AHS S130 Stoker Boiler

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europachris
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Post by europachris » Tue. Nov. 13, 2007 3:39 pm

Dwayne, search for "Bureau of Mines" and a post by Yanche should come up with the download. It's about 5meg. and great reading!

Chris


 
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Post by Flyer5 » Tue. Nov. 13, 2007 6:46 pm

Dott727 wrote:I finally got my AHS 130 installed, fired it up for the first time on Saturday, and shut it down on Monday night. Sunday I started experiencing combustion bumps, as apparently others have. I adjusted the flapper open a litte futher to help improve draft when ideling, didnt help. I taped over the baro to help improve draft, didnt help. Monday I spoke to Jeff at AHS and he suggested installing a draft inducer. After reading what others have experienced, I am thinking that this may be necessary in all but the best drafting chimneys. Is anybody out there not experiencing this problem? I am running 5-inch stainless to my chimney that is less than 3-feet away. My chimney is 8-inch masonry roughly 27-feet high with a clay liner. I used it for a Harman markIII coal stove for a few years with no problems. The weather has warmed the last few days, but I am really frustrated. I'll try it again when the weather cools, next year I'll move it out of the house.


How tight is the house .Do you have enough intake air to support the draught goung out the chimney . Dave

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Tue. Nov. 13, 2007 7:58 pm

Dott727 wrote:I am running 5-inch stainless to my chimney that is less than 3-feet away.
If you have a horizontal run of stovepipe, does it have a nice pitch upward on its way to the chimney? If it is 2.5-3', you need about a 1/2" rise at least.

Another thing is the cleanout door at the base of the chimney, see that its airtight. Tape it if you have to. That can make for strange drafting.

I would not use an inducer, the setup you have should run sweet. Something is wrong.

 
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Yanche
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Post by Yanche » Tue. Nov. 13, 2007 9:24 pm

I do experience bumping especially in mild conditions. I too have discussed it with Jeff at AHS. He suggested putting a paper clip on the flapper door instead of drilling a hole. Serves the same purpose a slight air leak. I agree it should only help when the combustion blower is running. But my unscientific, non controlled testing, experience says it does help. My chimney (1-1/2 story) is also 8-inch clay lined and I now have a short (less than 2 lengths) 5-inch stove pipe with a 5-inch Fields RC baro. I think this bumping issue is inherent in the A-A or AHS design. When the combustion blower is off, there is just not enough natural draft to pull flue gases out. You want draft over the fire, not through the coal bed. So you want the flapper door open as an inlet for the air. The ash pit door seal doesn't matter. What seems to happen especially in mild conditions, enough coal gas builds up in the boiler that when the combustion blow turns on you get a sudden ignition of it. A draft inducer would solve the problem but nothing unlike anything you have seen. I would think a small blower similar to a automotive heater core blower, forcing a small amount of air into the firebox where the flapper door mounts would solve the problem. The inlet to this small blower would have a flapper similar to the existing one on its inlet. Some coalgun owners have reportedly made the S130 into a self venting design by replacing the combustion blower with a variable speed drive motor and controller. When no combustion air is needed the fan turns slowly exhausting the now idling fire. I wonder it these owners have bumping problems?

 
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Post by Yanche » Tue. Nov. 13, 2007 9:27 pm

coaledsweat wrote:Another thing is the cleanout door at the base of the chimney, see that its airtight. Tape it if you have to. That can make for strange drafting.
That's a good idea, I have had problems keeping the clean out door closed. I'll tape it shut.

 
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Post by Dott727 » Tue. Nov. 13, 2007 9:34 pm

Our house is pretty tight, but I opened a window next to the unit for make up air. There is also a overhead garage door next to this unit. We have a walk out basement, and I installed an overhead garage door on one end to be used as a workshop. The boiler sets right insde to the left of the overhead door. It makes loading coal and taking out ashes easy without a lot of mess. I caulked the chimney cleanout door before even lighting this up. When I used the Harmen, I always had to prime the chimney to start, once it heated up I never had any problems. I know this is a different animal and I'm sure the warm weather and little heat demand doesnt help. I not sure what else I can do to correct the problem. The chimney is brick cased with a stone cap on it. Ther is about 6-inches of clearance to the cap. Do you think that could be hurting the draft?

Dwayne

 
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Post by Dott727 » Tue. Nov. 13, 2007 10:06 pm

Coaledsweat, the horizontal run has approx. 1"/ft of slope.

Yanche, Jeff mentioned the variable speed blower today to me, and said that they actually direct vent a larger coal gun that way, but he thought the inducer fan was a better fix.

Dwayne


 
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Post by LsFarm » Wed. Nov. 14, 2007 3:56 am

My AA 260m has about .02" of draft, and with the inspection door open or hanging free [no fan running] I hear the flames in the firepot 'fluttering'. But not a puff back or minor explosion. I am not seeing any indication of a build up of gasses.

I think you may want to try a hose from under your rollup door, or some other outside air source right to the inspection port. See if that helps.

Do you have a manometer on the chimney? This is a very helpful tool to diagnose issues like this.

Greg L

 
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Post by Dott727 » Wed. Nov. 14, 2007 5:50 am

LsFarm wrote:My AA 260m has about .02" of draft, and with the inspection door open or hanging free [no fan running] I hear the flames in the firepot 'fluttering'. But not a puff back or minor explosion. I am not seeing any indication of a build up of gasses.

I think you may want to try a hose from under your rollup door, or some other outside air source right to the inspection port. See if that helps.

Do you have a manometer on the chimney? This is a very helpful tool to diagnose issues like this.

Greg L
I installed a manometer the day I shut it down, it was reading about .02 when ideling. I can hear the flames fluttering behind the inspection door after the blower shuts off for a while but then they die down. Jeff at AHS told me I need a minumum of .04 draft at all times. I shut this down on Monday night, and as of this morning, the flue pipe is still warm, and there is about .01 showing on the manometer.

Our house is probably tighter than most, we have poured concrete walls and the basement ceiling between the floor joists is well insulated because of the in-floor heat. I do notice a drop in draft when opening and closing the overhead garage door a little bit. For example, last night with very little heat left (boiler has been off for about 20 hours) the draft would go from .01 with door closed to .015-.02 with the overhead door open a little. I didnt try positioning a hose near the inspection port. Do you think that would make that much of a difference?

Dwayne

 
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Post by U235a4 » Wed. Nov. 14, 2007 7:04 pm

I know with my AA 260m I've never had any problems with gas build up or little pops the thing just runs like it is supposed to BUT I have a loose house.

 
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Post by Yanche » Wed. Nov. 14, 2007 8:17 pm

Yanche wrote:
coaledsweat wrote:Another thing is the cleanout door at the base of the chimney, see that its airtight. Tape it if you have to. That can make for strange drafting.
That's a good idea, I have had problems keeping the clean out door closed. I'll tape it shut.
Taping the chimney door shut with aluminum duct tape increased my draft by 0.005 inches water. Not much but every little bit helps. My draft measured with a Mark II manometer is about 0.03 - 0.04 inches water.

 
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Post by Dott727 » Thu. Nov. 15, 2007 9:38 pm

I made some hopeful minor improvements to the chimney by cementing inside the clean out door around the liner, block, and brick yesterday. Today I installed a draft inducer and fired it back up. The draft inducer obviously makes a huge difference. Howerver, I don't want to run it all the time. The weather cooled down a little today so I experimented by turning the inducer fan off for awhile to see how much natural draft I was getting, .02-.04. If I opened the overhead door next to it 6-8 inches my draft when up a little .03-05. So far, no bumps! With any luck maybe I'll only need the inducer when the weather warms up. I am also thinking about installing a relay to have the fan run only when ideling. Either way, at this point I still do not trust this thing.

Dwayne

 
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Post by U235a4 » Thu. Nov. 15, 2007 10:13 pm

Dott727 wrote:I made some hopeful minor improvements to the chimney by cementing inside the clean out door around the liner, block, and brick yesterday. Today I installed a draft inducer and fired it back up. The draft inducer obviously makes a huge difference. Howerver, I don't want to run it all the time. The weather cooled down a little today so I experimented by turning the inducer fan off for awhile to see how much natural draft I was getting, .02-.04. If I opened the overhead door next to it 6-8 inches my draft when up a little .03-05. So far, no bumps! With any luck maybe I'll only need the inducer when the weather warms up. I am also thinking about installing a relay to have the fan run only when ideling. Either way, at this point I still do not trust this thing.

Dwayne
what type of coal and or size are you burning?

 
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Post by Yanche » Thu. Nov. 15, 2007 10:18 pm

I made some more measurements on my AHS S130. Using a Mark II manometer I measured 0.04 inches water draft in my flue pipe. I get the same reading using a Bacharach Draftrite gauge. With the flapper door open and the combustion blower off I measured an over-the-fire draft of 0.03. The AHS flapper door has a small knob. When removed it leaves a small hole ideal for inserting the Draftrite gauge. This allows making over-the-fire measurements with the flapper door closed. Much to my surprise with the door closed the draft was the same 0.03.

Next I made measurements with the combustion blower running and the flapper door closed. I got a flue pipe draft of 0.04 and an over-the-fire reading of 0.20. Yes 0.20, that'a a powerful blower.
Last edited by Yanche on Fri. Nov. 16, 2007 10:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

 
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Post by Dott727 » Fri. Nov. 16, 2007 5:56 am

What a short night, up every 1-2 checking on this. Before I went to bed last night I had one bump right after the blower shut off, the draft inducer was not running. I already had the small disk on the flapper open, Jeff at AHS told me this would help prevent this. I turned the inducer on for the night. This unit is too far from our bedroom to know if there were any more bumps, especially when your half asleep. I am burning pea coal in this unit, which is recommended. So I don't think that should be a problem. But, back to my previous about my chimney, does anybody have any experience with having a large stone cap on top. There is about 6-inches of clearance all the way around. Do you think this would adversley affect the draft? I hate to go on the roof and take the stone off if it's not going to help.

Dwayne


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