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Re: pricing installation

Posted: Sun. Oct. 07, 2018 9:18 pm
by McGiever
Some folks have used old oil tanks for coal bins. ;)

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Mon. Oct. 08, 2018 9:57 am
by lzaharis
Hello and good morning sylvester,

If you do what I did with my old handfed you will be better off.

Measure the width and depth of the firebox and then purchase a piece of 2 inch channel iron the same width and lay it on top of the shaker grate frame, then stack the firebrick on the channel iron filling it half full of firebrick up to the flue breech and you will have created your firebox reducer and you will save a lot of fuel.
Depending on the inside width of the firebox you may end up stacking the firebrick on the long end on one side as you stack the firebrick to fill it full.

I found that filling it half full to the breech was better for me to make the coal and wood burn better. If you have a tall chimney you probably could fill it with a short pile of fire brick to let you pull a pile of unburned coal forward over the fire as needed too.

Sylvester from what I remember you can only burn chestnut or stove coal in these beautiful handfed boilers.
you could always use Anthracite Pea Coal to bank the fire during the night or day depending on your schedules.
Be sure to check with the AHS folks or the previous owner to ask what size coal they were using as too small a coal will just fall through the grates in to the ash pit.

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Mon. Oct. 08, 2018 4:47 pm
by Sylvesterd101
The manual says pea nut or stove coal so thats why im trying to figure it out

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Mon. Oct. 08, 2018 5:07 pm
by nepacoal
I used nut in my sf260 and it performed well. It does get easily ashbound after a few days so I scraped down to the grate at least once a day using a 3 foot prybar. I would do it down both sides and down the middle after shaking, right before adding more coal. I called it the poke and stoke method of the shake and rake method.

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Mon. Oct. 08, 2018 7:10 pm
by StokerDon
Sylvesterd101 wrote:
Sun. Oct. 07, 2018 9:00 pm
Right now im trying to figure if i want pea or nut size coal for the ton im gonna order. Ill have to figure out the firebox reducer on my day off.
I would not use Pea unless you know you have a really good draft. Chestnut is a safer bet.

You can use 4"x8"x16" solid concrete blocks to reduce the fire box size. I have an SF3500 that is way, way to big for my house. I bricked it down from 6 grates to 4 grates for the first few years. I used fire brick at that time. Now it is bricked down to 3 grates with concrete blocks.
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Before you put the bricks in, pull the grates you are not going to use out and re-install them with the shaker on the right side. This will keep them from moving while you are shaking down the ash out of fire.

The concrete blocks work but they will deteriorate after a couple years. They are cheap though!

I didn't go crazy sealing it up. There are only small gaps so I just threw ash back in there and let that seal it up. Mine works really well like this and is very easy to control.

-Don

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Mon. Oct. 08, 2018 8:26 pm
by Sylvesterd101
Great info fellas! Ill be back on as soon as i start running into my first set of problems, think ill go with a ton of nut first

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Sun. Oct. 14, 2018 7:35 pm
by Dakotaguy
Hello good luck with the installation we use Raricks coal delivery in tamaqua very clean coal and prompt delivery 570 6686762 keller does nice work

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Tue. Oct. 16, 2018 9:16 am
by Sylvesterd101
Ill give them. A call. Thank you!

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Wed. Oct. 31, 2018 11:22 am
by thegreatone
A & W Plumbing & Heating in Nesquehoning. (570) 669-6147

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Thu. Nov. 08, 2018 9:36 am
by Sylvesterd101
Just a little update the boilers finally installed there definitely is a learning curve to it it's hard for me to start a fire quickly with wood so I started using a mixture of wood a little bit of matchlight charcoal and then adding Coal.

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Thu. Nov. 08, 2018 12:26 pm
by Rob R.
Although I am glad to see you up and running, for $5,000 I would have expected a much better installation.
  • Galvanized flue pipe is against code for solid fuel appliances, and a very bad idea for hand fired equipment that may burn wood.
  • The use of black iron fittings on domestic water is a bad idea - they will eventually fill with rust.
  • The airscoop is not installed correctly and will likely not work very well.
Also - perhaps I just can't see it in your pictures, but where is the relief valve?

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Thu. Nov. 08, 2018 3:36 pm
by pintoplumber
I can see the lever for the relief valve and the yellow tag in the 2nd picture. The only black iron pipe I see is the relief valve drain and piping under the relief valve and the 1 1/4” piping on the boiler. The coil piping is galvanized to copper. Depending on his water quality he’s ok.

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Thu. Nov. 08, 2018 5:00 pm
by Sylvesterd101
Now im worried... not installed correctly....

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Thu. Nov. 08, 2018 5:01 pm
by Sylvesterd101
Ill post more pics after work

Re: pricing installation

Posted: Thu. Nov. 08, 2018 5:22 pm
by Sylvesterd101
Whats the airscoop?