Gentleman Janitor refurb and install

 
jibs1723
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Post by jibs1723 » Wed. Apr. 25, 2018 9:51 pm

Hi All,

Just picked up a small Gentleman Janitor boiler from Scottscoaled that I am planning to install in my garage and heat the garage and run pex to the house to heat the house and the DHW. Along the way I'm sure I'll have a lot of questions.

I also picked up another stoker unit that is labeled GJ9T that was too cheap to pass up and looks to be in great shape. It has a rotating rod to cut ash off. Is that common on the GJs? I'm new to the coal world and haven't seen much in person but have done quite a bit of reading on here. I'm attaching some pics of the boiler and the stoker I got. I noticed that it has a much bigger pulley on its gearbox than the gear box of the stoker that came with the boiler. Is there any reason that I can't just switch the pulleys to have the lower feed rate? Anyone know what the feed rate was with the big pulley?

So far I have blocked all the connections in the boiler in preparing for a pressure test. Currently the DHW coil is cracked but I have it installed with plugs until I am done the block off plate. I pressurized it quick and there is a big leak around the coil and the bolts. What is the gasket made of? Seems like regular rubber but is there anything special about it I should know? Would like to make sure there are no other leaks to deal with.

I'll keep things updated as I make progress. Thanks in advance for all the help!

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Dave 1234
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Post by Dave 1234 » Thu. Apr. 26, 2018 7:56 am

Morning Jibs,

Stop into a NAPA auto parts store and pick-up a roll of heavy gasket cork and a half pint of ''Hi Tack'' gasket sealer. It comes in a white plastic container with a brush. I use it to build radiators on heavy equipment and its a ''one and done'' if the surfaces are clean.

BTW, nice score on the boilers !

Dave

 
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StokerDon
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Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
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Post by StokerDon » Thu. Apr. 26, 2018 6:48 pm

Wow, nice little GJ boiler! Looks very familiar! Looks like you even got a good rectangular combustion air tube with it. Those are hard to come by.
jibs1723 wrote:
Wed. Apr. 25, 2018 9:51 pm
I also picked up another stoker unit that is labeled GJ9T that was too cheap to pass up and looks to be in great shape. It has a rotating rod to cut ash off. Is that common on the GJs?
It's not common to find rotating pot GJ's in good shape anymore, most have been scrapped years ago. That is a real nice piece of history there.

I don't think the rotating pot stoker will fit in this small boiler, will it?

-Don

 
jibs1723
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Post by jibs1723 » Fri. Apr. 27, 2018 7:55 am

Thanks Dave, I will have to stop by and pick some up.

Don,
I even have an extra fabricated new combustion air tube that came with the boiler! As for the pot, I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think this is a rotating pot stoker. At least not like the EFM's that I have seen videos of. The only thing that rotates is that little bar that sticks up to slice off ash and clinker build-up. That's my guess anyway.
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As far as fitting into the boiler, the stoker is the same dimensions as the others one I have, it just has the ash slicer. But your question made me wonder if the ash cutter would interfere with anything else. So I slid the stoker in the boiler last night. Looks like the only thing that needs to be done is the baffle in the fire box needs a little adjusting to allow the arm to rotate fully. There is a solid 3" all the way around the top of the ring and the firebox sides.
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And in case anyone was curious, looks like the boiler itself weighs somewhere in the 750lb range. Scale isn't zero'd properly, but it gave me a ball park. Stoker assembly is around 230lbs.
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Any idea what the purpose of that baffle is in the firebox?
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Next project is getting some coal and making a fire to make sure everything else on the stoker is good. Mostly though because fire is fun.

 
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StokerDon
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Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Fri. Apr. 27, 2018 6:57 pm

Wow, that's great! I've never even seen a picture of what the baffle inside of one of these boilers looks like, thanks for posting that. I would think the purpose of the baffle is to extract the most out of the hot gasses before they escape the boiler. It is a bit different than what I imagined.
jibs1723 wrote:
Fri. Apr. 27, 2018 7:55 am
I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think this is a rotating pot stoker.
That's interesting, I guess this one is more like a Van Wert with traveling ash slicer fingers. I have not seen that on a Gentleman Janitor, only rotating pots.

From the pictures, it looks like the burn rings are burnt and cracked. If so, you will need new ones. Also, someone cut the end of the feed pipe off, you will need one of those to. General Machine owns the rights and makes replacement parts for the Gentleman Janitor stokers.
General Machine & Manufacturing Co. Address: 412 Keystone Ave, Peckville, PA 18452 Phone:(570) 383-0990
jibs1723 wrote:
Fri. Apr. 27, 2018 7:55 am
Next project is getting some coal and making a fire to make sure everything else on the stoker is good. Mostly though because fire is fun.
It is fun! Here is a video of a GJ stoker mounted in a Losch base outside of my garage.

A couple of public service and safety announcements:
1) Never, ever fire up a coal stoker inside a boiler without it being full of water and connected to a load. If you do you will damage it.
2) Never use air to pressure test a boiler. Always use water to pressure test a boiler.

-Don

 
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Post by McGiever » Sat. Apr. 28, 2018 10:55 am

I know little of these GJ's, but could that ash cutter style have been for a 'hand fed octopus warm air furnace' conversion into automatic stoker feed? GJ could of had their market share for such conversions???

Serial Number in OP's above photo does show the letters "AF"...air furnace ???

 
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StokerDon
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Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Sat. Apr. 28, 2018 8:27 pm

I have not seen or heard of a GJ conversion stoker, I guess it's possible that they did make a few. They did make some very large stokers. This one is about as small as GJ's get so probably not a conversion stoker.

Not sure what the "AF" is but GJ did make hot air furnaces.

-Don


 
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Post by jibs1723 » Sat. Jan. 12, 2019 10:29 pm

Hi all,

I know its been a while, but life gets busy. I am finally getting around to hooking the boiler up. This year its going to only be serving the garage. Hopefully next summer I will have time to connect it to the house. Anyway, just finished repainting it, and have just about everything I need to hook it up. It will just be connected to a hot water coil for now. Does anyone know what pulley ratios equate to as far as lb/hr of coal? The stoker has a variable pitch pulley and was looking for a starting place when I first fire it up.

One thing i found interesting when cleaning the boiler out was that there are water tubes in the exhaust path of the boiler, outside of the main fire chamber. I didn't remember ever reading about them so I thought I'd share.

Thanks!

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Post by Rob R. » Sat. Jan. 12, 2019 10:41 pm

I would just fire it up with the pulleys the way you found them, and go from there.

The only pages from a GJ manual I know about are here: Gentleman Janitor Info

 
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StokerDon
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Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Sun. Jan. 13, 2019 9:28 am

Wow! That's a nice look'in boiler!

I don't have much personal experience running a GJ stoker. The ones that I have seen have a variable pulley on the motor and the gearbox. According to Danny at General Machine, the correct air setting should be around 2.5 turns out.

If you have not fired it up yet you could do your own feed rate test, then you would know for sure. You probably want to end up in the 10 to 14 pound per hour area. To do the test just turn it on, let it feed until raw coal starts falling into the ash pan. Then put in an empty ash pan. Let it run for 30 minutes, weigh the coal, multiply by 2.

These are designed to burn Buckwheat, if you are burning Rice you will have to crank the feed way down.

-Don

 
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Post by Rob R. » Sun. Jan. 13, 2019 9:52 am

The manual is pretty clear that they want you to burn buck. I would avoid rice.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Sun. Jan. 13, 2019 9:58 am

This is the relevant coal feed information from the manual I linked above. I suggest downloading and reading the entire manual before you fire that beast up.
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Post by bksaun » Mon. Jan. 14, 2019 8:14 am

Mine burned rice really well. I ran 8 tons through it a few years ago, nothing broke and I never had to adjust anything on it the entire time, I do recall turning the feed rate way down initially.
2-1/2 turns open on the air was just right.

 
jibs1723
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Post by jibs1723 » Tue. Jan. 15, 2019 10:02 pm

Thanks for the input guys. I read the manual when I first got the boiler but I'll definitely give it another read through. I ran a quick coal feed test and got approximately 17lbs an hr. I will adjust the pulleys down to try and get closer to 10 lbs per hr. The hot water coil I'm connecting to it is around 105k btu. Being very generous with 80% efficiency I think that puts me right around 10lb input. As this is the only load I figure it would be the most efficient to match the load as closely as possible. Next project is to build a frame for the viewing door. It was missing when I got the boiler. After that should just be a matter of hooking everything up.

 
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Post by CoalHeat » Tue. Jan. 15, 2019 10:13 pm

Nice! Looking forward to seeing it in operation!


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