Will-Burt stoker info library

Since I live practically on top of enormous reserves of bituminous coal, and relatively far away from NEPA, I've always wanted to burn the local stuff for about 20% of the cost of anthracite here. I've also got a grand plan for a house and shop setup kinda like GregL, but the shop would instead be a 2500 sq.ft. hangar on enough land to have a grass airstrip. First trick is finding the land....but that's another discussion.

To that end, I've been corresponding with Dan at Will-Burt regarding the residential stoker model they still manufacture. Note that it was quoted to me at approx. $4500, and that doesn't include the boiler, which I don't have a cost on yet. Needless to say, it's probably going to make an Axeman look like a bargain. But, if I can burn $50/ton coal, well.....that's like $3 per million BTU - that's one step above free in my book..... Dan has been most responsive and helpful with information and I've been very impressed. It's hard to find that in today's companies.

Anyway, I've attached a Zip file with a bunch of drawings, specs, information, and a Word document of some of the e-mail text from Will-Burt. It's some excellent information. What you end up with is a commercial (Burnham) boiler with a max output of about 240K Btu running on the Will-Burt stoker. This isn't something you'd use to heat a little 1500 sq.ft. ranch house, but anyone with a decent heating load could manage it, especially on the lowest of the 3 feed rates on the stoker. The Will-Burt stoker is very similar to the Iron Fireman that GregL uses to fire Bertha. I believe that Will-Burt may be connected to the Iron Fireman unit in some way.

So, anybody that has a good supply of bituminous coal (and a hefty bank balance) - here's what you need to do to set up a system to burn it efficiently and automatically.

Enjoy!

Chris

I was able to follow up today with Burnham Commercial on the 4N-63 boiler that was recommended by Will-Burt to mate up to the S30 stoker. I knew I was going to be in for some sticker shock on a commercial boiler that weighs 1500#, but I was a little unprepared for the ballpark $10,000 cost quoted.

So, the total cost of just the boiler and stoker will run around $15K, plus everything else to make it work as a system. Not for the faint of heart, I suppose. It would, however, likely be the last system you would ever have to install, being built reminiscent of the "old days" when a heating plant was designed to last the life of the house.

Secondly, with the price of local coal, it equates to about $3.50 per million BTU, the payback would be pretty significant. A comparable anthracite burner, the Axeman-Anderson 260M is around $8500, but the cost of fuel is double for the local NEPA, and almost quadruple for me compared to the local coal ($80/ton).

Here's their website for anyone interested....cool stuff.

http://www.willburt.com/stkMain.asp

Sorry to do this to you Chris but those documents are copyrighted, you'll have to get permission from them to upload here.

No problem, Richard. Anyone that would like a copy can just PM me. I don't want to cause any disruption with the nice folks at Burnham or Will-Burt.

Chances are they don't care but I'll need at least a email from them.