Kaa-4 - March Tale of the tape

1575.41 lbs. coal fed into the Kaa-4 in March. 964 HDD's. I estimate 3 lbs. per day for DHW and the rest for home heating.

(1575.41-93)/964= 1.54 lbs. per HDD for home heating only.


1940's cape cod with decent windows (at just under 1,900 ft elevation). No insulation in brick/plaster walls, attic insulated with 12" fiberglass.

That is cheap heat for a house with uninsulated walls. Good work.

I have not bothered to track my coal consumption month by month this season, just too busy with other things. I think I went too months without even looking at the fire.

I probably have two weeks worth of coal left, which will put me at the 5 ton mark in mid April. I will have to check the piece of painters tape on the boiler jacket, but IIRC I started burning on 10/14.

Last few months we were in the 1.63 to 1.64 lbs per HDD, but this month we had quite a few warm afternoons where the boiler just idled for 6 or 8 hours. That happens with cast iron radiators and about 140 gallons of water in the system... That last call for heat around noon on a warmish day lasts quite a long time... We have burned right at 5 tons so far and have a ton left to begin the warmer weather (burn all year).

I burnt 1188 pounds for March.
8136 pounds so far since october.

hotblast1357 wrote: ↑

Mon. Apr. 01, 2019 10:36 am

I burnt 1188 pounds for March.
8136 pounds so far since october.

You had to rub it in!!! If my 80+ year old house had just a little insulation in the walls i bet my usage would drop dramatically. But, this house was built when coal probably cost less than $5 per ton (my FIL has records from the sixties where he was paying $7 per ton) so I doubt they worried too much.

Just out of curiosity since I have the same boiler. What hi-lo temps do you run? I’ve been between 190-170 and 200-180 all winter and curious if I ran lower if it would save some coal. I have a 1500sq/ft house. And am about 5.25 ton

Wood87.mw wrote: ↑

Mon. Apr. 01, 2019 6:56 pm

Just out of curiosity since I have the same boiler. What hi-lo temps do you run? I’ve been between 190-170 and 200-180 all winter and curious if I ran lower if it would save some coal. I have a 1500sq/ft house. And am about 5.25 ton

I run 220 hi and 185 lo. If I had baseboards instead of radiators i might be able to get away with lower limits, say 170 or 175. But with 140 gallons and 77,000 btus of radiation, I run at 185 to protect DHW. During the summer I run 220 hi 145 lo. I've never had a call for hot water in the summer, it just runs off the timer and supplies DHW for two adults. You might give buck a try... Sure seems to generate more btus with buck versus rice or a mix of rice buck. Mine loves buck...

I’ve tried straight buck and I felt like it was burning quicker and more of it to heat the same on roughly the same temp days. I currently run and 50/50 rice/buck mix and that seems to do good.

Wood87.mw wrote: ↑

Mon. Apr. 01, 2019 10:12 pm

I’ve tried straight buck and I felt like it was burning quicker and more of it to heat the same on roughly the same temp days. I currently run and 50/50 rice/buck mix and that seems to do good.

Now that you mention it, I am pretty sure I burn a little more using buck too. But isn't that the point? More coal equals more BTU's. In the past, our boiler struggled on the coldest days of the year. This year it excelled even on a -11 day with 30 mph winds. I better plan on getting a little more than my usual 6 tons per year to make up for it.

nepacoal wrote: ↑

Tue. Apr. 02, 2019 7:03 am

Now that you mention it, I am pretty sure I burn a little more using buck too. But isn't that the point? More coal equals more BTU's. In the past, our boiler struggled on the coldest days of the year. This year it excelled even on a -11 day with 30 mph winds. I better plan on getting a little more than my usual 6 tons per year to make up for it.

============================================================================================

I have 225+- feet of baseboard with a total 54 gallons of water/thermal mass with 35 gallons in the boiler and steel compression tank in a poorly insulated house and I wish I had cast iron radiators and 500+ gallons of thermal mass especially when we had those spats of cold weather earlier in the year.

With this new storm system coming up the east coast from the south I am unsure what the temperatures will be in the next couple of days and how well the boiler will cope with it as it will be pulling colder air from Canada
with it as it advances north whether it stays off the east coast of the United States or not.

when It got colder I turned the stoker feed nut in to 7 turns then and it made more hot water for heating of course and I doubled my coal consumption which it would obviously.


The rectangular hot water storage tanks offered by a firm here in NYS have 400 gallons of storage that would help me a lot. I could continue to use summer high temperatures of 160 for the heating load and also use it for a dump zone as the warm spells including the one last week gave me an outfire. I need to buy more pins and add pins to the hold fire timer to compensate for that.

I qualified for 2 more tons of coal from HEAP so that is going to help me a lot until late may and early June with all the crazy weather extremes we have been living with.

1,394 lbs. burned in March for combined home heat and DHW.

937.5 HDD's.

lsayre wrote: ↑

Thu. Apr. 04, 2019 7:55 pm

1,394 lbs. burned in March for combined home heat and DHW.

937.5 HDD's.

Nothing wrong with those numbers... You AA/AHS guys win again!

nepacoal wrote: ↑

Thu. Apr. 04, 2019 8:37 pm

Nothing wrong with those numbers... You AA/AHS guys win again!

No way to determine that. It may come down to the tightness level and insulation of a home made in 1964 vs. one made in the 1940's. That plus sq-ft.

lsayre wrote: ↑

Fri. Apr. 05, 2019 5:20 am

No way to determine that. It may come down to the tightness level and insulation of a home made in 1964 vs. one made in the 1940's. That plus sq-ft.

True... But, those machines seem to consistently demonstrate the highest efficiency of all the stoker boilers... Seems appropriate to brag on them a little.

I usually come to these monthly "Tale of the Tape" things with my tail between my legs and scratching my head wondering how to get the fuel mileage everyone else is getting.

Not this time!

I took a trip back through my Axeman Anderson 1959 130M thread and found that for the month of March we used 991 pounds of coal, 33 pounds per day. I don't think I have ever gotten anywhere near this in the past 5 years. The only way we were able to do this was by putting our heads together and banging out different ideas. This forum and all it's members is an amazing resource, thank you all!

-Don