I had a fire at my house today :-)

Rob - I'm running on 3 teeth 3 air , 140/190/10diff, and 2 minutes every 30 on the timer. It's running around 160 without any problems. Removing the insulation was the solution, the 520 had no chance to cool down before the timer sent a run signal to fire again.

Very nice setup.

So do you have a standby genset?

Hello everyone. 1 year ago today I had a fire at my house. In that time period - I've gone thru 9 ton of coal while maintaining the house @ 73 degree's and Supplying all the DHW for 5 people. No regrets should have done this 30 years ago.

Regards,
Randy

OUTSTANDING my friend

9 tons. That's alot for a house. Without reading all the pages, I wonder if it's because of the weather, size of house, etc.?

Looks like a gigantic log cabin in the pic. Using 9 tons it's got to be 7,000 sq. ft. if it was built recently ....

stoker-man wrote:9 tons. That's alot for a house. Without reading all the pages, I wonder if it's because of the weather, size of house, etc.?

I guess it depends what circle you stand in...9 tons is about what I burn in a year, and I know several others that burn about the same in modern homes. As usual, "it depends" on a lot of things. In Randy's case, his posts indicated that he has at least two women in the house using hot water, and I'm sure the "camp" is at least 70 degrees from top to bottom, corner to corner. If he ran the boiler all summer for hot water, that probably accounts for 1.5 tons or so.

SMITTY wrote:Looks like a gigantic log cabin in the pic. Using 9 tons it's got to be 7,000 sq. ft. if it was built recently ....

He said the home was built in '86. It is in a cold part of NYS, there are some underground piping losses, plus the radiant heat from the boiler itself is "donated" to an outbuilding instead of the house. Add in some serious wind exposure and you have yourself a pretty steady head load.

Rob,

Thank you. I'm wondering why I spent the money to switch to coal. ? Running 24/7 - 365 days - 3,400 square feet. 2 women , 2 boys and myself. I don't get it how much coal should I be burning?

Kind regards,

Randy

raw79 wrote:Rob,

Thank you. I'm wondering why I spent the money to switch to coal. ? Running 24/7 - 365 days - 3,400 square feet. 2 women , 2 boys and myself. I don't get it how much coal should I be burning?

Kind regards,

Randy

Your house Basement is newer and should be fairly well insulated and sealed.
Being a log cabin style,if your exterior walls are solid logs with tounge and grooved seals, that might be where your loosing heat.
How good are your underground pipes insulated

raw79 wrote:Rob,

Thank you. I'm wondering why I spent the money to switch to coal. ? Running 24/7 - 365 days - 3,400 square feet. 2 women , 2 boys and myself. I don't get it how much coal should I be burning?

Kind regards,

Randy

The "rule of thumb" I'm familiar with is that you should expect to burn 5 tons for each 2000 sf of heated area. That would equate to about 8.5 tons. If you're in a cold area, heat to 73 deg, have a big DHW load and make DHW all summer, your use of 9 tons seems pretty reasonable.

Mike

raw79 wrote:Rob,

Thank you. I'm wondering why I spent the money to switch to coal. ? Running 24/7 - 365 days - 3,400 square feet. 2 women , 2 boys and myself. I don't get it how much coal should I be burning?

Kind regards,

Randy

I think you are doing very well with that kind of heat load. That is a lot of house to keep warm, and the 80's log homes don't exactly heat easy. Ever hear the old expression, "A big horse eats a lot of hay?".

Considering the current price of fuel oil, the payback on your EFM investment should be quick.