Wood/Coal Boiler

I have a Itasca 415 150,000 but wood/Coal boiler and would like to know if anyone has better performance with a barometric damper vs a manual flue damper.

Not supposed to use a barometric damper with wood burner. If you have a chimney fire (I hate wood ), it will supply air to the fire.

Hi Marcuss, I heated my house with a 415 for two years with a manual pipe damper. If you burn wood in it, the baro is not an option unless you are religious about covering it with foil while burning wood. As coalkirk said, the baro will feed a chimney fire...and even before that happens, the cooler stack temperature will increase the creosote in the chimney. The bottom line is...do not use a baro if you are going to burn wood.

Anthracite is a different story. This boiler will run very nice on nut or stove coal, and a baro will make the output more predicable...especially if your chimney drafts very strong on windy days.

Most times I can not get water temp above 130. I burn coal 95% of the time and seems it needs a damper in flue because water temp is so low.

Are you burning hard coal? What size?

Is the inlet draft control (has a chain hooked to the inlet damper) opening the damper?

What kind of load is connected to the boiler?

Damper control works good. Load is Hydronic tubing and fin tube. Over the weekend it worked great had 180 water temp over the weekend for the first time. Every Sunday I remove cap at clean out tee and there was a slight obstruction in flue. Cleaned flue and now water will not rise above 130. I installed a manual damper on Monday water temp still low and fire goes out.

Burning coal. Not sure how you size coal but pieces are fist size.

That boiler has a large "wet baffle" right over the firebox, it will collect ash over time. Make sure the ash is cleaned off the top of that baffle.

How much coal are you putting in the firebox?

Once I get a decent fire going with wood I add the coal a spade shovel at a time until I get about a 5 gallon bucket full. The fire burns well until I damper it down then about 30 minutes later it is almost out.

Ahhhh, now we know the problem. That is not nearly enough coal for that firebox.

If you are burning nut size coal (golf ball size or a little bigger) you want the coal 6-9" deep...deepest over the grate. Make sure the entire grate is covered with coal...if not the air will bypass the coal and the fire will go out. If you are burning stove size coal (size of your fist), the coal should be 9-15" deep.

General rule for adding coal - don't add more coal than what is already burning. If there is 3-4" of burning coal in the firebox, add 3-4" of coal. Once that is burning, you can add another layer. DO NOT close that manual pipe damper until the coal is visibly burning with blue flames.

Here are some pictures and video of my old Itasca 415 in action:

If you are new to burning anthracite, here is some good reading for you. There is a section in this manual all about burning coal, and it has some good tips that are applicable to burning coal in your Itasca.

Crane Model 404 manual.pdf

Thank you. I will let you know how things work out.

Still cant get temp over 160.

Perhaps your draft isn't very strong. Try leaving the manual pipe damper open. With 100+ pounds of coal in that boiler, it should create a WILD fire with enough air.

The other question is if the boiler is undersized?

Marcuss wrote:Still cant get temp over 160.

How often are you shaking down and reloading
Are you getting rid of all possible ash during shake down (ash bound) red coals falling thru during shake down
how much coal are you loading in,you want to fill it to top of fire brick at least 6" or 8" thick firebed covering the entire width of fire box
how much combustion air and how much over fire air are you giving it
what are you aqua stats set at

Marcuss wrote:Once I get a decent fire going with wood I add the coal a spade shovel at a time until I get about a 5 gallon bucket full. The fire burns well until I damper it down then about 30 minutes later it is almost out.

sounds like too much secondary air or not letting the new load of coal fully ignite

Marcuss wrote:Damper control works good. Load is Hydronic tubing and fin tube. Over the weekend it worked great had 180 water temp over the weekend for the first time. Every Sunday I remove cap at clean out tee and there was a slight obstruction in flue. Cleaned flue and now water will not rise above 130. I installed a manual damper on Monday water temp still low and fire goes out.

what is your draft reading,do you have a manometer
what happened differently over the weekend to get a 180* hot boiler(any clue?)

Marcuss wrote:Burning coal. Not sure how you size coal but pieces are fist size.

have you tried using smaller size coal,like nut size.Try to sort thru your coal pile and get 2 buckets full of smaller size coal and try that also
GOOD LUCK AND KEEP AT IT