New Boiler Build for New Steam System.

Post by **StokerDon** » Sat. Feb. 04, 2017 7:31 am

I hope a couple windows are going in that boiler shed. That is one nice view you have from your hill. I'm sure the boiler would like to see it.

Hard to tell from the pic's, is the shed attached to the house?

-Don

Qtown1835 · Post by **Qtown1835** » Sat. Feb. 04, 2017 8:23 am

The color of the Wood is interesting. What type of wood is it? Cedar?

unhippy · Post by **unhippy** » Sat. Feb. 04, 2017 3:03 pm

StokerDon wrote:I hope a couple windows are going in that boiler shed. That is one nice view you have from your hill. I'm sure the boiler would like to see it.

Hard to tell from the pic's, is the shed attached to the house?

-Don

When it gets here, its getting double skinned with greenhouse film so light isn't going to be a problem.

Its not attached to the house

Qtown1835 wrote:The color of the Wood is interesting. What type of wood is it? Cedar?

Its just radiata pine but its covered in a pink stain to certify that it is at the right density to use for structural purposes.....all building materials here must be certified as meeting NZ standards.

Callum

unhippy · Post by **unhippy** » Mon. May. 15, 2017 8:19 am

Well I've had the boiler up and running for about a week and a half.....altho not on steam any longer

i got everything up and running on steam at the start of April and then found out that the steam traps that i had, that where supposed to be rated for vacuum steam operation, 'blew past' as soon as there was much more than a 6"Hg pressure difference across them....i was somewhat grumpy about this....however i was plodding my way through sorting the problem out.

Right as i was dealing with this my wife's water broke 6 weeks early

...after a medically induced pause in the labour for 48 hours to give some steroids time to work on our unborn sons lungs, he was born at 18:45 on the 20th of April....and trundled off to the Neonatal ICU for 2 weeks....lol our first born spent his first 2 weeks in a glass box under grow-lights.

In the middle of all this an urgent refit to a pumped water system was in order....pex-al-pex pipe, sharkbite type fittings, an automatic air vent and a PRV were hurriedly ordered online with expedited shipping paid for with no f#&k's given to cost....an expansion tank and a 'smart' circulator pump were found locally (from the local purveyor of acceptable quality chinese machinery

....) .... the few 1 1/4" steel pipe fittings that i didn't have on hand, and all the assorted stuff that nickle and dimes you to death where bought...and the race against the clock began.

A pair of distribution manifolds where welded up, pipe was cut to length and threaded, all tapered pipe threads had threadtape and dope applied and were screwed together, sharkbite fittings were slapped in every hole that they would screw into, pex-al-pex was run all over the place in the crawl space under my floor and hooked up to the radiators, expansion tank was connected....after a week and a half everything was done....test time

System was filled with water and pressurised to 5.5psi cold and turned the pump on to aid in bleeding the air out...one tiny leak that was in a place that i could fix easily after a test run....fired up the stoker...temperature and pressure start climbing together.....temperature hit hit 70c/160f....suddenly noticed that the pressure is not rising and as i watched, it started to fall even as the temperature was still lifting...Wtf?....every single screwed pipe joint on the outgoing side right out to the distribution manifold was leaking....alot.

.....

Next day i got got hold of the person that i had bought the threadtape off...."oh that threadtape is only good to 60 degrees C ....i thought when you said you were installing a boiler that you meant a hotwater cylinder.....your only allowed to have them set to a maximum of 55c these days"......my fathers business now no longer has an account there....and i learned that not all thread tapes are the same.

I had to undo all the threaded joints and clean them off before using pipe jointing compound and hemp to seal them for the second time.....not a single leak.... got it fired up and running 2 days after my wife and new son had returned home.

Boiler is currently set 185f/155f and the stoker is running an 18% feeder duty cycle of 10 seconds on in 54 seconds...

Stoker cycle goes like this: start...fan only for 44 seconds/fan and feeder on for 10 seconds/fan only for 44 seconds/fan and feeder for 10 seconds/repeat

With air just under half open and the rice size sub-bit coal that i have this seems to be the best setting....i have to be a bit careful because if i turn the air up too much it will quite happily blow the burning rice coal straight out of the pot

When i get my next load of coal i am going to get pea coal as i suspect that it will allow me to fire alot harder if i need to.....but the boiler currently seems to have plenty of reserve.

House is warm, wife is happy and everyone is doing well....its funny to think that our very active and strong baby is still supposed to be inside my wifes stomach...his due date was around the end of May.

I would have posted before this but i've had a little bit going on.....

Oh and i still have to put the insulation on the 5/8 pex-al-pex lines...but it hasn't turned up yet

Callum

tsb · Post by **tsb** » Mon. May. 15, 2017 8:40 am

Time is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once, but in your case not so much.
God speed with the family and the boiler.

lzaharis · Post by **lzaharis** » Mon. May. 15, 2017 9:29 am

Hello Callum,

I am glad to hear that your baby boy is holding his own and at home.
I am sorry to hear about turn for the worse about the boiler.

It certainly is bad to hear about the wrong sealing tape business affecting
the shakedown cruise of the boiler and the forced conversion to hot water.

I hope your father is enjoying having a new grandson to visit with and fuss over.

unhippy · Post by **unhippy** » Tue. May. 16, 2017 5:47 am

My insulation for my 5/8 tube has arrived....the (hopefully) last round of crawling about under my floor is at hand this week end

It will be interesting to see how much drop in coal usage i get from having everything fully insulated instead of only half the system.

Callum

blrman07 · Post by **blrman07** » Tue. May. 16, 2017 7:35 am

Your wife is home and happy. Your baby is home and healthy. Everything else is gravy.

Post by **StokerDon** » Tue. May. 16, 2017 7:34 pm

I'm glad your boy came out OK, a bit early, but OK.

MAN, sounds like you had just about every problem you can think of with this system! Are you going to try another mini-tube system or is this going to stay as a closed hot water system?

I can't even believe the tape was so bad that EVERY joint leaked, that must have been devastating after all that work.

What's the average daytime high temperature down there now?

-Don

KLook · Post by **KLook** » Tue. May. 16, 2017 9:02 pm

Wow, glad all is well and you have the talent to turn it around....that premature baby will get some extra loving. Best of wishes to you and yours on the other side of the world.

Kevin

freetown fred · Post by **freetown fred** » Tue. May. 16, 2017 9:15 pm

Glad things worked out well. Kids are tough lil critters!!

CapeCoaler · Post by **CapeCoaler** » Tue. May. 16, 2017 9:52 pm

Glad to hear everyone is finally home...
Our twins came early but neither needed any special treatment...
Talk about babies being tough...
The boy twin was breach and got slightly stuck on his journey out...
No c-section for mom she wanted to give them the best chance for clear lungs...
He was purple from the waist down with all the grabbing required to free him...
cleared up in a day...
Both took only 3 minutes but it was a very long 3 minutes...
Five years later both are healthy and strong...

Along with their 4 year old sister...

unhippy · Post by **unhippy** » Thu. May. 18, 2017 6:12 am

StokerDon wrote:I'm glad your boy came out OK, a bit early, but OK.

MAN, sounds like you had just about every problem you can think of with this system! Are you going to try another mini-tube system or is this going to stay as a closed hot water system?

I can't even believe the tape was so bad that EVERY joint leaked, that must have been devastating after all that work.

What's the average daytime high temperature down there now?

-Don

The boiler is going to stay as a normal (boring!!!) hot water system....its working well and winter is due to start this weekend so the weather man says (snow to 1000ft tonight)....just in time to have to go get coal this weekend

Threadtape is a dirty word in my world right about now....

.....the stupid thing is that i used that particular brand because it is a known good brand.....and because i wasn't told about the temperature limit on that particular type of tape it failed when i took it over that limit.

Average daytime temperature this week has been around 55f with a light frost at night in shelters areas.

(altho because of where my house is, the temperature at my house hasn't lifted above 45f all week altho again due to location we haven't had a frost at the house yet)

...pretty typical for late autumn/early winter here.....our freezing cold/snow weather come's up from the south (Antarctic) in fronts that start to arrive about this time of year....however in a months time, the temp will barely lift above freezing alot of the time.

CapeCoaler wrote: Both took only 3 minutes but it was a very long 3 minutes...

Ash was about the same time from crowning until he finally launched into the world....and yeah...its a very long few minutes.

Callum

unhippy · Post by **unhippy** » Mon. May. 22, 2017 7:00 am

Well i went and got coal on Saturday....i got pea coal as that is what the stoker is primarily designed to operate on...i had been running it until now on the same grade (called chip coal here) that my stoker stove uses that is about equivalent to a 50/50 mix of buckwheat and rice coal....

Talk about rocket fuel...once i got the settings sorted the pea coal has way better than halved my temperature recovery time's

doesn't seem to be using anymore coal either...3 buckets a day same as on chip coal.

The settings for pea's are hugely different to the ones for chip...i'm now running 30 seconds on in 65 seconds with the air set to minimum...and i think that's still too much air as it is trying to lift the smaller pieces of coal

With the smaller size coal i could squat down gopnik style with my knees touching the ash door and watch the fire for as long as i wanted with no problem's....doing the same thing now is quite uncomfortable after a very short period of time due to the heat radiating out of the fire door opening.

i need to get a few spare 5mm shear bolts as the crunching of coal in the auger tube is a little alarming....and while this coal is pretty well screened...the occasional stone still gets thru.

Callum

lsayre · Post by **lsayre** » Mon. May. 22, 2017 7:43 am

I'm happy for you that this is working so well, as I had high confidence that it would due to your diligent planning, and your amazing skill set.

I live in a semi rural area. A mix of residential and scattered farms. Thereby, I worry about burning bit and causing issues with neighbors due to smoke and odor. How well does your system mitigate these issues? Locally sourced bituminous would cost 50% to perhaps 65% less for me than does clean burning anthracite.