AHS S130 : Coal consumption during summer months?

cabinover wrote:The UAE coal would do about 10-11 days on 300#, this other stuff fills the ash pan and barely does 7 days on the same charge.

I was told uae harmony coal tested around 7% ash, might be less ash to restrict air flow, more draft

coalnewbie wrote:.. and if you put a Kilowatt ($30 Lowes) on the AHS how many KWH does it consume per month to give you that DHW?

I would also like to know the electric cost of running an S130. It has a much larger motor than my EFM, but I'm sure it runs for shorter periods of time.

I don't have a KWH meter on my EFM, but I do have a run-time meter. If it is just providing domestic hot water, it runs approximately 2 hours per day. The motor says the full-load draw is 2.5 amps, so if I assume the motor is fully loaded and running on 120 volts...that is 18 KWH per month. Add in two Taco 007 circulators for the loop between my boilers and the indirect, assume they run for an hour per day...that brings it to 23 KWH per month...$2.88 with my current electric rate of $0.125 per KWH.

cabinover wrote:Here's what I found with my AA130. I was having no problem keeping a fire with the coal StokerScot brought me last winter. When I ran out of that I bought some from a local guy with Cornwall as the source. It was out last night after running fine on the other coal. I have had to bump up the time to a minute and a half every half hour.

The UAE coal would do about 10-11 days on 300#, this other stuff fills the ash pan and barely does 7 days on the same charge.

At this rate I might as well go back to propane with a more efficient water heater, keeping my garage cooler in the process.

Do you circulate water from the AA to another boiler? The btu's are going somewhere, and if you are only providing domestic hot water for a couple people, your consumption seems high. Please describe your piping arrangement and hot water demand. As for the outfire, last night was also very warm. If your chimney doesn't draft well in warm weather, you will need a longer timer cycle to keep the boiler alive. The coal might have something to do with it, or not...

No other boiler in my setup, this one feeds to a hybrid primary/secondary system about 120' away. It's only pumping on a call for heat or hot water now. So basically it sits idle most of the time. We are a family of four though with a 13 yo daughter that likes 20 minute showers if you don't keep after her.

I realize the last couple days were unusually warm but no warmer than the last few weeks here and there. I think it's the coal, this Cornwall has twice the ash as the UAE stuff.

I'm seriously considering some solar for the summer months to supplement.

AA130FIREMAN wrote:

cabinover wrote:The UAE coal would do about 10-11 days on 300#, this other stuff fills the ash pan and barely does 7 days on the same charge.

I was told uae harmony coal tested around 7% ash, might be less ash to restrict air flow, more draft

That would explain the outfire I had. It wasn't completely out but it wasn't coming back to life without some charcoal either....

cabinover wrote:No other boiler in my setup, this one feeds to a hybrid primary/secondary system about 120' away. It's only pumping on a call for heat or hot water now. So basically it sits idle most of the time. We are a family of four though with a 13 yo daughter that likes 20 minute showers if you don't keep after her.

I realize the last couple days were unusually warm but no warmer than the last few weeks here and there. I think it's the coal, this Cornwall has twice the ash as the UAE stuff.

Is your 120' of piping underground? Insulated? Anyway you slice it, that is a lot of fixed-piping losses to produce summertime hot water. Your new batch of coal could very well have something to do with the outfire, but I think volatility and hardness probably makes more a difference than ash content...if you had a thicker layer of ash wouldn't the anthrastat sense that and "shake" the grate longer?

It's possible that it isn't so much the ash as the volatility. I noticed half again as much unburnt coal in the last couple pans of ash as with the UAE.

Have you done anything about your ground-heating pex lines? I seem to remember when you first got that running it was losing some heat in the underground run.

cabinover wrote:It's possible that it isn't so much the ash as the volatility. I noticed half again as much unburnt coal in the last couple pans of ash as with the UAE.

A conversation I just had with a breaker operator stated he has bought from UAE Harmony mine. He said the ash in the coal varies between the East side of the mine and the West side. One side has very low ash. If you blend the two, you get good coal. Get it from the low ash side and it doesn't burn well and results in outfires. However, the steel makers love it.

I just picked up a load of harmony, and so far I noticed the dancing blue ladies are back right after it fires for 1 minute. Can it be the coal looses some schwoop (gasses) and a fresh load is better. And I have been backing time off of the timer.

AA130FIREMAN wrote:I just picked up a load of harmony, and so far I noticed the dancing blue ladies are back right after it fires for 1 minute. Can it be the coal looses some schwoop (gasses) and a fresh load is better. And I have been backing time off of the timer.

Not many volitiles in anthracite but fresh is always better.

Another possibility is draft. Draft is based on inside of stack vs outside temperatures. Summer DHW uses lower temperature plus the higher outside air temperatures result in less draft (pull) potential. Lower draft means less to keep the fire burning. Also coal size and fines are a factor. Smaller coal (buck vs pea) or higher percentage of fines (Harmony doesn't process like a normal breaker) will result in lower idle draft and a greater possibility of outfire due to air flow restrictions. This is all theory and not experience talking here. I am about to fire my AA up for the first time this weekend.

Just an up date on consumption. During the winter months I was using 60# per day on average of pea for heating and DHW. So far this summer I have been averaging 30# per day. I did not have a barometric damper in my stack this winter or first part of summer. I just installed one this past week and switched to buckwheat. Like steamup suggested, I switched to the buckwheat to hopefully slow the draft and thus save on coal. The barometric damper is pulling open even on the 90+ degree days we had a couple of days ago. Also, I have my thermo ash control set at 90 and the boiler temp.et at 160. Next time I fill the hopper, I plan on dropping the boiler temp. to 140. I'll see where that takes me.

Make sure you monitor the boiler closely if you are running the ash control at that low of a temperature. The lower the ash control setpoint, the closer the fire will burn to the top (and hopper!) of the burn chamber.

Thanks for the advice. Will do.

steamup wrote:

cabinover wrote:It's possible that it isn't so much the ash as the volatility. I noticed half again as much unburnt coal in the last couple pans of ash as with the UAE.

A conversation I just had with a breaker operator stated he has bought from UAE Harmony mine. He said the ash in the coal varies between the East side of the mine and the West side. One side has very low ash. If you blend the two, you get good coal. Get it from the low ash side and it doesn't burn well and results in out fires. However, the steel makers love it.

First there is only one vein of coal in the mine and that is Lykens # 2 red ash the ash content runs between 6.5 to 7% ash content your not going to see any difference between the east side or the west side of the vein of coal in the mine not when the ash content is only a half of percent difference and the volatility are the same as well as the sulfur content
I believe he might be seeing more bone in the coal then unburnt coal being they do not process coal like a breaker does
what they use is a crusher with sizing screens

coal berner wrote:

steamup wrote:

cabinover wrote:It's possible that it isn't so much the ash as the volatility. I noticed half again as much unburnt coal in the last couple pans of ash as with the UAE.

A conversation I just had with a breaker operator stated he has bought from UAE Harmony mine. He said the ash in the coal varies between the East side of the mine and the West side. One side has very low ash. If you blend the two, you get good coal. Get it from the low ash side and it doesn't burn well and results in out fires. However, the steel makers love it.

First there is only one vein of coal in the mine and that is Lykens # 2 red ash the ash content runs between 6.5 to 7% ash content your not going to see any difference between the east side or the west side of the vein of coal in the mine not when the ash content is only a half of percent difference and the volatility are the same as well as the sulfur content
I believe he might be seeing more bone in the coal then unburnt coal being they do not process coal like a breaker does
what they use is a crusher with sizing screens

Well, you gets alls sorts of info from different people. It takes a while and usually more than one source to sort it out.