Coalpail.com Forum

David... wrote: ↑

Sat. Jun. 29, 2019 12:06 pm

157000 btu's per day seems like a lot for only domestic hot water.

David

My house is all electric. ~225 KWH/Month for DHW for the two of us. The difference in price isn't all that great between 13 lbs. of coal and 7.4 KWH of electricity per day. I'm losing about $0.55 per day by burning coal instead of using electricity for DHW, but a 60 watt bulb 24/7 in the boiler over the summer to keep it from rusting out would cost me about $0.21 per day, so I'm actually only losing about $0.34 per day for the 150 days a year that we are not heating the house. ~$51 for the entire 150 day span.

~10 of the 13 lbs are required merely to keep the fire burning. The other ~3 lbs are for DHW.

Continual incremental lowering of the ashing initiation temperature has led to continually increasing amounts of partially to fully unburned coal in the ash tub, so now I'm finally trying the opposite direction. Presently at 115 degrees, and contemplating a switch to 120 degrees. 2 degrees of hysteresis. Before the reversal I had it down to 100 degrees at one point.

Yup...it's going to be a long summer.

Yep, maybe the longest summer ever recorded.

My last ash tub was so heavy that it took both my wife and I to carry it. 17 gallons, and full nearly to the brim. Loads of partially burned coal. At this juncture I'm letting it run out/burn out for a cleaning. Not forcing it to shut down by turning the power off, but rather just letting it run out the hopper on its own. I'm out of coal and still waiting on my new delivery.

Good idea. Get it cleaned & serviced. Use alternate means of making DHW until you need heat again.

Will this be the first time to have let it run completly out of hopper supply coal, either intentional or unintentional?

Might it burn or at least turn the paint brown at hopper neck and possibly trigger the 'overheat safety'.

Would want hopper lid in place for sure.

McGiever wrote: ↑

Wed. Jul. 10, 2019 6:25 am

Will this be the first time to have let it run completly out of hopper supply coal, either intentional or unintentional?

Might it burn or at least turn the paint brown at hopper neck and possibly trigger the 'overheat safety'.

Would want hopper lid in place for sure.

Every time I do the annual cleaning I let it run itself empty in precisely this fashion. No harm. The paint is still fully intact at the outlet tube of my hopper. The snap disc safety has never come into play.

McGiever wrote: ↑

Tue. Jul. 09, 2019 11:58 pm

Yup...it's going to be a long summer.

I'm open to suggestions.

Larry my Lehigh very rarely “looks” burnt. Especially this time of year. The ash tub 3/4 full can weigh 55-60 pounds. It’s bigger than yours though.

The hand fed 503 Hitzer always burns up the lehigh...
Have to check the last bucket...
It was burning at like 150*...
for a few weeks...
Can't imagine that if you get the fire just right...
It would not burn up reasonably well...

I just went to 120 degrees on the ashing. Trying to deepen the fire.

Larry, I have had this same problem this Summer. I have been all over the place with ashing temperature and it didn't help at all. In my case, slowing the ashing down helped some, but lowering the fan speed helped the most.

Currently running 6.9 grate cycles per hour and 1293.75 RPM fan speed. These settings give me some clinkers and ash but I still have partly burn black rocks in there. I was also getting an occasional outfire so I am now running the timer at 1 hour, 3%. I haven't had any problems for a month now.

Keep in mind that we are almost certain that my problem is a very hard batch of coal. The last of that batch is in the barrel now. after that runs out, we will be running Rice coal from the basement. I'm betting the Rice will be better for Summertime running.

-Don

Preliminary report: Blaschak has the S-130 Coal Gun back to normal. Nice looking ash again.

I wonder if you can burn buckwheat in these units over the summer? Just a thought.