My New EFM 520 (With Pictures)

Good Evening Guys,
While of course this project will never be "finished" I wanted to take some time to snap a few pictures and post them along with info on my new (1967) EFM 520 boiler. I purchased this unit from Ann Marie and Steve and am very very pleased. It is the second unit that my family has purchased from them, the first being a 520 High Boy that went into my parents home. My wife and I rent out half of our 4500 square foot home and are using the 520 to heat our side as well as the neighbors side of the house. We are also using the 520 to produce all of our domestic hot water and our neighbors by using the domestic hot water coil to keep two electric hot water heaters hot at all times with a continues loop. We are currently running two zones, one that is a hot water to air heat exchanger in our old oil fired forced hot air furnace and one that goes into the neighbors oil fired hot air furnace (obviously also using a hot water to air heat exchanger). This next week I am going to install hot water cast iron radiators in the second floor of our side of the house since our vents in the living room and dining room were covered up when I installed our Hitzer 354 custom. These radiators will run on a third zone that will have it's own thermostat in the living room. The forced hot air will still heat the up stairs and will of course run on it's own thermostat located in the up stairs hallway. I have a ten ton coal bin under the front porch of the house that feeds into the basement where the auger takes the coal up into the unit. My reasoning for having a small coal bin also in the basement was so that I could try various blends of fuel for the stoker and decide which one I liked the best with out contaminating my whole ten tons of coal. I am about to start blending prune pits in with my UAE rice coal on a 50/50 (by weight) ratio and will go from there. Once I figure out what I like, or more so what the stoker likes I can blend the coal as I put it in my coal bin for the next year. I use a 60 foot 8 inch grain auger to get the coal from my dump trailer into the coal bin under the front porch. I am using a Grundfos variable speed digital circulator pump for the heat exchangers and a Grundfos single stage brass pump for the domestic hot water loop. Grundfos zone valves were used and a Taco board was used to control the setup. I am sure there is more but that is all I can think of at this time. I have included pictures. Thanks again for all your self with some of my issues that popped up from time to time. I do have some questions at this time but will post them after I get these pictures loaded.

Thanks again,
Glenn

I have had the boiler running for about a month now, and it is doing a fantastic job. That said, I wanted to run my settings by you guys and see if there may be something wrong. I know every boiler setting will be different but I am running Mom and Dad's high boy at 4 air and 4 teeth. I am running mine on 3 air and 7 teeth and it seems like my fire bed is still a little deep in the pot. Now, I do not know what my draft is on my chimney but I have horribly strong drafts. I set the baro by waiting until we had a cool windless night and when the blower was running the flap would just open a hair. I am about to insulate my 520 and Mom and Dad's does have foil bubble wrap around it with the blue metal surround. Not sure if that would change anything or not.

Thanks,
Glenn

Nice Glenn

Nice job Glenn!...How do you set your baro? To do it right you need a manometer. Do you have one?

Thanks guys! I do have one, but have not hooked it up yet. I got a new timer (Dayton) and when I hook that up I think I will also do the magnomitor.

Thanks again,
Glenn

Beautiful boiler and nice job.

Looks great. Years of service awaits you. Well done.

Man, I wish I had that basement! Nice install.

Looks good!

Thanks again for the comps guys! So I started to add in my prune pits last night and as you can see in the picture they are burning great! I am having an issue though with smoke. As soon as they reached the burn pot I started getting smoke down the auger tube and into the coal bin and then of course through out my basement. This is not something I got when I was burning just coal. Now, just to cover the following: I do not have an auger fire. The auger is cold except of course right where it goes into the stoker. I have the coupler and space where the bin extension meets the short auger sealed with RTV calk so I am not allowing any air to get in through there. So, any ideas???

Thanks,
Glenn