Leisure Line Ak-110 questions

Hello Flyer5. I am curious if you could help me with information about your AK-110. I am in the process of deciding on which one of your products I am going to purchase. I am leaning towards the AK-110. Everyone I talk to says coal is the way to heat. I am currently running propane for baseboard heat, fireplace insert, water heater, oven, and clothes dryer...So I will have to keep propane. Currently I am thinking of just adding the AK-110 and direct venting it to heat in the late fall thru early spring, then use the propane furnace I have to take the chill out of the air in late spring and early fall. From my research, I can buy enough coal for almost a complete winter for the same amount I spent last month on propane. I am curious if the AK-110 can be run, in any way, with multiple thermastats throughout the house? Any information, suggestions, and input would be greatly appreciated. I have the vender in Oxford(Peter) that I will be purchasing from. He has been very informative and helpful. It just looks like you are online more than he is...if you don't mind me asking you?
readytobwarm

readytobwarm wrote:Hello Flyer5. I am curious if you could help me with information about your AK-110. I am in the process of deciding on which one of your products I am going to purchase. I am leaning towards the AK-110. Everyone I talk to says coal is the way to heat. I am currently running propane for baseboard heat, fireplace insert, water heater, oven, and clothes dryer...So I will have to keep propane. Currently I am thinking of just adding the AK-110 and direct venting it to heat in the late fall thru early spring, then use the propane furnace I have to take the chill out of the air in late spring and early fall. From my research, I can buy enough coal for almost a complete winter for the same amount I spent last month on propane. I am curious if the AK-110 can be run, in any way, with multiple thermastats throughout the house? Any information, suggestions, and input would be greatly appreciated. I have the vender in Oxford(Peter) that I will be purchasing from. He has been very informative and helpful. It just looks like you are online more than he is...if you don't mind me asking you?
readytobwarm

Hi,
The only downside to the coal trol is you can only run 1 thermostat. But you can run your air zones on thermostats, then you would just have to experiment on the best place in the house for the Coal-trol thermost to be placed. The Coal-trol regulates the furnace very well. The furnace can idle at a very low temperature so you probably would not use the propane much or at all in the spring and fall. Its no problem asking me as well. Peter is a good guy. He has been very good with service and follow up from my experience.
There are a few people on here that have the AK 110 maybe they will chime in as well.
Thanks, Dave

My 2cents...
(i dont have th ak110)

...but if you are currently using a forced air system with multiple zones (how many stats do you have)...
Why cant the 110 be ducted into existing sypply plenum?
...maybe i am missing something?...i havent had my second pot of coffee yet.....

Ok...im on my second pot of joe...

....furnace ??....or boiler..??

If you have baseboard heat already, have you considered a boiler?

Rob R. wrote:If you have baseboard heat already, have you considered a boiler?

...thats my confusion..
Baseboard heat.....but OP mentions a furnace...??

Rigar wrote:

Rob R. wrote:If you have baseboard heat already, have you considered a boiler?

...thats my confusion..
Baseboard heat.....but OP mentions a furnace...??

WOW. I completely missed that. oopps

Flyer5 wrote:

Rigar wrote:

Rob R. wrote:If you have baseboard heat already, have you considered a boiler?

...thats my confusion..
Baseboard heat.....but OP mentions a furnace...??

WOW. I completely missed that. oopps

...and i thought it was just me....!

Hello Readytobewarm. [rtbw]..

My comments are based on your statement that you have BASEBOARD heat, which is hot water baseboard.. If you have hot air PLEASE let us know.
If you have multiple thermostats throughout your house, those thermostats trigger either individual circulator pumps
or zone valves.
If you use a LL110 BOILER, [not the Hot air AK110 furnace] then you can heat your house with the same baseboards and thermostats.

The details of HOW the boiler is installed and HOW the plumbing works is VERY important..a good installer will do it right.

You can also use the LL110 boiler to pre-heat your propane DHW heater so it will use virtually zero propane except under high water use.

As in all instalations a proper heat loss calculation and heat use calculation is very important.. Heating the house is one thing,
Domstic hot Water [DHW] can often be a greater consumer of BTUs than heat. especially if you have kids.

Give us some more info about your current system, propane use, number of user of DHW and how large the house is hand
how many hot water baseboard zones your hause has, [how many different thermostats]

Giv eus some more info, and remember a boiler heats water, a furnace heats air. It is very common to mix up the terms,
but it can get VERY confusing to us [heat-heads]..

Greg L

...by any chance do you have multiple zone forced air ??

First, I must thank you all for information and input. I do have hot water baseboard heat. I do currently have three thermastats. My current set up is a Buderus G124 and a Reliance 40 gallon propane water heater. The house is 1269sqft upstairs and 864sqft finished downstairs next to the maintenance room. We have two adults, a 19 y/o boy, 14 y/o girl, and 10 y/o boy. The current set up has this equipment in the center of the house in a small maintenance room. Peter suggested the WL-110 and to change the oil gun for a gas gun for late spring and early fall. He has been wonderful giving me every option available. I really did not want to move the coal from storage to the hopper daily. Getting up in age and just not as nimble as I use to be.

My thought was to put a small room in the back of the garage for the coal boiler, have the bin outside, run the bin thru the foundation(raised ranch)to the hopper, and direct vent the exhaust. I planned on insulating the foundation in the room added in the garage so I didn't lose heat in the wall. I was thinking the AK-110 for the force hot air to attempt to thermastat each bedroom to shut the kids up. I do not mind the idea of redoing the hot water baseboard to have more than the 3 zones currently have. I am extremely comfortable with the construction side of it. Bottom line is this is my first experience with coal and Peter gave me alot of options. Options are great unless you don't have enough knowledge to make a decision.

I have had people try to influence me to get Harman, Alaska, and other coal stoves/boilers but in my research, you can't miss with Leisure Line. I cannot recall ever being so impressed with people standing behind their product enough to give out their cell number in the manual. THAT'S MIND BOGGLING TO ME!

Is there some reason you would not put a boiler in the garage instead of a furnace?

Where is the garage located in relation to the maintenance/mechanical room?

The only reason I was thinking the furnace was that I already have the propane boiler and didn't know the coal boiler would take care of the early fall and late spring.

The end of the garage I was talking about closing off is next to the boiler room. The idea of why the closing off the garage area is only for easy access to the coal bin(outside for easy access from person delivering the coal) to coonect to the hopper.

readytobwarm wrote:The only reason I was thinking the furnace was that I already have the propane boiler and didn't know the coal boiler would take care of the early fall and late spring.

The end of the garage I was talking about closing off is next to the boiler room. The idea of why the closing off the garage area is only for easy access to the coal bin(outside for easy access from person delivering the coal) to coonect to the hopper.

I run coal year round for DHW. Maybe a few weeks I shut down for maintenance.

"I really did not want to move the coal from storage to the hopper daily. Getting up in age and just not as nimble as I use to be."

UM.....

"a 19 y/o boy, 14 y/o girl, and 10 y/o boy"

Looks like I wouldn't touch coal for say, 10years?


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