AA130

coaledsweat wrote: ↑

Thu. May. 24, 2018 8:42 pm

The risk of puffback will increase with the feedrate increase.

Humm,,,,

Your probably right.

-Don

*SD*, What are your fan pulley sizes?

McGiever wrote: ↑

Thu. May. 24, 2018 9:39 pm

*SD*, What are your fan pulley sizes?

StokerDon wrote: ↑

Thu. May. 24, 2018 8:53 pm

For the record, this 130M had a 3.5" pulley on the motor and a 3" on the gearbox before I changed the motor and the pulleys. This was very likely the original factory set because this unit is relatively new, 1991. I guess at some point during the production life they felt the need to speed the auger up a little.

This unit is currently running the opposite pulley set up, 3" on the motor and 3.5" on the gearbox. This makes the auger and ashing a bit slower than normal.

-Don

Well, I figured out where all the fly ash is coming from and it ain't from puff-backs! It turns out that the gasket between the fan plate and the boiler has failed. This allows fly ash and some combustion gas to push out while the fan is running. We're gonna run whats left in the barrel and doghouse, then shut it down. I guess if ya get 27 years out of a fan plate gasket it's a pretty good gasket!

I have not decided if we are going to fix it and re-fire it, or just take it completely apart and start the re-furb now. I can always just re-lite the Van Wert, or I could be really lazy and fire up the electric water heater.

-Don

Oh yeah! When that gasket goes, instant dust storm.

*SD*, What are your fan pulley sizes?

No, NOT the gearbox...THE FAN.


BTW: That Puff Back that launched your baro flapper door musta been a good one...it blew out that gasket too.

McGiever wrote: ↑

Sat. May. 26, 2018 11:27 pm

*SD*, What are your fan pulley sizes?

5" on the motor and 3" on the fan. That comes out to 2875 RPM for the fan.

McGiever wrote: ↑

Sat. May. 26, 2018 11:27 pm

BTW: That Puff Back that launched your baro flapper door musta been a good one...it blew out that gasket too.

Good catch! The dust storm started right after the baro blew off. I guess this means puff-backs can blow gaskets out as well as stove pipe parts.

-Don

Well so much for being lazy or fire'in up the Van Wert!

I shut it off this morning, then I cut the fan plate bolts off with the grinder. I removed the belts, then I removed the four bolts that hold the bearing housing on. This allowed me to take the bearing housing, fan plate and fan off in one piece. The gasket came off in a lot of pieces. You can now see where the oil got fried onto it during the first fire up. I spent some time with the wire wheel to clean up the fan plate. Then I mounted the whole thing to some wood. Then painted the fan plate. I put some flat stove gasket on with HI Temp silicone. Time to put it back together and fire it up! I didn't hold the fire during this process so I torched up some charcoal. I cleaned up the mess and put the fire view door back on. I jumped in the bin and filled the barrel with leftover Pea coal. I also filled 8 buckets. There is a barrel or two still left in the bin so we will probably make it till July with what is left!. We should be good to go for 1.5 to 2 weeks on this fill up.

-Don

Yesterday it was time to fill the barrel again. It's been 13 days since the last fill with 20.6 hours of run time.

For the passed week the Van Wert in the basement has been heating the DHW. The Axeman has just been sitting here keeping itself and the loop to the basement warm.

Pretty amazing, it just sits here keeping itself warm for a week with no timer in Summer temperatures. It took most of what was left in the bin to fill the barrel. We still have this little bit and 8 buckets left. I reset the clock and we're ready to run for another week or two. We will shut down the Van Wert today and valve in the Axeman for DHW duty. Also, since we are back on Pea coal we will try letting the aquastat control the pump.

We have been running constant circulation to get more consistent stoker run times to avoid puff-backs. We have not had a puff-back since switching back to Pea coal.

-Don

Don, do you have sufficient data yet by which to declare which of these boilers is running more efficiently?

Not yet. We can do a comparison of coal consumption between the Axeman and the Van Wert on DHW only next week.

It might not be a fair comparison though. The remote garage set-up here has always used more coal than the boiler in the basement. Summer or Winter the basement boiler has historically used less coal. I'm not 100% sure why.

-Don

My guess: Heat radiated to the basement contributes to home heat, and heat radiated to the garage does not. That plus a first guess that your home is insulated better overall than your garage.

That is all true, but insulation (house and boiler) doesn't explain why this continues in Summer.

-Don

Good point! But even in the summer, if the garage is colder than the basement then the garages radiant heat loss will cause the boiler to fire more often and burn more coal.

lsayre wrote: ↑

Sun. Jun. 10, 2018 11:17 am

Good point! But even in the summer, if the garage is colder than the basement then the garages radiant heat loss will cause the boiler to fire more often and burn more coal.

In Summer, with no boiler fired, the basement is typically between 64 and 68 degrees.

In Summer, with no boiler fired, the garage is typically between 80 and 95 degrees.
The sun beating on the roof of the garage all day drives the temperature up because there is no insulation in the ceiling.

We have had insulated boilers in the garage and the basement. The basement boilers have always gotten better fuel mileage than the garage boilers regardless of weather or not they were insulated. All this is leading me to consider the piping resistance between the garage and basement as a possibility. Piping is 1" insulated PEX but there are a lot of crimp connections at both ends. The crimp connections are 3/4" ID.

-Don