Just Installed a Pocono

Installed a Leisure Line Pocono furnace on February 17th, 2012 and have enjoyed constant and consistent heat since then. I purchased it from STOYELL Stove, Coal in Moravia, NY and they installed it. Rodger and son Mike Stoyell are tops and very professional. I highly recommend them to anyone in this area.
We have been customers of Suburban Propane and Oil for over 40 years and I have had it with their pricing. Checked around and found that they are way more than anyone else around here and after a $780 bill to fill my tank, I said that that is enough. I knew of some people who had LL coal stokers and I could not believe the heat that these stoves were putting out and once I found out what it cost them, there was no going back to oil.
Even though the temperatures are way out of the norm for this winter, I don’t know if I’m burning more coal that I should. I have figured that I’m burning around 48# per day since it was installed. I keep the Coal-trol at 72 days and 68 for the night. I’m heating a 1700 Sqft, 1830’s era farm house. It is fully insulated and all windows have been replaced.
I look forward to adding and gaining lots of information from this site. It’s great knowing that there are so many out there who are becoming non supporters of the Middle East oil suppliers.
Regards,
Joe
Groton, NY
urdahere
New Member

Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:02 pm
Location: Groton, NY
Stove/Furnace Make: Leisure Line
Stove/Furnace Model: Pocono

Welcome, sounds like it working good for you. The usage sounds about right, depending on your temperatures. Check your settings and you may have to slightly adjust depending on your comfort levels. You may see a lot of temp swing if using the setback with Coal, since coal times time to respond. Most of us don't use the setback feature, just leave it at one set temp.

Good luck, so some reading on here and you will get a lot of ideas.

(p.s. My brother live in Groton).

Welcome to the forum!!! Congrats on making the switch to an affordable heat source!

You will love watching the oil / propane delivery guys driving past your house.

urdahere wrote:Installed a Leisure Line Pocono furnace on February 17th, 2012

Congratulations on the install and welcome to coal heat.

One question do You have a time machine it seems you installed your furnace before the the time has come today is only 2/7/12
sure its just a typo, just having fun. Welcome to the forum.

Eric

Opps! No "Time Machine" here. Meant to say Jan. 17, 2012.

Joe

welcome and congratulations on your decision to break the chain and control of the oil speculators, ( damn criminals ). Unfortunately I burn about 5 gallons of oil a month for hot water and hopefully next year I can go to an on demand LPG set up for that. It's nice to go against the grain sometimes.

Now that I know that my Pocono is working fine, I just sent a registered letter to Suburbane telling them that I'm done with them. Oil tank is full for the backup oil furnace just in case I want to go away for a few days. Figure that the tank should last many years.

Now I have to stock up on rice coal as I understand that China is buying all the Anthracite.

Joe

Welcome to the forum and the addiction! First year with our LL and we love it. Remember the days of $500 propane bills, now the most is $30 a month for cooking. Tried the setback thing with the coaltrol and found that we didn't like it, now its only 1 degree
setback from day to night and things stay perfect and I think we burn less coal this way. If we get chilly we just kick the coaltrol on to the FEED setting for a few minutes and let things warm up.

I don't think you will have any problem finding rice around here, don't sweat it.

Bob in Ithaca

Still trying to understand the relationship of the feed rate to the set temp.
My temp. set is 72 days and 68 nights.
Feed rate is 5 MIN and 34 MAX ( this was set by the installers and I have not changed it) Is this a good setting? Seems to be working fine and I really don't want to screw around with it. Is there a better configuration than this?

Joe

That's about right, 34 is my useful MAX. Play around when you have a little more experience.

urdahere wrote:Still trying to understand the relationship of the feed rate to the set temp.
My temp. set is 72 days and 68 nights.
Feed rate is 5 MIN and 34 MAX ( this was set by the installers and I have not changed it) Is this a good setting? Seems to be working fine and I really don't want to screw around with it. Is there a better configuration than this?

Joe

FR is just the display of what the thermostat is doing based on amount of difference between the set point temp and actual ambient temp and time. The Min is only considered if the FR is zero for the most part. The Min is like the idle setting on your car you want it set low enough that too much heat is not being dumped into the room or up the stack since the convection blower(s) are not running when operating on the min. It can also be used if your chimney is marginal to help put more heat up the chimney if needed at idle. The Min and Max are only for the feed motor the number entered is based on seconds/cycle ( approx 2 minutes/cycle) of the feed motor. The Max is a little more complicated when the FR is at 99 your feed motor will run for how ever many seconds that the Max is set at. If the FR is 50 the feed motor will run approx 1/2 of what the Max is set at, so for the feed motors operation you can think of the FR being a percentage of the time entered for Max. But your time will never go below the min setting so as to maintain the fire. Also the max should be set so you have a full grate of fire when the FR is at 99 and you want to make sure no hot coals are dropping into the ash pan and being wasted. It basically dictates the max fire size of the stove. If it is too low then you will not get full benefit of the stove, Too high and you will waste coal.
The other use of the FR is control of the convection fan start point and speed. If the CFT is set for its default of 8 then your convection fan will only run once the FR is 8 or above. It is not quite a percentage of the fan speed but for most purposes it can be thought of that way. Example if the FR is at 50 then the convection fan should be running approx half speed.

I hope this helps. It really is not that complicated but it is a little difficult to explain. Thanks Dave

Flyer5 wrote:

urdahere wrote:Still trying to understand the relationship of the feed rate to the set temp.
My temp. set is 72 days and 68 nights.
Feed rate is 5 MIN and 34 MAX ( this was set by the installers and I have not changed it) Is this a good setting? Seems to be working fine and I really don't want to screw around with it. Is there a better configuration than this?

Joe

FR is just the display of what the thermostat is doing based on amount of difference between the set point temp and actual ambient temp and time. The Min is only considered if the FR is zero for the most part. The Min is like the idle setting on your car you want it set low enough that too much heat is not being dumped into the room or up the stack since the convection blower(s) are not running when operating on the min. It can also be used if your chimney is marginal to help put more heat up the chimney if needed at idle. The Min and Max are only for the feed motor the number entered is based on seconds/cycle ( approx 2 minutes/cycle) of the feed motor. The Max is a little more complicated when the FR is at 99 your feed motor will run for how ever many seconds that the Max is set at. If the FR is 50 the feed motor will run approx 1/2 of what the Max is set at, so for the feed motors operation you can think of the FR being a percentage of the time entered for Max. But your time will never go below the min setting so as to maintain the fire. Also the max should be set so you have a full grate of fire when the FR is at 99 and you want to make sure no hot coals are dropping into the ash pan and being wasted. It basically dictates the max fire size of the stove. If it is too low then you will not get full benefit of the stove, Too high and you will waste coal.
The other use of the FR is control of the convection fan start point and speed. If the CFT is set for its default of 8 then your convection fan will only run once the FR is 8 or above. It is not quite a percentage of the fan speed but for most purposes it can be thought of that way. Example if the FR is at 50 then the convection fan should be running approx half speed.

I hope this helps. It really is not that complicated but it is a little difficult to explain. Thanks Dave

Excellent Review

I have a Pocono I purchased from Rodger at Stoyell's 5 years ago! They are great people, great service, and go out of their way to accomodate bulk coal pick up and delivery!
My Pocono is the 90K BTU model, back vent with a 12 inch duct top, the 110K BTU like yours didn't come out til a few years after I bought mine! But bottom line, its a great stove, and the coal-trol is great! I don't have mine hooked in the most efficent way, its ducted to the hot air side of my oil forced hot air furnace, and I just let the stove's 2- 265 cfm blowers push heat throughout the registers!
The house is a 1850's 2100 square foot farm house located on the ridge between Owasco and Cayuga lakes! Can you say Wind? The house could be tighter, but has mostly new windows, and 12+ inches of insulation on the attick. Could be better, but not bad! When its very cold and Windy, I do run the oil furnace at the same time to supplement, but it really uses minimal oil.
In the 5 years we have had the stove, we have only burned 1/4 tank of fuel oil! I burn between 4 1/2 and 5 tons of coal per year depending the year. I don't think thats to bad considering my set up! I have the coal-trol set point temp set at 69 for both day and night, we found that work's the best with our setup.
As far as the feed rate, the LL default settings for teh coal-trol are 6 min, 40 max. I installed mine myself, so I had to experiment a bit. I found I had to turn my max FR down to stop from getting burning coals pushing of the grate when the feed rate is at max (99). For me I have the max FR set at 29, and that seems perfect! Hot coals stop about an inch back from the end, with not to many un burnt coals falling off! From what I have read, the max FR will vary depending on many factors!
The stove has been flawless! I shut it down durning Christmas break, vaccume the fly ash out of the pipes, stove body and great. I also oil the motors as well. When te season is over, I clean it again, vaccume, take stove pipe off, clean everything with baking soda and water, and oil the motors.
It has never one time jammed or plugged up! The LL feeder system, with the coal-trol is hard to beat! Combine a well designed and simple feeder system of the LL stokers, the coal-trol, and the great service of Stoyell's, you will be satisfied

it's funny the coal trol settings I upgraded to the new 110 k as soon as they came out but I'm at 5 minn and 28 max and its fine for me can I just say we love this thing way better than the oil guy , we keep the house at 70 and I burn 4-5 ton a year coal is the way to heat ur house

After starting this topic a little over a month ago, here are some pictures of my Pocono and how I have it configured into my existing oil furnace. Note the photos of the hopper and the rust after just over a month of use. Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Joe