AHS S130 Coalgun- Puffbacks & Explosions

dchartt wrote:I stand corrected, I went up to the barn this morning to check on the boiler and found the baro door blown off the pipe and laying on the ground in front of the furnace

Might I ask what brand and size of anthracite you are burning? Also what sort of draft you typically measure? And what temperature you are running your thermal ash grate control at?

Perhaps there is some common denominator between all who are reporting such puff-backs?

was pretty warm here so I was running the ash temp at 118 with a ten degree diff. yesterday was the first day I dropped it down to that low, im burning buckwheat but not sure what brand, and also just discovered my first out fire about half hour ago, cleaned it all up and stuck a flare in the coal sitting on the grate, shes back up and burning, I had the peep hole cover on the sight tube door closed since I started firing but after the baro door incident I know have it cracked about a third of the way open, havent measured my draft yet but its in a drafty barn and pulls a real good draft, have my operating temp set at 160, when it shuts off it will usually climb close to 200 on its own, got a very large radiator and mounted it above the boiler on the wall and set it up for my dumpzone, going to get coal tomorrow, will be switching to pea, have had a lot of unburnt coal in the ashpan which I now call the coal pan, was burning close to 100lb a day with probably half not being burnt, its not even cold here yet!

my flue pipe is double wall stainless insulated, and probably only 16ft tall

dchartt wrote:cleaned it all up and stuck a flare in the coal sitting on the grate, shes back up and burning,

You need at least 5" of ash under the fire when you start it. No wonder you are having trouble.

coaledsweat wrote:

dchartt wrote:cleaned it all up and stuck a flare in the coal sitting on the grate, shes back up and burning,

You need at least 5" of ash under the fire when you start it. No wonder you are having trouble.

Or you can use the quick start technique, an oxy-accy torch.

im not having alot of puffbacks, but yes I shouldve put ashes down first, but did not feel like removing 200lb of coal on top of grates, having the boiler 150ft away from house is easy way of wife not knowing about loud puffbacks haha

If you are burning 100 lbs of coal a day and you are getting unburnt coal, something is wrong. You have to check the draft on the chimney,not a " drafty barn", just saying it is good is not good enough, it has to be measured. Put the ash temp back to where the factory setting was.

mozz wrote: ........ Put the ash temp back to where the factory setting was.

For AHS owners there is confusion here, as they all come from the factory set at 140 degrees, but the manual never once mentions operating them at 140 degrees and instead says to set them at 130 degrees for normal operation, and to lower them to as low as 120 degrees (but never lower) during times of light demand.

There appears to be a permitted level of operator flexibility based upon weather conditions here, with 130 degrees representing the safe middle ground. I now have mine set back to 130 degrees. I'm burning a monitored average of about 36.5 lbs. per day over one full month of collected data. I've noticed little to no difference in the operation or ash characteristics at thermal ash grate settings of 130, 125, or 120 degrees. There is a high level of what appears to be unburned coal among my ashes.

Per my spreadsheet I have been consuming on average 2.14 lbs. of anthracite pea per "degree day" from October 14th through November 13th (today).

have any suggestions on what manometer to purchase to measure my draft? im not looking into a digital expensive one, something a lil cheaper but reliable...i already set my ash temp back to 130, I didnt have any less unburnt coal in my ashpan by dropping the temps anyway

dchartt wrote:have any suggestions on what manometer to purchase to measure my draft? im not looking into a digital expensive one, something a lil cheaper but reliable...i already set my ash temp back to 130, I didnt have any less unburnt coal in my ashpan by dropping the temps anyway

The Dwyer Mark II Model 25 is what I'm using (and what I believe many to perhaps most of us are using). I bought mine through 'Cole-Parmer"

http://www.coleparmer.com/Product/Dwyer_Mark_II_M ... W-68062-58

Does the inspection door slam closed when the fan is running? The fire should be roaring hot if you look in there when it is running. It should also suck up any dust ash you have around the port. I don't know about the AHS, but on the AA130'S you can adjust the fan horizontal, if it is too far away you won't get as much forced draft as when it is closer. Does the AHS have that upside down funnel thing? If that was not sealed it causes the fire to not burn on 1 side? Also, 16ft is not that tall for a chimney.

yes it does close tightly, just checked on it and it was running and it was roaring red hot in there, I noticed some fines gathering there last week inside the port and inside my barometric, new fire burning now we'll see if that happens again, yes it has the upside down funnel thing, no fan adjustments here, lets say I don't have a good enough draft, how do I control my boiler from coasting over 200 when its idling?

Mine idles up to 210. At that point my dump zone valve opens and my circulator comes on and cools it to 185-190. I'm not really sure if mine would go much beyond 210 though. Eventually the heat lost from the boiler surface matches the heat generated by the idling coal, and an equilibrium is reached.

Yanche wrote:The deep mined red ash Superior brand coal was definitely more likely to have puff backs.

You got that right! And I still have a multi-year supply on hand. That's why I built the "anti boom device" for my Axeman 130.

My buddy with the AHS has the tombstone door. He had booms last week. Four in a row a few seconds apart! He said that's only the second time it's done that. For stats, he has a very tall chimney, is burning Kimmel coal, and has his asher at 130. I think I'll ask him to drop it to 120.

well time will tell but the big boom which led to a bent up baro door might have gave me the helpin hand on figuring out my massive coal consumption, I temporarily re bent the door back up until I can go to the hardware today to get a new one but I had to adjust the weight way off of what I had it set at to get it to work a little, anyway I work night shift came home this morning to find hardly any coal consumped and very little in the ashpan, now it probably stayed in the low 50s lastnight but before I was burning 100lb a day if it was even in the 60's during the day, so correct me if im wrong or sound like a idiot haha, im only 26 and just starting my coal burning career, it seems to me that my baro that was adjusted to let as much as possible draft thru the flue pipe was choking my fire causing it to drastically lose temp fast and firing more frequently which lead to my high coal consumption?

and also that is reading buckwheat im currently burning, going to pick up some pea today also reading