coal consumption seems high

 
DooHicky
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Post by DooHicky » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 12:54 pm

I am going through about (2) 5 gallon buckets in a 24hr period. I have my unit continuously circulating to the house from my garage. I do have in floor heat in the garage on its own zone. The house is a brick ranch, I would have to say insulated well, built in 1973, new windows and doors.

I have it set for 200 high with a diff of 10 and 160 low. I did purchase a timer, but is not wired in yet. I do have a barometric damper installed. As a test, I could turn off my floor heat in the garage, but really don't want to.... I have added insulation around the EFM as well as the Wood boiler that I left in place...the furnace room was a sauna. I upped the feed to 5 thinking that it would burn hotter quicker getting to the set point quicker using less coal.

Any help would be greatly appreciated...I was thinking upping the differential when adding the timer(which I need help wiring that in).

Thanks

Mike


 
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Post by lzaharis » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 2:33 pm

Have you set your EFM with the starting coal feed and and air volume settings they recommend?

If you have access to the serial number of the boiler I am sure the folks at EFM can help you with your timer or one of the other members that have EFM's can help you.

With your pot stoker and the heating load that you describe your coal consumption does not seem that high.

Does your EFM have the fines door lever that dumps the coal fines in the burn pot to help it burn better?

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 3:07 pm

If you just started heating the garage slab it will take a day or two before it unloads I would think.

 
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Post by DooHicky » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 3:11 pm

Efm was built in 1955...and yes started with recommend settings. I got an intermatic 8865 timer. No, I first started it up October 25...slab set at 61

 
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Post by franco b » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 3:16 pm

Where do you live?

Is the garage separate from the house? How far? How big? Insulated slab and structure?

Why is the water to the house circulating steadily?

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 3:24 pm

Is the piping between the garage and house underground?

Is there a cast iron baffle hanging at the back of your firebox?

 
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Post by DooHicky » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 3:25 pm

West Central PA ...pumped 125 feet to the house in insulated pex Al pex..not loosing temp there...into 20 plate for DHW and then to 50 plate to heat house....back to furnace room in garage that is 30x30....I run the circulating pump 24/7 because...it just seemed easier at the time with my wood boiler.

Yes baffle is there


 
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Post by DooHicky » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 3:34 pm

House is 1973 24x52 brick ranch with full basement slant fin baseboard on 2 zones basement and upstairs...I can turn down the slab temp in the garage.. walls are 3" steel insulated panels and ceiling is 2" polyiso foil...could/will probably do more next year...really was never much of an issue when I ran wood since it was free..but now since I'm paying for heat..I want to be better efficient.

 
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Post by DooHicky » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 3:40 pm

Serial numbers

Attachments

IMG_20181108_181827954.jpg
.JPG | 938.4KB | IMG_20181108_181827954.jpg
IMG_20181108_181854038.jpg
.JPG | 607.3KB | IMG_20181108_181854038.jpg

 
franco b
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Post by franco b » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 3:50 pm

How much wood did you burn?

Grasp the insulated Pex where it enters the house. If it feels warm at all, it is losing heat.

I know you don't want to, but shutting down the garage for a few days would give a good idea of garage consumption. There would still be the radiant heat from the boilers though. Monitoring the temperature difference between out side and inside the garage would give an idea of the effect of the boilers. Garage slab insulated?

 
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Post by DooHicky » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 3:56 pm

I'm a bad guesstimator on wood usage...I know cord is 4x8x4..and I think possibly somewhere around 8+ cord..but probably more....even tho the pex is warm where it comes into the house I verified it with a thermocouple...over the 125 feet I was only loosing 1-1.5 degrees..I'm running a grundfos or badger 3 speed pump...on #2 speed

Yes garage slab insulated correctly and all pex runs less than 300 feet

 
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Post by franco b » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 4:31 pm

By keeping track of current degree days and consumption you can extrapolate consumption for the year for your area.

If the first light snow melts quickly over the trench with the Pex, then the heat loss is serious. Did you notice with the wood boiler? Is everything the same except with the addition of the coal boiler? Was the boiler room a sauna with the wood boiler before further insulating? A one degree loss in the Pex is about 8 BTU for each gallon pumped, but some of that loss is in the heat exchangers the Pex is connected to even if not energized by heat demand of the house. Warm to the touch though does indicate loss through the insulation.

8 cords or more is a lot of wood. I would expect about 5 or 6 ton of coal.

 
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Post by DooHicky » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 4:37 pm

Everything is the same but the addition of the stoker...yes furnace room was toasty before...but worse now since there is additional water giving off heat...the water is still circulating through the wood boiler

 
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Post by DooHicky » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 4:40 pm

If it will be "normal" for me to use 2 ton/month so be it...I just need to budget it...I was hoping for 1 ton/ mo...lol.

 
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Post by franco b » Tue. Nov. 13, 2018 5:02 pm

Hopefully others will chime in.
I do wish the boiler was in the house so all that heat would be in the house. Read my last post again, because I added things.

Just guessing, but if you burned 75 pounds of coal yesterday and the average temperature was 40, that means 25 degree days, and you burned 3 pounds for every degree day. If there are 5000 degree days total for your winter that means you will burn 7.5 tons of coal.


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