overfeed vs. underfeed stokers for Bituminous

No clinkers in the big pile of ash this evening, and it has warmed to 25-30 above, I think the clinkers form better with longer burn times.

Coments about the downed plane are moving to the Alaska page on this forum.

Short Bus wrote:I think the clinkers form better with longer burn times.

Yep. More heat, more clinkers.

To get longer run times I added a relay.

Before the stoker only ran when one zone or more was calling for heat and the Honywell detected the boiler temp below 160F. Now once a zone calles for heat and the Honywell detects boiler temp below 160F the stoker fires, sets the relay and stoker stays on until the Honywell control shuts it down at 180F. With my 65 gallon boiler this shoud make my burn times longer, therfore hotter, I hope.

Excellent clinkers today, couple of clinkers about two quarts each, only change was more fuel and not removing the ash, starting Wednesday night I think.
Tomarrow when I can see the stack I will turn the air down some.

Short Bus wrote:only change was more fuel and not removing the ash, starting Wednesday night I think.

I have to take notes or I'll forget what I did and when I did it

It's been six days since Berlin recomended some adjustments, I made them to the best of my understanding that night, fed more coal, allowed ash bed to develope, and a minor control adjustment to hopfully create longer burn times, no other changes have been made.

Berlin's knowleage on this subject has proven to be excellent, I now remove only clinkers from the burner, they are hot and not smoking, almost no ash comes out of the burner into the garage, coal consumption is not acuratly traked here, but I'm so happy it seams like less coal going in.

Before these adjustments I definatly wanted to change burners, to a rotating ring, now I might change burners but this unit might go a few more years.

Fly ash cleaning will happen tomarrow, and possibly an air adjustment, the ash bed has grown since the start of this change but it is now stabalized I think, I have resisted changing the air because of the changing ash bed.

I was working in the garage Monday, after the previous post, turned the slab on in the garage while I wired some outlets and lights, went in the house and put in a load of laundry, coal heated hot water, anyway the boiler just kept running and running, looked in fire box and there sure was alot of unburnt coal, opened the door to look in the fire tubes and saw orange flames and black soot on the tubes. I opened the air regulator a signifigant amount, wow it made some heat, good thing garage slab was cold.

So now 48 hours after the air adjustment, no soot, and the clinkers are round rings, and the ash level in my burn chamber is going dowm, combustion is happening in a much larger area over the grates, all is well.

It was working fine with the other air setting but only because it was running short periods of time. and the natural draft between firings was consuming the extera coal, now it really burns hot, looking forward to seeing the stack in the daylite on turkey day.

Any updates there short bus?

Life is good,

Two ton pickup loads are converting to about 2.5 wheelbarrows of clinkers.
Clinkers will be used on my muddy spring driveway.
Clear and cold last three weeks, 20-30 below at night and 10-20 above in the day, about eleven hours of daylight per day.
Today I vacumed out the ash in the horizontal tube boiler and vacumed out under the twyres in the air box today and my clinkers are larger tonight, probalby should be cleaning more often.
I burn alot of coal due to poor insulation and I plan to fix that this summer.
When people ask about heating with coal I recomend insulating first then alternate fuels.
I also recomend that with this coal you will need about one ton per 100 gallons of diesel you are replacing, so you need to think about material handeling.

Going to Fairbanks for three days two nights, next week, when I went to town in the past I would let the fire go out and come home to a cold boiler, and slab in my bedroom, letting the propane wall furnaces protect the plumbing in the bathroom and kitchen. Now I disable the zone valves so they will not open and call for heat and let the boiler run between 140 and 180 with no load, on a 36 hour trip it burned about five gallons of coal, and was ready to heat when I returned from town, much nicer.

My system will run 24 hours without attention but I tend it every twelve.

The propane I purchased in January cost 5.02$ per gallon, next year I will fill the tank in the summer.