EFM install questions

Hello,
I've been around coal stokers all my life but have never had any experience with the EFM style. I've recently purchased an EFM boiler that looks to be the classic 520 style. It was still installed in an unoccupied home and I disassembled it and moved it into my house. It looks like everything should be in working order and everything is there but does somebody have a diagram as to how things go together that is a little better than the manual available from efmheating.com? None of the local plumbers want anything to do with it since they didn't sell it to me. I'd like to get this going as my main source of heat to replace my gas boiler for less than $1000. If anyone would be willing to help me out with this I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thank You,

It's sold in a pretty much assembled condition and final assembly is fairly easy. Until I can get some more pictures on this site, it's easier for you to call efm to see where a starting point is on this project. 610 965 9041. Ask for the stoker man.

where do you live? If you are close I could give you a hand.

Central Pa, Shamokin to be exact.

i have a forced air efm stoker that i assembled from a pile of parts......dont know much about the boiler part tho.....i'm not too far away, i have a lady friend over near gowen city i visit.....let me know if you need any help
scott

I didn't move the main waterjacket/boiler part into my house yet. There is surface rust on both the inside and outside of this unit. Would it be advisable to get this sand blasted before I install it or would it just rust again? It's been out of service for 10+ years and I thought this might give me a better look at the condition overall. For how heavy this thing seems to be built I doubt what I'm seeing would lead me to believe anything has rusted through but I'd like to be sure. I am planning on testing this with some air pressure before I disconnect my gas furnace since we are in the winter months already.

The only way to properly test it is hook up a water line to the boiler with a ball valve, install a pressure gauge, the hot water coil, and then cap off all the other openings except the top, leave that loose so all the air can escape when filling it. Once it's full to the point where the water is streaming out of the top plug, cap it off and bring the boiler pressure up to 30psi. Shut off the water and close the ball valve, check and make sure the gauge reads 30psi, dry off the boiler completely and go do something else for a while. If the gauge reads 30psi still then it's a good one! If it leaks it should be obvious. I gambled with mine, I hooked it all up and then pressure tested it. It's a steel boiler so it isn't going to crack like cast iron and I doubt it will ever rust through but it can't hurt to test it. As far as sandblasting it that's probably a great idea, you don't want all that rust in the system. Rust in the firebox will take care of itself once you light a fire

You do not want to pressure test with air, a failure could hurt or even kill you. The reason water is used to test is it doesn't compress and in a failure would not expand rapidly as air would.

The 520 boiler is constructed of 5/16" boiler plate steel.

stoker-man wrote:The 520 boiler is constructed of 5/16" boiler plate steel.

I wouldn't worry about any rust unless you can peel sheets of it off the surface.

Thanks for the tips. I didn't know it was that think of steel they were built out of but that makes sense considering the weight. I'll try to get some pics of everything as it goes together. I don't know who would want to see it but I looked at everybody else's pictures so it's only fair.

I've got everything moved and my gas furnace moved out of the way and I'm ready for the install. The only thing I'm not too sure of is the wiring. There were no wires on this unit when I got it but it did have a honeywell control that was still on it although extremely rusted. Would this get wired just like an oil or gas boiler where the motor runs off of the aquastat or is there something special that needs to be done. I don't have a watercoil in it yet but since I have to buy a new control for it anyway I was going to get a triple aquastat in case I ever wanted to.

Go to http://www.efmheating.com and look at the online manual for the 520. The wiring is easy. You'll need an aquastat to run the thing. You may not need the timer in the winter. I would just buy the triple aquastat right away. Get the old style L8124A Honeywell.

We just found out today that as of January 2008, the the Honeywell L8124A is now obsolete and no longer available from Honeywell. I believe they are superior to the current L7224 models, especially for stoker use, and if you think you'll ever need one, I would buy an extra on the internet while they are still out there. Our current stock is going to be saved for new stokers until it's exhausted.

There is always Sid Harvey's reman- I have always replaced the old Honeywell stoker relays with reman ones. We use quite a few reman parts on the oil side.