Not really, when I turn on my electric water heater my electric bill goes crazy. Coal is cheap, plus running the boiler year round prevents expensive problems.
Besides, burning coal is fun! Ya can't really say that about watching an electric water heater.
We shut down the Van Wert on Friday morning. Then, Saturday afternoon we fired up the Axeman Anderson in the garage. There is 5 ton of Pea coal for the Axeman to eat so the Van Wert will be shut down for the foreseeable future.
The meter reading today is 4304.8 - 4294.5 = 10.3 hours over the passed 5.5 days, 1.873 hours per day. 18.73 pounds per day.
That's the Amtrol water heater that the basement and garage boilers heat. Works great! Even though no boilers were running Friday morning through Saturday afternoon, we never ran out of hot water.
We are achieving this by swapping out the 3" motor drive pulley for a 2" pulley. Going by the Rice coal feed rate tests on page 2 of this thread, 1/2" of drive pulley is about 2.25 pounds per hour. With the 3" pulley it was 10 pounds per hour so theoretically, 2" should give us 5.5 pounds per hour.
I think the trick here is to push just enough air to burn the coal, no more, no less.
It's been running like this for a couple days now. As you can see the fire looks lazy but it is staying up on top of the pot and not sinking down deep.
Since Wednesday we have only changed 1 setting. We increased the air from 8 to 10. That's all we can get out of it at this low fan/stoker speed. It works well and we have about a 1.5" ash ring so we are good to go.
We're not down to 14 pounds per day yet, but we have a couple more tricks. Currently we are running the timer at 2 minutes every 30 minutes with no sign of an outfire. We might run it once an hour. That could knock 48 minutes off the run time.
We had a power outage the other night for over 3 hours. When I got up in the morning, the Van Wert was just sitting there with the fire lit and ready to do it's job.
I think we will trim the timer back to once per hour. I just talked myself into it!
Current settings;
Feed Rate = 2" drive pulley = 5.5 pounds per hour.
Air = 10.
Aquastat = LO = 154, HI = 200, DIFF = 10.
Timer = 2 minutes every hour.
Even though we trimmed 48 minutes per day off the timer, it still runs about 3 hours per day. This means we are predominantly running on heat calls. Boiler temp stays in the 155 to 165 degree range and never goes near the HI limit of 200. No sign of any outfires, All is well.
This, theoretically, put us at 3.25 pounds per hour. The fan is running so slow now that we have the air opened up all the way to 11. It is barely keeping up.
Don is there a formal to fig out if when coal is cheaper than an electric hot water heater? Connecticut just raised the rates for the 3rd time this year. I can get bulk coal delivered for 200$ Ton. I would be willing to burn summer time as long as I can hold draft.
Canaan Coal Man, if you can get down to as little as 13.5 Lbs. per day for DHW, it should cost you about $42 per month for the coal, plus some amount of electricity charge on top of that.
A straight electricity bill for DHW is most likely going to come in at less than that.
Don is there a formal to fig out if when coal is cheaper than an electric hot water heater?
Usually, coal costs a little more than electric for DHW. There is less chance of things rusting up if you run the boiler 365 days though.
Wow, you can get it for $200 a ton up there? That's really good! Mine cost $190 this year.
Don is there a formal to fig out if when coal is cheaper than an electric hot water heater? Connecticut just raised the rates for the 3rd time this year. I can get bulk coal delivered for 200$ Ton. I would be willing to burn summer time as long as I can hold draft.
What is your electric rate? I have heard it is pretty scary in CT.
