AHS130 Mess

I had an unpleasant surprise today for the second time today. I woke up to a 60° house this morning. The boiler ash door was packed with unburned coal, it had spilled out into the floor, and all was cold. Hopper was empty. It appears the fire burned out somehow and the grates just kept pushing the coal through the system. I did have a significant buildup of fines in my stove pipe a few weeks ago, so I pulled the pipe again. It seemed in this time. I pulled the fan off, and the exhaust/exchange tube was 50-65% blocked with fines. I cleaned that all out and just relit the boiler. I am hoping that the mess in the exchange tube was the problem. Anyone have any idea if that may be it or if there may be something else causing this?

Trumpeterb wrote: ↑

Fri. Mar. 25, 2022 9:19 am

I pulled the fan off, and the exhaust/exchange tube was 50-65% blocked with fines. I cleaned that all out and just relit the boiler.

Could you elaborate on that please? I wish you could have got a picture of that..

Well the autopsy is: Fire went out, power still on, ashing shut off temp never reached, kept ashing, thus ashing ll the coal out till empty. Now as to why it went out, that is the question. How healthy was the fire before hand?

Jkohanski wrote: ↑

Fri. Mar. 25, 2022 1:50 pm

Well the autopsy is: Fire went out, power still on, ashing shut off temp never reached, kept ashing, thus ashing ll the coal out till empty. Now as to why it went out, that is the question. How healthy was the fire before hand?

The fire beforehand was fine, at least the day before.

I'm still trying to envision the swirl chamber 1/2 full of debris

How many gallons of stuff was in there? Enough to fill a bucket?

Lightning wrote: ↑

Fri. Mar. 25, 2022 2:31 pm

I'm still trying to envision the swirl chamber 1/2 full of debris

How many gallons of stuff was in there? Enough to fill a bucket?

If you looked into the exchange tube, after removing the fans, the inner part of the tube, the part that extends through the center toward the coal bed, was filled just over 50% with debris. After vacuuming it out, scraping the sides, and vacuuming again, I have it relit, and it seemed to be working ok, for now anyway. I will check it again when I get home from work, and I am hoping that it was a lack of air circulation or draft caused by the buildup of fines that caused the fire to go out.

Hmmm.. that's a tough one.. seems like gases would be moving much too fast thru that tube for any settling to occure. UNLESS further downstream there is more blockage slowing everything down. Did you check the stove pipe and base of the chimney for any buildup? Do you have a chimney cap that might be plugged up? Could there be buildup in the cyclonic separator?

Lightning wrote: ↑

Fri. Mar. 25, 2022 2:50 pm

Hmmm.. that's a tough one.. seems like gases would be moving much too fast thru that tube for any settling to occure. UNLESS further downstream there is more blockage slowing everything down. Did you check the stove pipe and base of the chimney for any buildup? Do you have a chimney cap that might be plugged up? Could there be buildup in the cyclonic separator?

The cone was blocked a few weeks back, causing a massive buildup in the stove pipe to the tone of 2 to 3 5-gallons buckets of debris. I cleared that all out though, and it has been clear ever since.

Right... I remember that.. if it became blocked again, now is about the time the issues would start showing up.. unless you checked it more recently.

24 hours later, after cleaning out the exchange tube, the boiler seems to be running normally again. I can deduce that the thing wasn’t getting enough air flow when idling, and considering the somewhat warmer temps we have had during daylight hours, it would idle for a long time. I bet that is when the fire went out. Just guessing, but it is the only thing that makes sense to me.

Trumpeterb wrote: ↑

Sat. Mar. 26, 2022 8:46 am

I can deduce that the thing wasn’t getting enough air flow when idling, and considering the somewhat warmer temps we have had during daylight hours,

If I remember correctly, when you had the cyclone separator fill with fines, you only cleaned out the stove pipe and the cyclone separator. This probably left all the debris in the swirl chamber causing your outfire.

This is a new for me, I've never heard of it before. Being that this could happen to an AHS or and Axeman, we should all be on the lookout for it.

-Don

StokerDon wrote: ↑

Sat. Mar. 26, 2022 9:33 am

If I remember correctly, when you had the cyclone separator fill with fines, you only cleaned out the stove pipe and the cyclone separator. This probably left all the debris in the swirl chamber causing your outfire.

This is a new for me, I've never heard of it before. Being that this could happen to an AHS or and Axeman, we should all be on the lookout for it.

-Don

You are correct. I only cleaned out the stove pipe and the cone, not the heat exchange tube. It was packed with the same stuff the pipe was filled with.

Hmm from March 02

McGiever wrote: ↑

Wed. Mar. 02, 2022 11:15 am

That’s a lot of fines!

Clearing or cleaning up what you found and seen was a must.

Now what about the fines you did not find and clean up? What does your swirl chamber look like?

McGiever wrote: ↑

Sat. Mar. 26, 2022 8:34 pm

Hmm from March 02

Correct. I didn’t open it up b cause at that time the fire was still strong and I was afraid to dump carbon monoxide into the house. I am glad it is clean now though.

I've had a few outfires this season with My AA 130. I'm starting to think it's a combination of different coal and the weather. It seems each time it went out was on warm days that the wind never stopped. I think the unrelenting wind makes just enough draft to keep the fire a bit hot, making the boiler over heat. Not enough to blow the safety, but enough to keep the water temp so high that when the hourly timer comes around.... the fan doesn't come on. SO.... the coal burns higher and higher with no ashing, no new coal coming into the burn chamber. Eventually, there's not enough fire to keep the temp too high so the fan and asher do come on either with the timer or a call for heat. BUT.... by now, there's not enough fire left and not enough fuel to make heat, hence the outfire. I'm considering some sort of thermostatic thing to not allow the boiler to run if the water temp gets below perhaps 150 degrees. A switch that would be turned on once a year after the fire is established, then turned off to allow the fire to be lit next season. You'd still have the outfire, but not the mess of unburned coal to deal with. I'll let you know if I ever do this & how it was built.