Coal-Trol on EFM 520

I and other EFM owners I know do the same as Mark, just two different settings for the year, one spring - fall and one for winter.

chimley wrote:I'm sorry.....even if you are only burning in the winter, I find it hard to believe you make No adjustments.

Give me a break !

I can think of two circumstances where I might consider making an adjustment in the winter. First, if I switch to a different coal, I might go easy on the feed until I see how it burns. I might wind up using a different feed rate, or a different balance of feed vs. air.

Using the same coal, I might consider changing the settings based on the appearance of the fire. However, in my experience, a change in the appearance of the fire often is a sign that something other than the feed and air settings needs attention. For example, if the fire starts to look like it needs a little more air, what it might really need is a cleaning of fly ash buildup in the flue pipe.

I don't see how automation is going to add anything significant to the capabilities of the EFM's, or take the place of human judgment in the situations I mentioned. If it can be shown, I'll be happy to applaud, but for now I'm a skeptic.

Mike

Well....today I came home to an enormous fire!! As big as u can imagine! Bumped the air up to 6.5 with the same 3 teeth of feed and (drumroll).....all is right with the world again, thankfully. Enough of that....now back to the original purpose of this thread.

I realize that an EFM is capable of performing well with the proper settings. But I also believe that an automated control device would be something nifty to try on my furnace.

For the past 7 years I have done as some of you have indicated....adopted winter settings and summer settings. But honestly, a lot of times I felt I could be doing better...by maintaining lower temps and burning less coal. That is what I'm trying to accomplish.

I bumped the air up to 6.5...from 4.5...and this is what I got. much better. 3 teeth 140/170

How long had the stoker been running when you took the second picture? Your ash ring is much too large.

I never cleaned it off from the BIG BLAZE...I hope to check it today and find a nice 2" ring of ash....

Unit ran (as needed) for about 5 hours before second pic was taken.

chimley wrote:I never cleaned it off from the BIG BLAZE.

Never cleaned what off?

Mike

chimley wrote:Unit ran (as needed) for about 5 hours before second pic was taken.

You need to check the ash ring after the stoker has been running continuously for about 30 minutes.

The ash ring you see in the pic...is a bi-product of the enormous blaze that was in there earlier.....I'm goin to check it in a couple hours...and I expect there will be a huge difference.

Looks to me like you need to turn the air down a bit. Your fire is starting to burn too deep in the pot. I personally would run 4 teeth with that setting. If you need 6.5 air to burn 3 teeth,, somethings either wrong with your airflow or you have some funky coal. The EFM usually burns close to the scale in the manual. sometimes more/less but close to the advised settings. last time I had a fire that looked like that, it was a preamble to a warped fines plate and then a holed burner plate. I'd look under the pot and make sure your fines plate is closing fully