It's Alive!

Today it only got “up to” 0F here.

Ya I worked in champlain, was not pleasant!

The weather certainly took a turn for the worst sometime last night. -10, calm, and sunny is a walk in the park compared to 10 above, roaring wind, and no sun.

My efm ran for a few hours this morning without stopping once. I changed the ash tub at lunch and was surprised to see the top covered with hard clinkers. I checked the fire and saw clinkers there as well. Just yesterday I checked to make sure the ash ring was correct, but since then I have gotten into a new pallet of coal. If it continues like this I will probably reduce the air and see how that looks…although I suspect if I do that the fire will creep onto the pot ring.

clinkers? i used to be amazed at the clinkers that i would get from my Harman mark 3 hand fed burning nut. Occasionally i would get something stuck between the grates and try to push it out with a poker. We'll i was just making matters worse poking through the red hot coal into the ash bed id get this metallic wonder of solidness looked like it came from outer space around 4inches long three inches thick and made a dead spot in the coal pile where nothing would burn until i moved removed it from the top. thats my imagery of a clinker now rice is a different monster

I got clinkers like you described in my hand fed boiler. In 10 years of heating my house with the EFM I have not seen anything like this.

Just my luck, we are supposed to have a windchill of -35 tomorrow morning and I am into some coal that creates baseball size clinkers and makes ash tubs so heavy I can barely lift them.

I shut the boiler down for a thorough cleaning and inspection, but I did not see anything out of the ordinary. The good news is that the boiler is still keeping up our heat demands, so hopefully this is just an inconvenience for the cold snap.

I’m not looking forward to it… it’s going to be dangerously cold around here, -15 tonight without the windchild, up to -45 with windchill… I just went out and topped off the hopper, should be good till Sunday.

hotblast1357 wrote: ↑

Fri. Jan. 14, 2022 3:17 pm

I’m not looking forward to it… it’s going to be dangerously cold around here, -15 tonight without the windchild, up to -45 with windchill… I just went out and topped off the hopper, should be good till Sunday.

I was supposed to be in Norwood for hockey tonight, it was just cancelled. Didn’t hurt my feelings.

Rob R. wrote: ↑

Fri. Jan. 14, 2022 3:35 pm

I was supposed to be in Norwood for hockey tonight, it was just cancelled. Didn’t hurt my feelings.

Ya when it’s like this it is best to just stay at home, it’s pretty stinken cold now with that wind!

I shut down Sunday to clean clinkers. A lot of them were fist sized.

Update on the clinker issue I was having. It cleared up after I got into a different pallet of coal. Thankfully it was not an equipment issue.

This morning I changed my timer to its warm weather setting and noticed the insulation on the neutral wire is discolored (looks like it got hot). The stoker motor is wired directly off the solid state repeat-cycle timer. All connections are snug, but I am wondering if there is a significant amount of voltage drop through this timer. I decided to order a mechanical relay that another member recommended in a different thread (see link below, thanks McGiever) Once the heating season is over I will re-wire my controls so the load for the stoker motor goes through the mechanical relay instead of my timer and aquastat.

Post by McGiever - Axeman 130 Heats Wood Boiler

All sounds good. Looking forward to seeing the re wire with the new relay. Scott

Scott in nwct wrote: ↑

Thu. Mar. 17, 2022 6:56 am

All sounds good. Looking forward to seeing the re wire with the new relay. Scott

I got two of the relays on eBay for $30. I only need one but for that price I got two so I will have a spare. One appears to be new old stock and the other looks fresh.

Next on the list is to order a nice enclosure for the relays/wiring. I plan to mount it right on the boiler jacket rather than where the timer is (on an overhead joist) so we are less likely to hear any noise from that beast of a relay.

Rob R. wrote: ↑

Mon. Mar. 28, 2022 7:20 pm

I plan to mount it right on the boiler jacket rather than where the timer is (on an overhead joist) so we are less likely to hear any noise from that beast of a relay.

Good idea! There is one of those inside a wall mounted box at the Axeman Heats Wood Boiler Project. It makes a loud WHACK! every time it kicks on and the THUNCK when it shuts off. It would be annoying if you could hear that through your floor.

-Don

I mounted my furnace blower relay on a joist in my basement lol. And yes I can hear the thwack on most of my first floor every time