AHS S130 Coal Gun : First fire

She's fired up and we're making heat from coal for our very first time. Lit the match at 5:30 PM. Turned the grate switch on at 8:30 PM. So far everything appears to be functioning normally. No puff backs yet. And the best part is that I now have heat and hot water from coal!!!

AA130FIREMAN wrote:VERY GOOD !!! You sweated the small stuff and now hopefully it all works out in the end . How long did it take till it was up to operating temperature from when you lit the match ?

About 2 hours as I recall.

watkinsdr wrote:Pictures please! We need an ash update too, unburned coal, etc.

Despite all warnings, I started the boiler with fresh coal only (no ashes added, since I didn't have any). The good part is that since I left the tiny window in the center of the sight tube door open I have had no puff-backs (so far at least). The (potentially) bad news is that the ash grate temperature is still too high for it to ash. I wonder how long it will be before the temperature at the grate falls to 140 degrees? I'm considering throttling down on the tiny window sometime today.

For pictures, see my previous (Making Some Progress) thread. Nothing has changed much since I took all of those pictures.

When I first turned the ash grate motor on at 8:30 PM yesterday the grate temperature was low and some completely unburned coal came out, but soon after that the grate temp went up above 140 degrees, and so far (overnight) it has not gone down to or below 140 degrees again. In fact the ash grate temp was reading 220 degrees just moments ago.

AA130FIREMAN wrote:

lsayre wrote:In fact the ash grate temp was reading 220 degrees just moments ago.

You mean the ahs actually has a display that tells you the ash temperature ? Now, talk about hi-tec

When the ash grate was at 220 degrees it was at idle. Now that it is firing to heat a few zones the ash grate temp has fallen to 158 degrees. Still not at or below the set-point for the grate motor to turn on.

Update, after hitting 157 degrees it started heading back up and hit into the 180's before the blower shut down. Now its climbing even further as it idles.