Coalpail.com Forum

Electricity problem figured out... PSNH added 30% to all of the bills because they were not able to read the meters due to the ice storm we had. I am still curious why he is burning so much coal when he was only using 1200 gallonbs of oil a year.

Mike

That would be about 6 tons a year. Do you know what his draft is?

Well, in that case, I have a wood fired clothes dryer.

ray in ma wrote: the wife is now using the coal fired clothes dryer instead of the electric one

Man, you almost caused a riot. Got everyone thinking though.

Jeff

Complete Heat wrote:Electricity problem figured out... PSNH added 30% to all of the bills because they were not able to read the meters due to the ice storm we had. I am still curious why he is burning so much coal when he was only using 1200 gallonbs of oil a year.

Mike

Did you ever figure out why he is burning so much coal? Is the draft sucking the heat right out of the boiler?

I will be going to the customers house next week to look over everything. I will report back.

Mike

Complete Heat wrote:I have a customer who has been running the unit for a couple of weeks now, and he is not too happy with the EFM 520. His reasons are that he is burning 4 bags a day, and he said his electric bill has gone up 50%. It is a FHW system, with one circulator, and 4 zone valves. The house is about 20 years old and 4,000 sq. ft. I think his coal consumption is high, the electricity usage I would have to see it to believe it. I would like to get his numbers to where they make sense.

Mike

4 Bags a day is 160 lbs of coal if they are 40lb bags if there 50lb bags then that is 200 lbs of coal in 24 hrs.
At 6 teeth that is 15lbs per hr My guess would be that 6 teeth feed would be more then enough to heat a 20 year old
4000sq ft. home. How many Hours a day is his 520 firing . IMHO that way to much coal being burned in 24 hrs.
I would check to see if the boiler is sealed to the base check the two side panels and rear one to see if they are sealed
also check the Auger tube seal coming out of the base if he is using a drum check that end to . also check the two door
seals . Check the draft in Chimney aswell as over the fire draft . Check the auger tube make sure that is all the way in the pot along with the air tube .

I'm burning 200# a day when the temps are down near zero and it's windy so that's not too unusual for the size of his house. It's real simple to determine if he;s burning too much coal, compare last years oil usage and figure out the equivalent in coal.

[quote="ray in ma"]the wife is now using the coal fired clothes dryer instead of the electric one
If we have power for a full month I estimate we will save about $50 not using the dryer even using the fans,quote]

The inside clothsline is the FIRST thing we put up, after installing the coal stove. EXCELLENT way to save electricity. Unless you are still hanging cloths OUTSIDE

Chris F.

Complete Heat wrote:I will be going to the customers house next week to look over everything. I will report back.

Mike

Mike,

Any updates?

thanks,
Jeremy

I got out to the customers house yesterday. The weight for the draft door was all the way out, and the draft was at .045. I added an additional weight to get the door to swing open a little bit more, and got the draft to .02 (where the manual says it should be). When I got there the customer reported that his average daily burn was 3 bags a day, and not the 4 that he initially told me. With the draft set correctly now, I think his burn can go down some more. I will call him in a couple of weeks to see where he is at.

This year has been soooooo much colder than last year, so a simple comparison of last years oil consumption would not be fair, as most people are burning about 40% more oil than last year.

Mike

PS- Thanks for the input

Thanks for the update Mike!

So he was sucking his heat right up the chimney!

The squirrel's must have been happy!

Just as a side note. I posted earlier in this thread that my electric use has been up since I installed the 520. Well that turned out to be just a coincidence. I have an electric water heater being fed by a coil in my oil unit. It turns out one of the elements in the water heater went bad causing the electric bill to jump. I just don't want anyone reading this thread thinking my 520 is using more electric than it really does.

I plan on switching the way I make hot water to a 5GPM coil in the 520 as soon as it warms up and eliminate the electric heater. For now I'll live with the 15.00 extra a month in electric use. It'll be warm enough to make the changeover next month. I'm not spending any money on that heater. It's next stop is the scrapyard.

Last I checked my Kill a Watt meter I was dropping an entire ~$7.00 a month in electricity to run my efm 350 and this includes the taco 007 pump that is always on to circulate water to my oil boiler in the house...

billw wrote:
I plan on switching the way I make hot water to a 5GPM coil in the 520 as soon as it warms up and eliminate the electric heater. For now I'll live with the 15.00 extra a month in electric use. It'll be warm enough to make the changeover next month. I'm not spending any money on that heater. It's next stop is the scrapyard.

When I switch off the electric hwh to my stoker, my electric came down $50, including what is needed to keep the stoker/air handler fan going in October. So I would guess the electric hwh may take more than $50/month.