in the house boiler cause this kind of temp fluctuation and loss to reboot?

You can have a slug of air stick in the boiler/high point of water flow if the circulator is not above the boiler pulling the air bubbles up through the steam chest to the top tapping(s).

If you do not have a boiler drain above the steam chest in the top tapping(s) to bleed the air it will take longer to get rid of it.


The circulator will just cavitate until you bleed the air bubble out or the high temperature(180+ degrees Fahrenheit) purges the air bubble from the line and the microbubbles eventually travel back to the Internal Air Separator then the steel compression tank to be absorbed into the air blanket in the steel compression tank or through the automatic air bleeder.

Went and got 3000 more lbs today, got 2000 earlier this week. Makes for 8 tons of buck and 2 tons of pea. Figured that's about $10,000 in oil equivalent haha...or not so funny. So I continue to be totally flabbergasted by this boiler. Here's a video of a run cycle. I'm a little concerned about the 15+degree overshoot after such a short run. Does this mean my draft might not be properly bypassing the bed? I noticed the anthrastat too seems satisfied at 130, when I would expect since it's summer it would continually be ashing. I won't be surprised if I get an outfire in the next couple days, maybe my bed is starting to work upward and get thin. Either way, I have no doubt this thing could supply my house, easy.
Also, I did mispeak, the bed was checking with the IR at 450-500, not 150 like I said.


5 minutes after shutting it down, it had overshot to 180.
25 gal*8lbs/gal*30 degrees is a requirement of 6000 BTU in <10 minutes (<5 min actual stoking time!) neglecting heat loss, so in essence this boiler in 1/6th of an hour provided 6000 BTU (or more) after having being 'idle'.

Like I said earlier, this fire is a LOT bigger than any flat grate or pot stoker. A 15 degree overshoot is nothing. Right now your running your pump constantly, if you ran it on demand like normal, it will overshoot WAY more than 15 degrees once the pump stops.

Mine has hit 230 degrees on an overshoot. Having an oversized expansion tank is a good idea with one of these boilers.

I'm surprized that you can keep it running with such a small load in this weather. That chicken coop must be about 150 degrees!

-Don

StokerDon wrote: ↑

Fri. Jul. 01, 2022 8:29 pm

Mine has hit 230 degrees on an overshoot.

Having an oversized expansion tank is a good idea with one of these boilers.

Golly, I'd poop myself and then not be able to sleep if I saw 230. Funny thing...on the keystoker it's like "oh crap, it overheated...which means it's going to go out in the following hours...".

I guess it's comforting to know it has the "H" stamp...also, at 230 water won't boil when it's under pressure, right? What's the math there, the formula for figuring degree change per psi?

Do you have any suggestions for how to check for unwanted air coming up through the fuel bed? I know they suggest running a timer with one of these things...I couldn't even run this 1 min / hr without massive temp change.

My KA6 is pretty much just balanced to keep the boiler 160-170 during the summer on 2 minutes every 20 minutes. The AA would just be insane.
Thanks for the expansion tank info, I'll be sure to use this one once I do the house install.

BTW, this was so easy to light, charcoal + torch + massive amount of airflow was instant success.

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Fri. Jul. 01, 2022 9:13 pm

at 230 water won't boil when it's under pressure, right?

I don't know what the math is but at 230 degrees under 15 PSI of pressure it didn't boil. The thing you really need to worry about on a big overshoot like this is the fact that the hotter the water gets, the more it expands. If you don't have enough expansion volume the boiler will start venting water out of the PRV.

Conventional oil and gas boilers will never see this type of overshoot. Therefor you have to add extra expansion volume over and above what would commonly be used on a conventional boiler.

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Fri. Jul. 01, 2022 9:13 pm

Do you have any suggestions for how to check for unwanted air coming up through the fuel bed?

I don't know why you are worried about that. As long as the fire door hangs open at least 3/4" it will be fine.

The reason for overshoots on one of these boilers is the fact that a revved up 11" diameter by 10" deep coal fire doesn't just shut off when the fan stops. You have a very significant amount of ramp down time for the fire to cool. The fact that the coal is in direct contact with boiler walls also contributes to the overshoots.

The factory spec for the timer is 1 minute every hour. Most people on this forum have found that to be pretty much useless. In my personal experience, running the timer has never helped so I don't use it.

-Don

Great points! This morning I went and checked on it (ran >12 hrs ago) and the coal were red...first time I've seen that. Transfer head still hasn't fully filled up the pot to the entry mouth, although in the manual it does say not to do it, but to wait until it fills up over time. As I was thinking about it, really the design prohibits a perfectly tight lower end to prevent draft from pulling through the bed, since the ash doors are designed without locking handles I'm really at the mercy of whether the draft decides it's easier to come through the fire door/valve or up through. I am amazed it can make back it round all the bends in the fan area, I would think those right angle turns would prohibit air movement.

I really like the fact the wet walls have direct contact with the bed...it seems to me other styles rely on heating the air in order to heat the boiler...to me this doesn't add up. I'm sure I'm missing an important principle.

I sure understand why people went to "push button fuels" so readily. We can look back at coal as a heritage, classic old school nostalgia but for most people oil was probably such a relief, to set and literally forget it...forever.

Water boils at 3 degrees higher per psi over atmospheric pressure. So, at 15 psi you can add 45 degrees to 212 before it will boil. This brings the boiling point of water to 257 degrees at 15 psi.

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Sat. Jul. 02, 2022 9:46 am

Transfer head still hasn't fully filled up the pot to the entry mouth,

I always make sure mine is full AFTER the fire is well established when starting a new fire. There are a couple ways to start a new fire. Start with a 3 inch layer of ash on the grate. Next add a 4-6 inch layer of woody charcoal. Ignight the charcoal with a heat gun thru the draft break opening. Once the charcoal is burning good you can add layers of coal, similar to a batch fed. The easier method is to put down your layer of ash and then just fill the entire burn chamber with coal. Next cram some woody chacoal into the side of the fuel bed thru the draft break opening, use a beer bottle to penetrate the woody chacoal deep into the fuel pile. Lastly, ignite it with a heat gun. This is how I relight an outfire. In both cases you should do some manual ashing as it gets going. You should also have a way to dump heat so that the boiler can run for at least an hour straight while you are adding in some manual ashing. I dump heat by running DHW.

Pretty sure I started with too little ash, I did a dipstick check yesterday and today and it was about 4" ash and 4-5" fire. Just now I ran it for several minutes and came out with about 5" ash and 3-4" fire
The anthrastat hasn't called at all the whole day, so I'm assuming my fire was pretty big initially and it's still burning that off, this would account for the high overshoots. Now I see the red coals when I peak in the firedoor even after not having run for several hours, before it was almost completely dark, as in the video. This makes me think the fire was very low. I did turn the anthrastat with the allen key and it is maybe one degree away from closing the circuit, right on the hairy edge. Also I stopped it at 180' and then turned the circulator on, it crept up to 182 but then pretty much stayed right around 180, then dipped to about 178 after 15 minutes or so. Seems like it's stabled out some, looking forward to observing my ash.