Pictures of Your Boiler

SO far I've managed to fuel the interest of a couple people that are now trying coal. A co worker that has a furnace like mine, who was a former wood burner. Also, my Uncle who invested in the Keystoker boiler. Its the 144,000 BTU model that burns buck wheat size. He is heating his home and his shop and an apartment with it.. I recently went to see it in operation.. Very impressive!! I want one! Someday

Lightning wrote:SO far I've managed to fuel the interest of a couple people that are now trying coal. A co worker that has a furnace like mine, who was a former wood burner. Also, my Uncle who invested in the Keystoker boiler. Its the 144,000 BTU model that burns buck wheat size. He is heating his home and his shop and an apartment with it.. I recently went to see it in operation.. Very impressive!! I want one! Someday

Very Nice!! Talk about kick'n butt and takin names.

I love this boiler, I had a keystoker a 90 furnace for the past 4 years and just this past november installed a EFM 520 in my garage and pumped water into the old propane furnace via pex. This thing is fantastic, hard to believe it just keeps running, the only problem is I used to be able to walk down into the basement to look at the keystoker and now I have to go out to the garage to watch the blue flames. The unit is up and running, I have a few things to finish including making a cover but so far I love it.
Many thanks to Matt DiRenzo for selling me the boiler and all his help with the refurb and install questions.

Here is my dad on the birth of my VF3000, November 23rd. 2008.
She hasn't been off since then.

Dan

Your dad looks like he is ready for action.

Rob R. wrote:Your dad looks like he is ready for action.

He is old school, nothing a hammer, blow torch, and a wrench can't fix.

Dan

edyrlund wrote:I love this boiler, I had a keystoker a 90 furnace for the past 4 years and just this past november installed a EFM 520 in my garage and pumped water into the old propane furnace via pex. This thing is fantastic, hard to believe it just keeps running, the only problem is I used to be able to walk down into the basement to look at the keystoker and now I have to go out to the garage to watch the blue flames. The unit is up and running, I have a few things to finish including making a cover but so far I love it.
Many thanks to Matt DiRenzo for selling me the boiler and all his help with the refurb and install questions.

Nice looking Highboy.

dkononczuk wrote:Here is my dad on the birth of my VF3000, November 23rd. 2008.
She hasn't been off since then.

Dan

Where is the smile he is getting done

I really like the elevated 55 gallon drum idea for the EFM.

unfortunately you cant see a wall next to the 55 gal drum, I had mis measured and thought the barrel would fit, so far it works this way. next spring I plan to build a bin right outside that wall and just extend the auger. I did some searching on the forum and didnt find a real clear answer on wich size coal is best for the 520, im using rice now but I think I might try mixing in some buck to see if it reduces the coal consumtion. either way this thing is awesome.

edyrlund wrote:I did some searching on the forum and didn't find a real clear answer on which size coal is best for the 520, I'm using rice now but I think I might try mixing in some buck to see if it reduces the coal consumption.

Opinions will vary. Check your PM's (flashing envelope at the top of the page).

edyrlund .. do you have more pics of your elevated drum setup that you could post?

I am at work today, ill try to post some tommorrow but basically I didnt want to shorten the auger any further so I ran it into the 5 gal bucket, then cut an offset hole in the bottom of the barrel to match the bucket and supported it right on top of the bucket. I also made a half circle type wedge that sits in the bottom of the barrel to direct the coal to the hole.

I'm interested in having a hand fed boiler at some point in the future. I enjoy my hand fed furnace so much that I would like a boiler to run year round for DHW, heating my hot tub and possibly using the swimming pool for a heat dump in the summer so the heat wouldn't go to waste.. Also, it seems that a hand fed is simpler with less moving parts and I enjoy tending to it. Will they operate in a power outage situation at all with just gravity circulation?? It would be installed in my basement.

I was hoping my fellow hand fed boiler operators would chime in with pictures and what they most admire about their unit. Please feel free with any advise to help with installation and operation. I considered starting a new thread for this idea but thought this request would be a great addition to this one

I used to heat my house with a hand-fed boiler...I wouldn't considering going back to it even if I got the boiler for free and a $5,000 check just for the trouble. A stoker boiler is the only thing that will do the things you want without driving you out of the house.