Axeman Anderson 1959 130M

This morning when I was leaving for work I noticed the boiler was cold. This time it was running though!

I shut it off and pulled the ash pan out. YUP! the fire is out.

When I got back home from work I loaded in some charcoal and torched it. While I was waiting for the fire to build I noticed this leak at one of the DHW coil bolts. This is one of those things that leaks when the boiler is cold. After about 30 minutes... After an hour... I opened up 3 radiators in the house, the monster radiator in the garage and had a good DHW call. I am so glad Fall weather has finally arrived!!!

This week I've been struggling with getting the ashing right. I had it set at about 135 and kept seeing partly burnt coal and hardly any ash. After playing with it for a couple days we are at 105, we'll see how that goes. Hopefully the fire stays lit! -Don

Here is a video of the fire after a couple hours. The heat call ends shortly after the video begins.


The fire is still lit this morning so we must be do'in someth'in right.

I decided to keep the ashing defeated overnight. I am supersized how much coal is still burning in there after 14 hours. I think this means we should be ashing less than we were.

-Don

Don, it is important that the fire is established across the entire chamber before you start the ashing. Turn all the zones on, run the hot water, etc - give the boiler a long hard run with the ashing off until you are confident the entire burn chamber is full of burning coal. After that, I would expect the factory recommended setting for the anthrastat to be pretty close.

I may have found the ashing culprit!

I was still running it with the ashing defeated today and on one of the heat calls the ashing solenoid shut off. It sounded a bit to soft and I noticed that the spring had not pulled the ashing stop back in. It was still open so it would keep ashing even though the solenoid was off.

I decided to go in and have a look. I worked the solenoid in and out and it would stick in.

I took the nut off the top and removed the outer cover. Then I pulled the coil and frame off. BE CAREFUL! This thing is 60 years old, it would be very easy to damage the coil. Also, don't break the top and bottom insulators. Then I unscrewed the sleeve and removed the sleeve, slug and spring. I ran the slug on the wire wheel to clean it up and I cleaned the inside of the sleeve with a little carb cleaner and a piece of paper towel. I also stretched the spring out a little to give it a little more Umpf! I works very freely now so I put it back together. I had the ashing defeated for about the first 24 hours. We had 3 radiators in the house and the windows open all night to put a good load on the boiler.

Even after all that, the coal in the fire chamber from yesterday still had a lot of fire left in it! I pulled the ashing block out a little while ago but I have the ashing temp down at about 100. We'll have a look in the ash pan tomorrow.

-Don

Don, I think you've gotten to the bottom of the problem.

I'm set at 105 degrees for ashing.

Warning: never power the coil without the core in it, it will smoke it up.

If/when choosing to add the digital control to a second motor to drive the auger/ashing independently of blower, the solenoid is then abandoned. The arm still remains though too allow for still adjusting the number of "clicks" on the ratchet pawl.

OK, it's been 2 days since we restarted this boiler. This fire was started with all raw coal, no ash. We ran with the ashing defeated for the first 24 hours, then we let it ash at low temperature overnight.

This morning I turned the ashing up to 110 degrees. The ash pan actually has some ash in it now! A little bit of black coal but I expected that because there was no way for the fire to burn all the way down to the grate. .
I did some re-organized over in the rusty boiler corner. I might just clean and paint the small Gentleman Janitor. It needs to find a home where someone will actually use it. .
Then we will move on to the 1991 130M.

-Don

Today, the fire seems to be a bit low in the chamber. The ash is still pretty rocky look'in. And heavy! I lowered the ashing from 110 to 100. We'll have another look tomorrow.

-Don

Fire actually looks a little high to me..

Compared to how I run mine..

My ash is the same right now, not much ash in it.. I’m thinking about trying to re-burn some of it..

Isn't there an adjustment for slowing the ash sled down instead of continuing to lower the ashing temperature? Why wouldn't it make sense to do that? Wouldn't it give more time for the probe to react and disengage the ash sled sooner? Sooner meaning before it dumps out so much unburned coal.

Come'on Lee. Yer gonna hafta learn this soon. You control the ashing and the fire height with the ashing temperature, not the speed. The speed is more of a fine tuning thing. If it's not ashing, the speed doesn't matter.

The ash is looking a little better. I lowered the ashing from 100 to 95. We'll probably let it run for a few days like this unless the fire gets too high in the chamber. -Don

Right lol but there are "clicks" that control the ash sled frequency right? So why wouldn't you wanna slow it down? It just seems like the right combination of both temp and ash speed would get the best results. Otherwise, why would there be an ash speed adjustment?

Lightning wrote: ↑

Tue. Oct. 16, 2018 6:46 pm

but there are "clicks" that control the ash sled frequency right?

The amount of clicks (teeth), is the speed, just like and EFM feed rate adjustment.

Lightning wrote: ↑

Tue. Oct. 16, 2018 6:46 pm

So why wouldn't you wanna slow it down?

If you slow it down, it won't have time to do it's job. It's already pretty frigg'in slow. You don't get that many forward and back trips during a heat call and that's the only time it can ash.

-Don

The coal may have a lot to do with it. If you have coal with a low volatile content, and the boiler just sits around with no timer and a low load, expect lots of black in the ash tub.