Coalpail.com Forum

Hi guys

Although I’m no stranger to boilers, the only hand-fed units that I have ran were all natural radiating stoves or forced air units. A friend of mine is fixing up an old house that has a DS wood and coal boiler he would like to use and he asked me to stop by and take a look at it. I jumped at the chance.

The previous owner burnt mostly wood in it but there is evidence of a coal bin that likely held some bituminous for banking at night. The unit is very heavy built, 1/4 inch plate all the way around. The grates are in good shape and rotate very freely. The circulator is controlled by a small aqua-stat on the right hand side and the draft by way of a Sampson regulator and chain.

I need some help identifying what model of boiler this is, I can’t find any pictures on the web that are quite like it. It would also be good to have an approximate age too. Unfortunately I did not take any measurements as these would be very helpful.

Question... how do you set the Sampson regulator? Does the dial adjustment set your high or low temperature? I see there is a set screw on the chain lever as well that I am unsure about.

Here are some photos... unit needs cleaned up but is in great shape. It is plumbed in series with an oil boiler that likely will be removed. They currently both share the same flue and I know that is a big no-no with the code people.

Thanks for any help.

I searched all over but could not find a serial plate of any kind.

This appears to be an older version of what DS Machine currently refers to as an "Aqua-Gem" boiler. It appears to be missing the insulation jacket (though I believe the earliest versions of this boiler may not have had a jacket option). They currently come in models # 1100, 3200, and 4200. Without firebox measurements I can't tell you which of the current models this older boiler comes closest to. See the flier at the link below.

https://woodstoves.net/documents/DS_Machine_Stove ... _flyer.pdf

CoalJockey wrote: ↑

Mon. Sep. 03, 2018 7:10 am

Question... how do you set the Sampson regulator? Does the dial adjustment set your high or low temperature? I see there is a set screw on the chain lever as well that I am unsure about.

The dial adjustment controls the target boiler temperature. The set screw allows the hex key to be properly indexed to the control. Between the length of chain and the adjustment on that hex key, you should be able to get the arm to be nearly parallel with the main body of the control at operating temperature.

It appears that the newer versions have a larger (deeper) ash pan area, and that they have lost the air control knobs on the ash door. That said, I believe that many to most of the older DS stoves and boilers had "dummy" air controls on the ash door, so if the ash door air inlet knobs on this boiler are dummies, they are non-functional and for show only, and this would indicate that there has been no real change other than height in this area.

Pure speculation on my part is that this boiler is around 7 - 8 years old (based solely on a fading memory of what these boilers actually looked like on the showroom floor about that many years ago). You will only know by calling DS Machine and giving them the serial number.

The current models are UL listed, but the older ones did not come with this certification.

I'm not sure how to set a Sampson regulator (and thankfully Rob covered this well) but I presume (pending correction) that when set properly the twin air inlets will be fully closed at ~170-180 degrees (internal boiler temperature) and decently open at ~150 degrees.

Among other things, you will need a dump zone to draw away 10-15 degrees of excess heat when the boiler hits about 215 to perhaps 220 degrees. This dump zone can be an existing zone (preferentially in my opinion) or alternatively a stand alone zone. You will also want to pressurize your system to 12 -14 PSI, and be sure to have an expansion tank and a working pressure relief valve factory set at 30 PSI.

I would guess that if you called DS Machine they would tell you the preferred coal is anthracite, and they may even instruct you not to burn bituminous. This based solely upon what they told me for my DS Machine stove.