New Boiler Temps

 
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dlj
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Post by dlj » Sat. Feb. 19, 2011 12:48 pm

macdabs wrote:I am listning just frustrated. When I banked it last night I had the coal packed to the top of the door with less in the rear sloped so not to put the coals out.
Frustrated would be a very mild word I would use if I was in your position... 110 lbs of coal is a lot of coal... You should have easily been able to get through the night...
macdabs wrote:I was going to put a barodamper on ,but after speaking to Amos he felt the MPd is all I should need and my flue could be the suspect for not making enough heat to bring the boiler to temp.
The baro might make the system easier to use, but you need to know if that stove is going to work first, and the MPD should be fine to figure that out. But it is a bit of a learning curve.
macdabs wrote:Reason I added two more feet of double wall flue pipe to confirm the draft was fine even on the warm windy night we had last night. The boiler sits in my new shop the pex tubing is TPS with triple insulated wrap 250' in a 4'' flex drain pipe with a water line feeding the boiler . The pex pipe is also inside a 6'' schedule 40 and is 3-6' deep from my house to the shop. The temp loss is very little and when the snow was on the yard you could not even see a trace of loss and the feed and return temps are equal when just circulating the loop. My boiler in the house is a 119,000 BTU Utica with a .85 nozzle.
Your draft has to be fine, otherwise you wouldn't have burned through that much coal - you would have had a slow fire without a lot of heat output. Your stove would not have gotten to temp. Seems like it can do that.
macdabs wrote:The only reason I decided to heat the house was not due to the amount of oil I used per year, but the 3.15 per gallon and the fact I can choose to heat my shop or the home. The firebox of the DS has no bricks and concerns me, I also have no instructions on the samson control valve or setup for adjustment . There is no instructions except for a hand sketch drawing showing interface into a existing boiler and the inlet and outlet of the unit. I asked the dealer on the chain length and asked the factory no one could give me a answer except you had to play with it. I have no specs other than the boiler has a 200,000 BTU output.
While this is certainly all concerning, it is not related to if the stove will work for you or not....
macdabs wrote:This is the reason I want to see a existing working setup. Is that to much to ask?
This sounds quite reasonable to me. The folk where you bought the stove should be able to help you with that... I think anyway...
macdabs wrote:Two coal burners looked at the boiler and both are skeptical of the output and walked away frustrated as I was . I switched back to my oil boiler it took 15 mins to satisfy any heat call in the house shut off @180 to maintain temp. The DS is working to get up to 160* to heat itself. The DS boiler holds 79 gallons of water and my oil boiler hold half that if that. What am I missing?
The response time for a coal stove and an oil furnace are very different. The coal stove has a much slower response time.

I think what you are missing is how to run your MPD. I wish I could come over and take a look, I have to see the stove burning, look at the fire, play with the MPD, watch temperatures and all that. All that can't be done from far away...

I'd suggest when you get your stove up to temp, with a nice hot coal fire going, close the MPD down quite a bit and see how the temperatures in the water stay and how long the fire lasts. I don't know how to tell you how much to close down your damper. I do it by watching the fire...Don't even know how to explain what to look for...

dj


 
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lsayre
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Post by lsayre » Sat. Feb. 19, 2011 12:54 pm

Regarding the coal boiler having a capacity of 79 gallons of water, this would only require about 8 lbs. of coal to initially take it from 50 degrees to 180 degrees. This is not likely an area of concern. Having no firebrick should also be of no concern. Don't concentrate on these two things as problem issues.

 
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oliver power
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Post by oliver power » Sat. Feb. 19, 2011 1:17 pm

Like has been mentioned; you already have the manual pipe damper in place. You need to learn how to use it. And that's the part that scares me with people of today. They don't have a clue, and it can be deadly. Here's what to do. Get your fire going good. Then close the manual damper till you can smell a sulfur smell. Open it back up just a touch, till the sulfur smell is gone. You should be good. Stick around, and keep tabs of the boiler temps. Should the boiler be running too hot, close the intake air down some. If it still runs too hot after a half hour or more, close it down more, etc.. When you get the boiler running around the temps you want, then close the manual damper down more. In the end, you may end up with the manual damper all the way closed. If you smell sulfer, crack it back open till you don't smell sulfer, and a tadd more. Once you get your draft intake, and manual damper fine tuned to where the boiler is running good, take note of where the settings are. For re-fueling; don't touch the air intake. Open the manual damper all the way. Fill with coal, till coal is comming out the door, and sloping up as it gets near the back of firebox. Leave a hot spot (glowing coals) somewhere. The hot spot will re-ignite the coal/gasses. Once the gasses are burnt off, turn the manual damper back to where your final setting was. Should you smell sulfer, open it back up a tadd. You'll get the hang of it. You may want to install the manual pipe damper above a stove pipe seam. This way you'll have some place for the sulfur smell to come out, should you restrict your draft too much with manual damper. Now, if you haven't already, get yourself a CO detector. We want to here from YOU tomorrow.

 
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Post by Coalfire » Sat. Feb. 19, 2011 1:57 pm

You said about no fire brick, you will not need it as the water is right behind the steel. The fire brick in a stove is only there to keep the stove from melting. With water behind it will absorb the heat and there is no problem.

As for the samson valve I don't think you will get an answer as to it's setting. You set it where it needs to be. I know this sounds stupid, but if you want your water to be at 160, you would set it once up to temp so it closes the air inlet. If you are trying to achieve 180, and are not there make sure the air inlet door is open. if it is closed then shorten the chain 1 ball and monitor temps.

I belive they don't recomend baros cause most people don't have a manometer to adjust them. So I think the approach there is if you don't have the tools to do it you probably shouldn't. Also keep in mind these boilers are built by and used by the amish, they have a whole differant lifestyle. Somone would always be home to adjust a mpd as needed for changing conditions. Most people do not live that lifestyle, so I would say before you ditch this boiler try a baro that is properly adjusted.

Your initial use of coal my be high till you warm that boiler up, so after a day or two you consumption may drop. I looked at the specs on the Harman SF360 that is rated at 180Kbtu and 42gal of water. You have 80gallons so it will take a lot more to warm that up. Once it is warm I don't know how much it will take to maintain the water at your desired temp. Refresh my memory again how many sq ft are you trying to heat?

Best of luck, Eric

 
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Post by macdabs » Sat. Feb. 19, 2011 9:57 pm

I have spent the day on the hour taking notes and pictures of the time, temp of the boiler, and the stack all day. My father came over so it was quality time well spent . My house that I want to heat is 2400 sq ft . give or take 200 sqft . I kept the new shop zone off to see how the boiler was going to do today . The slab was warm holding heat and the air temp was at 65 I topped off the coal at lunch time and switched the boiler over to the house at 180. I turned my stat up for my basement zone from 67 to 69. The temp on the boiler dropped to 160 in 15 min. and stayed . The coal bed looked good and the MPD was closed completly all day . The boiler temp averaged the majority of the day at 140 as the afternoon went on. I shut the zone off twice to see how long it would take for the boiler to recover . Both times it would take a 1/2 hour to reach 180-190 to just heat the boiler up. One thing that puzzles me is my stack temp on a double wall pipe (magnetic thermometer would be as high as 250*) this is with the MPD completly closed. You can see the intense heat vapor on the chimney cap.

if I am loosing this much heat that a double wall pipe is 250 on the outside what temp is the inner pipe? And with the MPD closed completly why am I loosing so much heat? My oil boiler takes 5 to 10 min. to go from 145-180* after multiple heat calls on average. As of 9:00 the boiler temp was at 115* the bed was glowing red I just loaded it to the top of the door, boiler dropped to 100* . I fired my oil boiler up till the DS boiler heats at least 160* and hope not to touch the stove till 5 am tomorrow . Total coal consumption during the day was a wheel barrow load.

Mac

 
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Post by dlj » Sat. Feb. 19, 2011 11:21 pm

That is very hot for the stove pipe! How far behind the MPD are you taking that measurement?

I'm thinking your MPD is not closing...

Otherwise, I am at a loss... Also, that is way to little heat to get into the water... something is not right there... (sorry to state the obvious)

Did you put in a cast iron damper or a sheet metal one?

dj

 
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Post by macdabs » Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 5:43 am

I used a Cast Iron damper had two 3/4 holes and was 7.5 diam. I know it is closing you can tell by the feel and if you open the loading door with it closed after loading a batch of coal. I am going to shoot the temps with a infrared temp guage today . It is 5 am and the temp in the house that the boiler is feeding is 110* . I know what to expect before I even go down to the shop. :sick: At least the boiler has some heat so the MPD must be working somewhat compared to the previous night that I left half opened and consumed all the fuel.

I am determined to figure this boiler out ...plus I have a reason to be in the new shop! :roll: I just wish someone else was using a DSc3 boiler to compare notes and performance feedback or a product spec sheet would be nice. I work on Microwave paths all day that are defined with a pencil point 20 miles per path and this boiler is kicking my a##.... I willl have it worked out and ready to go for next heating season or replaced with a stoker before spring hits.

---6 am update---
I went to check to see what the boiler was doing ... Same as yesterday ,the coal bed almost all gone except small portion in the rear of the firebox with a thin bed of unburnt coal in the sides & front portion of the fire box was almost out. Boiler temp was 90/95* stack 100*. I could not get anymore coal last night at 9:00 when I banked it off and the damper was completly closed all night. I had have a good 160lbs of coal in the unit. The temp of the boiler did not see 130* after loading till around 11:30. I ran my oil boiler till 10 before I went to bed then switched over to the coal unit. I started another wood fire and debating to even bother with the coal during the day. I think the ash builds up overnight and starts to kill the burn when the coal bed gets down.

I really am stumped...
Mac


 
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Post by dlj » Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 8:38 am

Mac,

What diameter pipe? 8"? I run 6" pipe with a 6" damper. It has no holes in it except for the ones where the rod goes through it. Sometimes I run my damper in the completely close position. How do you run the damper through double walled pipe? Everything sounds like you are running too much heat up your chimney. You need to post pictures.

dj

 
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Post by Sting » Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 8:51 am

macdabs wrote: ---6 am update---

I really am stumped...
Mac
I would be too - because with out a manometer -- your still guessing.

 
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Post by oliver power » Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 11:01 am

Some more trouble shooting...........Still too much intake air? Maybe... I still think too much heat going up the stack. And/Or over fire vents open. You say the MPD feels closed. Are you sure it's closed. If not fully/properly locked on the rod/handle, it may be spinning on the rod. Now lets push the envelope a little for experimental purposes. How about adding a second MPD. Or maybe reduce to 6" stovepipe and damper. Are your grates plugged with ash/clinkers? Or, any combination of above. I think it's a nice looking boiler.I'm hoping your problem is not simpley a "Poorly Engineered Boiler".
Last edited by oliver power on Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 8:16 pm, edited 3 times in total.

 
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Post by macdabs » Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 12:05 pm

I know the mpd is closed You can feel the weight of it and the balance point went it is horz. or vert. I also think the heat is going up the flue you can see such a large heat vapor cloud at the cap. If you look at the shelf design for heating the boiler it looks like (2) 3 '' pipes going accross not a lot of surface area if the heat is traveling towards the rear of the boiler for the flue. I think the boiler is just not made to work with a system with zone pumps and a secondary loop circulating . The recovery is to slow and kills the boiler temp. I asked the dealer and on this forum for a name of someone that has the same unit in operation and have yet to hear anything. I am going to down load pics tonight and should have them posted later. I understand a picture is worth a thousand words .
No corners have been cut on this whole project and the boiler was chosen from the salesmans recommendations. I had the blueprints drawn up for the boiler location and the dimensions of the flue, pex floor layout and heat loss calculations provided to him. What is sad is my 119,000 BTU oil boiler is doing the job so I know I am not asking for the impossible. Sorry for venting life is to short to be consumed by this, it takes all the fum out of it! :lol:

Mac

 
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Post by Sting » Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 12:57 pm

macdabs wrote: this whole project and the boiler was chosen from the salesmans recommendations.
Image

 
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Post by oliver power » Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 1:07 pm

I just looked at the picture of your boiler. Is that a top vent I see? I would think a vent about half way up the back would be much better. More heat would be trapped in the boiler. Also, maybe a baffle. Would this be a big project? Is the back wall a water wall? Look at this cut-a-way view of KEYSTOKER boiler. http://www.keystoker.com/products.php#cfb Maybe you can extend the vent pipe down, in order to trap heat. Here's another experiment. Can you slide a smaller diameter stove pipe down inside the boiler? Then seal around the pipe where it exits the boiler by putting a collar on the pipe.

 
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Post by lsayre » Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 1:26 pm

If your boiler is of the "fire tube" configuration does it utilise something along the line of these to greatly boost heat transfer and reduce the stack temperature?

http://www.alcotwin.com/turbulators.html

http://fuelefficiencyllc.com/feturb.html

http://afe-turbulator.com/info.html

 
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Post by CapeCoaler » Sun. Feb. 20, 2011 3:29 pm

If I shut all the zones the boiler still will not climb much at all and the ash pan looks good with no coal wasted.
The heat must go somewhere...
If not into the boiler then it is going up the stack...
If it was going into the boiler you would have had a large rise in temps and possibly poped the PRV...


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