Dual Boiler Plumbing and Wiring.

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JB Sparks
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Post by JB Sparks » Sun. Dec. 05, 2010 4:32 am

It is always nice to hear about success stories, I'm glad your's is one of them.

One suggestion, to get a nice 12 hour burn time, you might want to load the fire box a little higher than what your picture shows. Fill it to the top of the fire bricks and heap it in the middle. Remember on these Harmans, real short coppy strokes on the shaker, For a steady idle that won't creep the water temp., start with the idle damper at about 3/16" open at the widest part of the half moon and adjust from there.

Let us know how you are making out.

JB


 
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whistlenut
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Post by whistlenut » Sun. Dec. 05, 2010 8:17 am

What time to you hand-fed guys get up in the morning? 04:32.....do you go to bed at 20:00?

Good looking fire, shake carefully, so you don't get a big piece of live coal caught. Enjoy on this cold morning... :) :roll:

 
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Sting
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Post by Sting » Sun. Dec. 05, 2010 9:07 am

jaimz23 wrote: I finally got it started at about 10 P.M. I went down at about 12:30 A.M. and I have a beautiful bed of red hot coals heating my house so wonderfully.
Image
jaimz23 wrote:I COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS WITHOUT YOUR HELP!!!!
Sure - you could have - Figments of the public internet only provide moral support! :D

 
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JB Sparks
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Post by JB Sparks » Sun. Dec. 05, 2010 9:17 am

Hey Doug, have you ever heard the old saying " early to bed, early to rise make a man... yada yada yada" :lol:. Well don't believe it, it is what happens when you get too old to get a good nights sleep. :annoyed: :)

 
jaimz23
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Post by jaimz23 » Mon. Dec. 06, 2010 5:53 pm

JB Sparks wrote: One suggestion, to get a nice 12 hour burn time, you might want to load the fire box a little higher than what your picture shows. Fill it to the top of the fire bricks and heap it in the middle. Remember on these Harmans, real short coppy strokes on the shaker, For a steady idle that won't creep the water temp., start with the idle damper at about 3/16" open at the widest part of the half moon and adjust from there.
Thanks for the responses guys, it has still been kind of tough finding the "sweet spot" for everything to run nicely and for that 12 hr. burn that I am longing for.

JB to answer your points:

1. I figured I needed to heap the coal a little higher, but was not sure if I should. I will do that from now on.
2. The short choppy strokes I already knew about. Kind of hard to get some of the coal that looks like it burned but is now a white stone down the grates. I figure it will ash eventually though. Actually not getting as much ash as I thought I would. Shake until you see a few red embers fall through right?
3. Right now, I have the idle damper set to medium or half. Is this too far open. I have my A350 set to 155 for it to close the automatic draft control. Too low too high or O.K.? When I had it set to 180 like Harman says in the manual, it just kept the auto draft open the whole time because the water temp never really got above 180-185 and it burned through that load in about 4 hrs. Was very warm in the house though;)

As of right now with all of my Aquastat settings, dampers, draft settings, etc... and the coal about as high as you saw it, I am getting around 7-8 hrs of burn time.

Let me know if you think I should change something to help get a better burn and a longer time out of it.

I had to set my Circulation Aquastat which controls the circulator between the boilers to 130 instead of 140 - 145 like Sting said earlier in these posts because it is quite a few degrees off of what the true temp in the boiler is because it is a strap-on aquastat and it wasn't kicking the circulator on and my oil was kicking on. When I turned it down to 130 the water in the boiler at that time was 145 or so according to the pressure/temp gauge and the circ pump kicked on and I haven't heard the oil boiler since.

Thanks

 
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JB Sparks
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Post by JB Sparks » Mon. Dec. 06, 2010 8:15 pm

Ok Jaimz, First off, I think you doing very well, you have come along way since installing your Harman. So lets see Your right about the shaking I have read where some guys will shake 50-60 times to get as much ash out as possible and for this reason I rake and shake the coals. I have found doing this I only have to rake and shake once a day.

I think I would bump the water temp. up some. At 155* when the load calls it will drop that temp. down at least 12* so you are trying to heat your house with about 140* water, should be hotter. Another thing I did was to close off the zone valves about half way to slow the flow rate down, which helps prevent the big heat suck as my friend Joe-in-NH would say. I set my A350 at 165* but it is 10* off so the damper doesn't close until the water temp. is up to 175* and then it will drift up to about 180* and hold until the next demand.

And absolutely, fill that baby up, don't worry about getting hot coals up against the steel walls of the fire box you have water behind the walls so no fears of damaging the fire box. Joe-in-Nh and I both turned the fire bricks standing up the long way so we can have a deeper fire. When the weather is above 40* I can get a 24 hour burn time out of my SF160. With the weather down in the 20's and 30's I just add about 2 or 3 shovels full of coal at night, then do the rake and shake in the mornings.

I leave my circulator between the two boiler running 24/7, it keeps the water in both boilers at the same temp all the time. But I don't see anything wrong with the way your doing it either. My little grunfur three speed pump, running on the lowest speed, uses about the same power as a 40 watt light bulb so I don't really see it in the electric bill. I think by running the pump all the time also helps in keeping the water more stable. The goal here is to keep the water temp. within a 12-15* temp. swing.

Hope this will help a little bit. Keep up the good work you are getting there.

 
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Sting
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Post by Sting » Mon. Dec. 06, 2010 9:58 pm

There is absolutely no reason to circulate when the system is not calling for heat - even if you only think it costs the same as lamping a 40 watt bulb -- the thermal loss has not been considered.


 
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JB Sparks
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Post by JB Sparks » Tue. Dec. 07, 2010 4:09 am

Sting, Tell me about the thermal losses you mentioned, by that do you mean the heat radiating off the coal boiler and piping system or the heat lost up the chimney?

 
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Sting
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Post by Sting » Tue. Dec. 07, 2010 8:02 am

It Depends :)

In my world the answer to your question is No and Yes

No -- you really cannot eliminate the loss off a boiler at idle fire - but there is less than if the boiler is having to wake up and hi fire to make up lost energy and remain above condensing temperatures.

Yes -- In my world, we let sleeping dogs lie. Why move the dog off his warm bed just to make him go lay down again, and why move energy away from the boiler, just to circulate it in loops that will cool unnecessarily. Especially when the controls may already exist, but simply need to be placed in the correct sequence.

 
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Post by JB Sparks » Tue. Dec. 07, 2010 9:31 am

Ok, I understand, wanted a more defined answer to your statement about thermal losses. I have learned quite a bit from you over the past couple of years and as a result have a good understanding of my heating system.

My thinking is it doesn't make a lot of difference whether the pump between the two boiler runs all the time or not I think either way is ok. I would rather keep it running to keep the water in both boiler at the same temps. for the same reasons you stated. It keeps the oil boiler water above condensate temps. and it reduces the time to bring the oil boiler water up to high temp. to handle the load. basicly with the pump running all the time I'm keeping 35 gals. up to temp. as oppose to keeping 25 gals. hot in the coal boiler with the pump not running except for demand time.

As far as the thermal losses off the coal boiler, they really don't go to waste as it has allowed the use of the boiler room door to become the thermostat in the basement. this zone's thermostat never calls for heat due to the radiant heat off the boiler radiating over the rest of the finished basement. but you are right about the controls already being there, it wouldn't take much to change things around to have the pump just run on demand.

I guess it comes down to different strokes for different folks. Thanks for your reply Sting.

PS: Hey Sting was singing on the Good Morning Show this morning! Was that you? :)

 
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Post by jaimz23 » Tue. Dec. 07, 2010 6:42 pm

Well, my wife accidentally made the coal go out today when she got home from work. She put a bunch of coal on too small a bed of embers and shook the grates too hard and larger coal got stuck in between and she didn't realize it and left. When I got home 2 hrs. later, the oil boiler was running and I went down and no coal burning. So I restarted it and up and running again. I have 3 questions though:

1. I have some areas in the boiler that don't appear to be burning as well as others and I have sporadic unburned coal throughout. Is this normal? If not how can I remedy it? Maybe open the draft screws in the door a little bit more or have I not shaken it long enough and possibly have some ash blocking the air under sporadic areas?

2. I was wondering how much heat I could be losing up my chimney? I have a barometric damper in a Tee, but no damper in the pipe to keep heat in. Is this Okay?

3 About how much coal do you use in a season? I know boiler sizes and house sizes differ and this makes the difference, but I got 4 tons and am starting to think this won't be enough.

I am seeing a little less hot water temp than I was expecting. I know I am still learning and may need to keep trying a few different things, but I see the water at around 160 - 165 most of the time and when it is roaring for a short time, I will see 170 - 175 max. Before I got the circulator between the boilers running at 140 degrees, I saw 180 - 185, so I know the circulator moving the water in part is the culprit, but I am still climbing to the top of my allowable coal mountain inside the boiler (I haven't put a large pile in yet, I am getting larger slowly) so I may still see the heat rise a little more.

Thanks

 
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Sting
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Post by Sting » Wed. Dec. 08, 2010 3:40 pm

JB Sparks wrote:
PS: Hey Sting was singing on the Good Morning Show this morning! Was that you? :)
YES -- sure -- what ever

and I dyed my hair blue for IRT deadliest roads too

 
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Post by JB Sparks » Wed. Dec. 08, 2010 4:35 pm

Jaimz, The answer to your section 1 questions, Fill up the fire box. Answer to #2 section, read your manual, No MPD on these Harmans. Answer to # 3 section fill up the fire box. Leave both the load door vents open about 1 to 1 1/2 turns open all the time, no puff backs.

I think I read where you have your idle port 1/2 open, I think you will find that is to much, you will get temp. creep with it opened that much. start with 3/16" on the half moon.

It is common to get dead spots with these retangular fire boxes especialy along the front, best fix for that is poke from above in the dead areas along with shaking. I personally hardly use the shaker on my Sf 160 I rake the whole fire bed once a day and get all the ash out. I don't have to worry about losing the fire with because of a combustion blower I added to the boiler.

 
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Post by jaimz23 » Wed. Dec. 08, 2010 6:54 pm

JB,

Thanks for the replies. I will apply this and keep you posted. How about my last question which was how much coal do you use in a heating season? More than 4 ton? I am still having trouble getting the water temp up fast enough. When I get home I throw coal on a small bed that is left from the 5:30 A.M. loading of it and it takes quite a while to get burning nicely. Maybe I throw too much on too fast and I don't slowly raise it to get a nice hot bed? I might want to adjust my barometric damper a bit to try and help this a bit. if you guys have one, what are yours set at?

Thanks again

 
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Post by JB Sparks » Wed. Dec. 08, 2010 8:36 pm

I used about 3-1/2 tons per season to heat 1800 sqft. and DHW. You have a SF260 so I assuming you have a bigger house. I would say you probably should think about getting another ton to get you through the heating season. No worries if you have some left over, it will keep till the next winter.

I set my baro at high fire to .04 WC. Do you have a manometer? I keep mine hooked up all the time, one glance and you know what's going on with the fire.

Long recovery times on reload was one of the reasons I put in a combustion blower. If you have the time to stay with the boiler, keep the ash door open till the new load is going well. That helps, also loading in layers might quicken up the time as well.


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