AA130

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Mon. Jun. 18, 2018 9:26 pm

It's not the timer. I've never had an outfire and haven't run a timer in many years. Someone mentioned the fire depth, this is critical when starting the beast. It has to run and get to full depth when starting. They want to be fat and when they are you have no trouble because they are happy.

They get away with no draft because of the mass of fuel burning, its basically the size of a basketball. That's going to be tough to put out.


 
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lsayre
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Post by lsayre » Tue. Jun. 19, 2018 5:10 am

coaledsweat wrote:
Mon. Jun. 18, 2018 9:26 pm
It's not the timer. I've never had an outfire and haven't run a timer in many years. Someone mentioned the fire depth, this is critical when starting the beast. It has to run and get to full depth when starting. They want to be fat and when they are you have no trouble because they are happy.

They get away with no draft because of the mass of fuel burning, its basically the size of a basketball. That's going to be tough to put out.
AHS doesn't put timers on their Coal Guns.

 
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hotblast1357
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Post by hotblast1357 » Tue. Jun. 19, 2018 6:00 am

No timer here either, just went through two 90 degree humid days with 0 issues. And 0 draft.

 
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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Tue. Jun. 19, 2018 6:39 pm

Well, the timer didn't help. It was totally out at 0500 this morning.
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I took the stove pipe off, with the Pope's Hat this time. I took it out in the yard and blew it out real good with air. Not much came out, so that wasn't the problem.
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I put a brush through the passage from the swirl chamber to the cyclone section.
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Noth'in in there either. Although you can't get your hand in there, with the brush I could feel how small that passage way is, it's tiny!
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While the fan is off I will take a good look at it to see if anything is wrong. Other than that I have no idea why suddenly it won't stay lit. We've already had plenty of hot, humid days down here and it ran fine with no timer.

Once we get it going again, I think we will increase the ashing rate and possibly the ashing temperature too. This will be an attempt to lower the fire a bit to get a deeper bed of lit coal.

-Don

 
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lsayre
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Post by lsayre » Tue. Jun. 19, 2018 6:44 pm

When starting it up run hot water from a faucet set to about 2 GPM flow and let the boiler fight against that until it reaches temperature and shuts off.

 
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hotblast1357
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Post by hotblast1357 » Tue. Jun. 19, 2018 7:45 pm

Turn some radiators on also or something, put a huge load on it, I let my basement zone, 3 radiators, left on for 24 hours straight at first last fall to pull a good load.

I shut power off to my boiler last night, it is still burning.. and I’m still pulling DHW off it, it’s 140 right now.

 
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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Tue. Jun. 19, 2018 7:47 pm

lsayre wrote:
Tue. Jun. 19, 2018 6:44 pm
When starting it up run hot water from a faucet set to about 2 GPM flow and let the boiler fight against that until it reaches temperature and shuts off.
It's always on a DHW call when I lite it. I also have a Van Wert full of cold water that I feed in slowly. The combination of the two make it run between 1 and 2 hours.
=========================================================================

I found a problem, I don't think it's "The" problem though. I was looking at the fan itself and didn't find anything wrong, it looks pretty good.
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Then I looked at this. Notice anything missing here???
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How about a closer look.
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YUP! There are only 2 bolts left holding the fan onto the hub.

The bolts are broken off on the nut side. I removed the leftovers.
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So, that means we are shut down until we get new hi-temp lock nuts and matching bolts.
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I fired up the Van Wert for now. That will keep us warm til we get the Axeman back up and running!

-Don


 
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McGiever
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Post by McGiever » Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 12:01 am

StokerDon wrote:
Tue. Jun. 19, 2018 7:47 pm
It's always on a DHW call when I lite it. I also have a Van Wert full of cold water that I feed in slowly. The combination of the two make it run between 1 and 2 hours.
=========================================================================
Don
If there cannot be enough follow-up firing cycles after a robust looking fire of even 1-2 hours duration, as you have found out, it can still lead to another outfire.

The cause...too shallow or too thin of fire, remember it is starting out sitting on that thick column of dead ash resting on the grate.

Nearly until the Anthrastat does see hot enough coals to stop the ashing cycle while fan is still running, your fire is not fully developed yet.
You can hasten things up somewhat by manually pumping the lever to the ratchet pawl gear in between auger cam lobe rotations, if the belt is not removed first. Best time to wash some cars, clothes or dishes too. ;)

Colder season are more forgiving in regards to relighting with the home's continuing heat calls...warmer season everything is working against this.

Now, this is where a timer could help a little, but if once the vessel's water temp rises high enough and is setting against the "high limit set-point" the timer cycle gets skipped anyways, so no help there.
So, in the warmer season...it is not necessarily just a bigger load, but more so a longer load and this means dumping some bit of heat to simulate heat calls throughout a lengthy time period in order to keep the fire moving lower and to develop that thick, stable fire that AA's are famous for. ;)

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 9:09 am

So I get that it's missing a couple bolts on the fan, how would that cause the out fires, I mean the fan is still turning as usual with the few bolts that are still in place right?

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 9:27 am

Lightning wrote:
Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 9:09 am
So I get that it's missing a couple bolts on the fan, how would that cause the out fires, I mean the fan is still turning as usual with the few bolts that are still in place right?
It has nothing to do with the outfires. It's just a required repair.

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 12:32 pm

coaledsweat wrote:
Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 9:27 am
It has nothing to do with the outfires. It's just a required repair.
Ah, I see. I just reread Don's post. Thanks Coaledsweat :)

 
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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 7:09 pm

Lightning wrote:
Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 9:09 am
So I get that it's missing a couple bolts on the fan, how would that cause the out fires, I mean the fan is still turning as usual with the few bolts that are still in place right?
Reading is fundamental Lee. :lol:

After thinking about this for a while, it's a good bet that McGiever is right about the "over the HI limit" out fire. If it was a "not enough fire" situation, the timer would have helped. Since we lost the fire more quickly with the timer, I would say it didn't help.

Still giving the Ol' Van Wert some much needed exercise!

-Don

 
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hotblast1357
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Post by hotblast1357 » Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 7:31 pm

It’s all in the first fire, getting it fully burning.

Mine is on day 2 now, with no electricity to it, and I am still pulling DHW heat from it, and it’s about 105 degrees still, fire is still glowing inside, I cannot kill the beast, I think I’m going to have to dig the remaining coal out of the hopper soon so it will finally go out.

 
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lsayre
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Post by lsayre » Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 7:36 pm

hotblast1357 wrote:
Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 7:31 pm
It’s all in the first fire, getting it fully burning.
I simply can't accept that. Each subsequent fire event also plays a part, and if they do not play enough of a part, or if there are not enough of them at the correct intervals, the fire will assuredly eventually go out. And if there is no draft, the fire maintenance situation is compounded heavily by that deficiency as well. Also, ashing temperature and interval and duration all play a part.

it is not all about the very first fire.

You have it a bit easier than some of us because you circulate 24/7 and you uniformly lose heat to the ground which is at a constant temperature year round and is oblivious to whether or not it is 20 degrees or 90 degrees outside.

 
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Post by hotblast1357 » Wed. Jun. 20, 2018 8:02 pm

I have 0 draft, been like that since I lit it last fall.. so that isn’t factor here.

I think constant circulation is worse because I am always shedding heat to my basement with the exposed piping.

Tonight when I went out and checked the boiler, after being off for 2 days, no fan of asking, it’s still glowing slightly orange on the bottom and more coal fell in from the hopper, it’s still somehow burning, with 0 draft, no combustion fan, or ashing, for 2 days..

Maybe I’m just lucky..


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