DSC3 Boiler Start With Wood or Coal for Start up?

Hello,
The forum has been a joy to read and very informative.
I am getting to see light at the end of the tunnel to do the intial start up of my DSC3 coal/wood boiler. I hope to have all the pumps wired in over the weekend and complete the plumbing for the domestic coil next week.
The system will be feeding my in floor radiant heat (40'X80') slab 6'' thick with 2'' foam board, vapor barrier, 5/8 pex 12'' spacing. I also have to pumps that are going to feed 300' of pex to my existing boiler in my house .
My question is... I want to get the shop on line first and get a handle on the operation of the boiler before I complete the installation into my existing house oil boiler. MY reason is the shop has no heat and is cold!

Since I have so much cut stacked wood I was going to start burning wood first till I get the interface completed to my existing boiler on the home end. I figure a wood fire is easier to get going and extinguish if I run into a glitch than coal. Once everything is on line the shop and house I will begin with coal to get the longer burn times. I also wanted to add the dump zone after everything was up to see what size of a dump zone I may need. I have been debating on a fan coil or a just using a old cast radiator in the other end of the shop. I have the pump zoned out and ready to go. Since I am heating a large 40 x80 shop plus a 2800 sq ft home I may not need much of a dump zone.
Does this make sense? Or should I just begin with coal and get the house plumbed in first? I was looking in past posts and have not read anything on burning both wood and coal in DS Boilers?

Thanks
Mac

A few small hot wood fires to test the system since you have it...
And you will be right there so stoking the wood fire will not be a PIA...
Once you know everything is working...
Use the coal...

macdabs wrote:
My question is... I want to get the shop on line first and get a handle on the operation of the boiler before I complete the installation into my existing house oil boiler. MY reason is the shop has no heat and is cold!

You may need to get the air out of the other zones up to the stut off valves , if their is a traped air pocket it may work itself to the zone to your shop pump, and they down like to pump air . I had this issue until all my zones were finished,I had the manafold up to the shut off valves, every couple of weeks I would SLIGHTLY crack open the valve, scalding water is no fun.

WOW!, You're going to be heating 6,000 square feet. That's going to take a good size hand fed boiler. Of course, I'm comparing it to my Kaa-2, which is small. Anyways, the only thing I would have done different in my system is NOT to use the Modine fan as my dump zone. It works GREAT! But, slight vibration & fan noise in office above. Don't get me wrong. It's not bad, but it's there. And of course, we're use to it now. Should I be in the basement, it is quite noisy. If I had to do it over, and I probably will, I would eliminate the fan noise by doing away with the modine fan. I'll most likely use a cast iron radiator in basement. Other than a very faint rattle noise comming from the check valves in pumps, my system would be whisper quiet. My opinion would be to use the cast iron radiator at the other end of your shop. EDIT: Here I thought your boiler was big (200,000 BTU rating). Turns out it's small compared to the other DS Machine boilers. Oliver

If you have enough valves in the system, and you never have too many, you
can start the boiler with wood and just start what ever part of the system you want.
You'll need to bleed air sometime, might as well be one part at a time.
If there are any problems, just kill the fire or valve off the offending area.
Be prepared to fill and drain the system at least a few times during testing.
Good luck.

I am not heating all the 6,000 sq ft mainly the new shop that is well insulated 3200 sqft. . My home is well insulated using a 115,000 BTU oil boiler with baseboard heat upstairs and a finished basement with the old style radiators. I think the heat alone off the boiler will keep the shop pretty warm to work in at a 58-60 temp. any extra heat pumped up to the home is a bonus to offset my oil bills at $3.00 GALLON.

I burned alot of wood and have a pellet stove we use in the fall and spring burning coal will be new. My father in law burned ep Bender nut coal (Bit) for years now his health slowed him down .

thanks for the feed back

Mac