KA-4 New House, Poor Design, Requires Over 200F Baseboard!

By the way, did you get a laser thermometer, and get the supply and return water temperatures?

Is the house heating any better with a few of the tweaks done that have been mentioned?

Greg L

thanks for the tips on the spray foam.

My house is heating better. I have a gift card to Sears and I'm going to get the laser temp from there, but I have not gotten it yet. Work schedule is getting in the way. I'm HOPING to fire up the boiler this weekend, if I can get all the exhaust piping together correctly. I started last weekend and quit and put the oil only back into the flu. I have a new gameplan so hopefully I can get it done.

That KA-4 is really going to stretch its legs heating your new "camp".

yes it is. It's 14F right now and the KA-4 is keeping up. Can't wait to see some 0F to see how it does.

When it's time for showers this morning will be a good test. Then off to church to give thanks! No more oil this winter for this guy

Great news !! Keep accurate track of temps, feeds etc.. so next year you will remember what it's doing this year !!

Greg L

Thanks Gregg!

You mean to track supply & return temps? or record outside temps to see how the boiler does?

I honestly, don't think the boiler can handle all the rooms once we finish the 3rd floor and the bedroom on the 2.5 floor(split level), but only time will tell. That is on the coldest days.

This morning it was ~20F, KA-4 held 180F. The upstairs stayed at 70F, the downstairs dropped to ~65F(up until now we've kept the 1st floor on 63F-65F). I didn't count how many feet of baseboar don the 1st floor, but IMHO that loop is wayyyyyy to big. Only a Sting certified scientific test of supply & return temps will help tell the real story!

beatle78 wrote:I didn't count how many feet of baseboar don the 1st floor, but IMHO that loop is wayyyyyy to big.

It will only take a few minutes with a tape measure to see. You wouldn't be the first person to discover the original installer had no idea what they were doing. I remember when I first read the "Zoning Rules of Thumb" pamphlet by Bell & Gossett. It didn't take me long to figure out that the 100 feet of baseboard the contractors installed in the upstairs of the house with 1/2" piping wasn't exactly "textbook".

I always recommend creating as much of a weather/coal use/boiler settings LOG as you can.

Since the BTU load on the boiler varies greatly with the weather, I'd record:

Outside air temperature,
Wind velocity and direction
sunny or cloudy, day/night

Then track the stoker settings, # of turns on the feed for your stoker
combustion fan flapper/door opening
# of pounds of coal used per day,
Breaker where the coal was obtained
How much fly ash in the flue pipes, and how often they are cleaned.

And of course if the boiler was able to maintain target water temp; 180*?
And return water temperature, to show load on the system.

With the above info, you can get a real 'big picture' of what's happening with your house/weather/ boiler/ whole system.

As for your boiler being able to heat the house well,,

INSULATE, SEAL out INFILTRATION, and [did I say? ] INSULATE.

A grand spent on spray foam, and added insulation will return you $ 10K over the next decade.. and you can't put a $$ value on comfort in your house.
It's a tough decision, but resist the temptation to do ' that's good enough' on the foam and fiberglass,, go after: 'that's the best that CAN be done'.. and you will be rewarded tenfold.

OH, and if you have a really cold night coming, make a habit of giving the KA4's interior a quick brush down with boiler cleaning brushes, you can do this with the stove running if you buy the right brushes and handles.. this will increase the heat transfer to the water, by removing the thin layer of fly ash on the water vessel.

Sounds like I want you to hire a secretary !!
Good work getting it installed and burning..

Greg L

Infiltration is almost always the "low hanging fruit". I took Greg's advice two years ago and sealed any draft I could find around the sill, windows, outlets, etc. The time and money I spent has already been recovered in fuel savings.

Edit: I also installed an hour meter on my EFM's stoker so I can easily see how much it runs per day. I keep a log of daily run time and also make note of any settings I adjust.

Thanks Greg & Rob. I agree on the insulation. When we tackle this project this summer, I plan on doing some form of spray insulation in all the outside walls & roof/ceilings.

I'll have to put a log book next to the boiler so I remember to record the usage. First 2 days I've avereaged ~120-130lbs per day. Temps lowside high teens F, highside high 20'sF

Well, until you can do some work on the house at least you have reduced your heating costs. I still think a few hours with a caulk gun could have a big payback...but that's up to you.

Is the K4 starting to sound like "The Little Engine That Could"?

you're right about the caulk gun. I do have tape that I may use to stop the air gaps for now since I'm only using temporary insulation board on the walls. These will be coming down when we remodel.

The KA-4 is chugging along nicely!!! I do love this boiler!

I forgot to mention. I just shorted the TT on the 8124 so the KA-4 stays at the high limit of 180F. I did this to help with the losses from multiple heat loads calling at once. I got the idea from a post I read a couple years ago from how Greg uses his AA-260 to heat his compound.

This seems to be working nicely.

Hi beatle, I have been reading your thread about your system, and going to a coal boiler. I do not know if anyone has told you about alternate heating systems web site that has a BTU calculator to estimate how many BTU's your house requires based on outside minimum average temprature and inside temprature desired then calculate the BTU's required for your home by figuring the heat loss. Another good website is wunderground.com, this site gives you regular weather info plus heating degree days for your area. Keeping a log book near your boiler also helps,I track # of bags per day, boiler temp & pressure, manometer reading, degree day , weather conditions. Today with this info, I can say ,the boiler burns about 4# per hour or 2 bags per day and on 3rd or 4th day add a 3rd bags. By the way, welcome to the forum, and there is a wealth of info available here. DAN

Thanks Dan. I'll check out AHS's website. I didn't realize they had those calcs on there. I only remember seeing a fuel comparison calculator. BTW, I never realized that we had our own fuel calc here: https://coalpail.com/fuel-comparison-calculator-home-heating

I love how you can change the efficiency and cost for each fuel to get a more accurate comparison.

Right now, my log is pretty simple, # of bags per day and high low temp recorded for the day according to weather.com. I'm averaging ~105 lbs per day with mild weather.