The efm WCB-24 hand fired wood/coal boiler

Nice to know it's not me!!

Ok...great, we are on the same page!

I'm keeping the top baffle wide open, as that seems to keep it burning best. Removed the ash pan for more draft. I have the draft door open about 1" max. I had a damper in smoke pipe for burning wood but took that out as it didnt seem to have much effect. Any suggestions?

It sounds like you have a draft problem. Leaving the damper open is letting useful heat go up the chimney; it should be closed. Always keep any damper in the flue pipe wide open. The ash pan protects the thin steel under the grates from being ruined; you should have that in place too.

What is the draft? Are you keeping the coal pile thin and opened up from the bottom?

I've got the older 2-grate version of one of these units too, it was in the house when I bought it 3 years ago. It's in the basement of my little 1100 sq ft cape with a chimney that comes up through the interior of the house and never seem to have any draft issues.

During really cold periods when it's down in the teens or lower outside, there is enough demand for heat that the coal burns quite thoroughly and I have the best luck keeping it going, but when it gets much warmer than that I find it's difficult to keep the coal from slowly choking itself out because it seems to heat the boiler faster than the house needs it and if the draft control doesn't open often enough the coal eventually cool to the point of no return. When that happens I end up with a lot of unburned pieces of coal in the ash pan and jamming up the grates.

What I've been doing this year is when it stays above the 20s at night I've just been burning wood instead. This thing burns wood beautifully! And when it dips into the 20s, then I start loading it up with coal.

Is there a method to slowly burn coal in this thing during periods of warmer weather (30s and above) when there isn't as much demand for heat?

It's hard to control the fire. The house is usually 75. If I don't put on 3 shovels, I have enough heat loss up the flue so that the water doesn't get warm enough. I do not have unburned coal. The black pieces in my bed aren't coal; they're shale. Other than letting it go out and restarting, I don't know how to manage the fire on less than 3 shovels. It only takes me 2 minutes to restart, so lately, I've been only burning at night and restarting in the afternoon. The house only loses a few degrees.

As for wood, I have another door into which I drilled about 50 1/4" holes. This lets air over the wood bed and significantly reduces the amount of smoke. This works great when the damper closes and the fire starts to smoke. Last year I never switched doors and used it for coal too.

I don't bother trying to use the grates. I use the pipe as stated in the previous post, to break up the bed.

My garage burned to the ground along with my truck and severely damaged our house and GF car. Fire Marshall was unable to determine origin due to extensive damage, basically, there was nothing left. We are rebuilding garage, but there will be NO heat source inside. I'm looking into outdoor unit. Thank God it wasn't in the basement as originally planned. It's a great system but, I never could get the WCB to burn right. It didn't hold overnight with wood and burned out with coal. Always had large amounts of ash and unburnt coal. Just thank the lord above our home didn't burn.

We are all so glad you and your family are okay and it was only your garage , and yes thank the good Lord that was the case .

God Bless,

I have a WCB-24 from the late 1980's. My sliding over fire baffle is warped and actually has a hole in it. I am in search of a new one, do you guys stock this part or is something I should have made?

Send me a PM if you want one.

I have an 80s built one here too, was in the house when I bought it almost 4 years ago. I've been using it every winter and I absolutely love it. I just finished getting it all cleaned up and ready for the heating season and the only snag I ran into was I has to snap off the four 5/16-18 bolts that hold the front air baffle in place to get it out. I replaced them with stainless hardware and it's back in business. Besides that and replacing the tankless coil gasket last year it's been working flawless.

Anyway, I figured I'd share!

Is there any way to determine from the attached photo the model of this E.F.M. coal boiler? I need to identify the unit so that I can get an approximate BTU delivery number for it's replacement. Also, the owner is interested in selling this unit if anyone is interested.

B&B Backflow wrote:

efm_coal.jpg

Is there any way to determine from the attached photo the model of this E.F.M. coal boiler? I need to identify the unit so that I can get an approximate BTU delivery number for it's replacement. Also, the owner is interested in selling this unit if anyone is interested.

The stoker unit is an efm 350. 105k btu. You can tell by the 1/2' spacer between the stoker and the plate. A 520 is only about 1/4".

Does anyone know an MSRP on the WCB? It's really perfect for my future application but just curious what price range we're talking.

nd88 please check your private messages (blinking thingy at top right of page).

Thanks.

Mike

Paulie wrote: ↑

Sun. Dec. 28, 2008 7:26 pm

I am interested in one. Keep us posted on production.

Paulie did you ever get one of these?