Wl110

It would be completely ideal if I could put the boiler in my garage, I would have to carry coal a whole 10' to fill my hopper and to empty my ash pan. I don't know the costs that would go into putting it into the garage, put probably out of my price range. If I could build it myself then it would defiantly be do-able.

I guess the next best thing would be to build a small bin in the basement right underneath the one window, then build a enclosed chute that extends beyond the window into the outside then opens up so I could dump a wheelbarrow full of coal into it and fill the bin. I don't know how well an enclosed chute would work, but when moving the coal I would rather have the bin and chute enclosed to keep the dust down if possible.

Also I had a question about storing coal, can I just pile it in my driveway and cover it with a tarp, how about a bin with lids. Does it hurt if the coal gets wet?

Flyer5 wrote:

xandrew245x wrote:
Just give me a large fortune and I can help you out there. Ha ha

If I had one I would be glad to share!

ME TOO!! If I won the 600 million on the lottery last week I would have given out a lot of free boilers.[/quote]

That would make me a very happy man!

dust is not an issue and you may not even need to have the coal bin in the house with this brilliant set up....

15 Gal Coal Vac System Tutorial

I read about that the other day, and that is a brilliant set up! I had an idea similar to it, this way I wouldn't have to carry coal across my house. I was going to put a 50gal drum in the basement near the boiler, maybe mount it above the hopper exactly like that setup. I would then cut a hole to the outside of the house and run 4" pipe from the outside to that 50 gallon drum, the outside pipe would be connected to a box that would be ground level, to fill my bin inside I would simply bring a wheelbarrow full of coal over, dump into the box and watch as it travels through the pipe into my drum, then to fill my hopper I can just open something on the bottom of the drum and flow coal into the hopper. This would allow me to store a whole hopper full of coal and the 50 gal drum of coal inside at any given time.

Basically with that design you showed me, The coal is getting vacuumed as it is entering the 50 gallon drum? With that set up, it also looks like the coal hopper will never go empty as long as the drum is full.

Now if I could just think of some plan that would take the ashes from the ash pan and transfer them to the outside like a big vacuum cleaner

xandrew245x wrote: Now if I could just think of some plan that would take the ashes from the ash pan and transfer them to the outside like a big vacuum cleaner

Here ya go....

Homemade Ash Vacuum System

Genius....now substitute a 50 gal drum for that box and its a killer idea!

Put both of these ideas into effect and it will make me a lazy person.

One of the major obsticals to overcome with these ideas is actually putting a 4" pipe through my wall, my house is brick outside, and Im pretty sure I would have to remove some brick to get to the wood, once that is done I should be able to knock a hole it in pretty easily. Anyone know how to remove a couple bricks?

You could rent a Core Drill and drill a 5" OD hole through. That is the 'perfect way to do it.....however it may not be cost effective at this time. You also could drill a perimeter with a concrete drill and remove the center.
Would take about an hour, but also would look good, when done. The quality of the original bricklayers might come into the equation if the bricks come loose...... You could chisel out the joint lines and remove them manually also, then cut the perimeter after that adventure......Plan on some loss of skin and a 'bashed' area of skin between the thumb and forefinger unless you are highly skilled. (Not a job for Homer Simpson).

You could 'bribe' a local mason of handyman to do it and relax.......

My parents have a concrete drill that I have some experience with, I guess I could drill some holes and knock out the middle since I already have the drill, I'm not sure how much it would be to rent a core drill. I only need to get through the brick on the outside, where I Plan on coming through on the inside is wood.

I have been looking at the place where I plan on installing the furnace and I have a few concerns. I plan on placing the boiler in between the existing boiler and the hot water heater, the concerns I have are about clearance. Since the back wall in concrete I can have the boiler as close as possible with no problems, then that will give me plenty of clearance on the front side of the unit, the hopper side will be towards the hot water heater, so clearance is fine there, but on the side where my existing oil boiler is, it will be closer than 19", is that going to be a problem?

Another problem is as you can see in the following picture, all the controls are mounted on the wall, which will then be behind where I want to install the boiler, the gray box closest to the bottom is 58" from the floor, from my understanding the boiler is only 54" tall. Is it going to hurt having those behind the boiler? I read the manual and didn't see anything about height requirements from combustible surfaces. On a side note I did a little measuring and I don't think I am going to be able to build a bin above my hopper that I can fill from the outside, I just don't have the height. If I did, I would probably have to have an auger feed it to the bin inside. However I could build a small bin right outside the wall, and run a 4" pipe through the wall from that bin straight into the hopper, when the bin outside gets low I can just take wheelbarrow loads from my big bins and fill that one up, it would be an extended hopper essentially.

Your pictures need a few more perspectives, what is to the left? If you could take some more pictures and make a diagram of the plan view with dimensions that would be helpful. The bottom line is that any inspector or insurance company rep that is required to approve your installation should be involved from day one.

Matthaus wrote:Your pictures need a few more perspectives, what is to the left? If you could take some more pictures and make a diagram of the plan view with dimensions that would be helpful. The bottom line is that any inspector or insurance company rep that is required to approve your installation should be involved from day one.

I will try to get a few more pictures tonight, the room is pretty tiny, but there should be enough room, if worse comes to worse that hole control board could be moved. I called my insurance company and they said they didn't need to come out and see it, coal will have no effect on my insurance, but would wood.

I plan on having the boiler professionally installed, but I don't want to buy it if I will end up having major problems with installing it.

Another option would be to move my oil furnace, and put the coal boiler in its place, but then I don't know the distant to combustibles for my current oil furnace.

My vote is that the installer needs to be involved with the planning, nothing like having the guy responsible there on site before the purchase is made.

Okay, I will give them a call and set up a day for them to come out and take a look. He was there working on my furnace the other day and he said it should be fine where I said about putting it, but I didn't tell him any dimensions or things like that. I have a feeling that the control board will need to be moved, which will be more $$$, but I want it done right.

It would be a tight fit, but I think if the control board was moved, there would be no problem with distances. If I can't fit it in there I was one of two options.

1. Remove the oil furnace or relocate it.
2. Place the coal/oil boiler on the opposite side of the basement, build a chimney and run all interior lines and wires above the drop ceiling back to the existing boiler room

I thought about just doing away with the oil boiler, but I don't know what my insurance will think of that.

I couldn't muster up the energy to take some more pictures or make a diagram but I did measure a little bit more.

From the back wall, I will need to have the boiler out about 17" away from the wall due to the original piping that is in place for the baseboard. The right side will be 4" away from the boiler, all that is needed on the hopper side, on the front side I will have about 50" from the front to the nearest combustible surface which would be shelves that are up on the wall, the shelves could be taken down if need which would had 8' more space. On the oil gun side I would only have about 12" on clearance from the oil gun on my existing boiler, is that going to be an issue?

Any way I look at it, I am going to have to move my control board elsewhere.

Another option which would make 10 times more cense but more money would be involved would be moving my oil boiler and placing the coal boiler in its place. The oil boiler could then be powervent right out the wall.

LIke I said though, that would be more $$$ but would probably be the best idea.

The base gets up to around 200*F but based on our UL testing we passed with the boiler within 4" of the temp sensor wall. If I am understanding what you described it should be OK, it is very important to have enough clearance on the ash door side (the code requirement is 48") so you can remove the ash pan and not be cramped for lighting and adjusting the unit.