Fire in Coal Hopper - Keystoker KA6

glad you found coal......got a truck and a trailer? come out here and load up

Greg & Glen here are some pics about the questions I had on the hopper and the hole in the stoker where you can see coal !



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Hope these pics help , notice the hopper is not flat on the stoker

Notice the coal around the bolt at the stoker as well

Thanks

Love in Christ Jesus

Jay Williams

Jay:

put some Gorilla tape over the holes in the hopper. Mine is the same way. Remove the hopper and put self adhesive gasket rope in between the bottom of the hopper and the feeder mechanism.

From the pictures you post I see no reason for concern. The bit of coal seen through the elongated bolt hole is OK, it is above the Throat strap and does not pose a problem. The hopper fit does not look too bad either. If you wish you could take it off some time and check to see if a little bending of th flange on the bottom of the hopper makes a little better fit.
As long as coal is not falling out I would have no cause for concern.

jcw265 wrote: I have found Anthracite in Van Wert OH at a place called Rural Energy Products By the way I live 3 hours from Van Wert , I could find nothing at all where I live. So I feel I got a good deal based on the travel involved for them

Jay Williams

About 50 miles or so from Willmington Oh.
Reading Coal by the bag

The Stove Shop
Address: 3421 E State Route 296, Urbana, OH 43078
Phone: (937) 652-1782
Contact: Pete Aksenczuk

About 23 miles or so from Willmington Oh.
Blaschak Coal by the bag

Warren County Lumber
1111 WEST MAIN STREET
LEBANON, OHIO 45036
PHONE 513-932-9663 FAX TO 513-932-2169
http://www.warrengoodwood.com/

Also got the address of an Amish guy in Hillsboro Oh.
No phone of course cause he's Amish owns a Harness shop I'm told, PM if ya want it.
Sells Blaschak Coal by the bag

jcw got his load of Blaschak coal, and via phone we got the boiler burning the 'real stuff' last night. I haven't heard from him since... Probably curled up next to a warm radiator like one of WNY's cats....

Greg L..

Thank you all again for your help , may God truly bless each and every one of you. I with the help of Greg did get a fire started last night thank goodness for phones as Greg gave me play by play on what to do. Glen called to check on me right when he got off the road and also walked me through some more steps along with found out that I have family from Reading so I am kinda like a hometown boy !! hehehe. So what has happened since last night I know you are all wondering.

First I had to little of fire maybe 4 inches dead coal , 1 inch of fire and a whole lot of ash and unburnt coal. Then I had 4 inches of dead coal and a grate full of fire falling into ash pan ( thank you Glen for your advice at this time ) I started seeing blue flame dancing by the firetrap and became alarmed but Glen assured me it was just gas burning off the coal because the dead coal never was burning just blue flame on top of it . I adjusted again and I now have 4 or so inches of unburnt coal ,4 or so inches of fire and 3-4 inches of ash. my house has gone from around 52 deg to 62 deg in about 12 hours I am keeping hopper 2/3rd full and watching it. It does tend to dig from the center so i keep pushing coal that way but here is the clincher !! I am at work !! I have left it alone at home so I am starting to have more faith in it. It did fine over the night and I hope to get home to a house at 68 deg which is where I have my thermostat set at.

Thanks for the new coal locations what a blessing this is because Lebanon is just really right down the road from me. Also I will pull hopper this weekend and reset it just because I want everything right. I pray that I have finally crossed the hill on all these issues and I have God above to thank for leading me to all you fantastic people. I again from the bottom of my heart thank each and everyone of you for all you have down ., I will keep you posted and again God Bless each and every one of you !!

Love in Christ Jesus
Jay Williams ( aka a whole lot warmer )

Ok I am home and so far so good, I did notice the coal in the stoker had started to get as high as the sides were so I contacted gaw and he told me to check my ash pan and see if the coal ash was full and pushing back on the coal coming off and guess what , the pan was full and I am now waiting to see if the coal thins out some. Other then that everything seems to be ok the house is 66 which is where I have it set and the water is between 130 - 150 again where I have set it , I also backed off the feed screw one more turn and will wait to see what this does <, I have to be close I know the only concern was how thick the coal was casue it was not that way when I left for work this morning, So I would say gaw is right and I am waiting to see. ANyone ever have this issue as well ?? Anything to be concerned about. Again I have 4-5 inches of unburnt coal which does see, to have a blue flame dancing over it but no orange flame or any indication of fire , then 5-6 inches of fire maybe a lil more then that , and a inch or so of unburnt , no fire going off the grate though, I am going to empty ash pan everyday from now on. Well waiting on replies and comments please . As always thank you all very very much

Love in Christ Jesus

Jay Williams

jcw265 wrote:Ok I am home and so far so good, I did notice the coal in the stoker had started to get as high as the sides were so I contacted gaw and he told me to check my ash pan and see if the coal ash was full and pushing back on the coal coming off and guess what , the pan was full and I am now waiting to see if the coal thins out some. Other then that everything seems to be ok the house is 66 which is where I have it set and the water is between 130 - 150 again where I have set it , I also backed off the feed screw one more turn and will wait to see what this does <, I have to be close I know the only concern was how thick the coal was casue it was not that way when I left for work this morning, So I would say gaw is right and I am waiting to see. ANyone ever have this issue as well ?? Anything to be concerned about. Again I have 4-5 inches of unburnt coal which does see, to have a blue flame dancing over it but no orange flame or any indication of fire , then 5-6 inches of fire maybe a lil more then that , and a inch or so of unburnt , no fire going off the grate though, I am going to empty ash pan everyday from now on. Well waiting on replies and comments please . As always thank you all very very much

Love in Christ Jesus

Jay Williams

I have a KA-4 . Glad to see you are up and running . It is normal to see the little blue flames on top of the black coal behind the red hot burning coal . Its just like someone else said just the coal gassing off . Sounds like you are on the right track . Once you get used to tuning it you will love it . I just check my ash pan everyday usually have to push the ash down into the pan so it dosent back up to the stoker grate . I just use a small coal shovel push the coal fwd in the hopper the look into the fire door reach the shovel in and settle the coal down in the pan . I have a large pan so I have been getting 2 days before emptying it. After a while it will just be routine for you . Dave

I think I am a little gun shy due to the fires I had right off the get go. However I will due my best to ignore the little blue flames as they are harmless. they are harmless, they are harmless. ( hehehe ) trying to convince myself on the forum !! Now as far as new updates they are as follows, coal level is down from last night sitting very nice in the grate. Have about 4 inches unburnt , 4 inches fire and 4 inches of ash , I think I might need to bump the feed 1 turn fwd but I am waiting till I get home and see what it looks like. I have already got a routine going on the ash pan I will pull it before I leave for work and then when I get home to make sure it does not fill up. Boiler is kicking on and off per water and thermostat temp . Coal usage appears to be slowing down and all in all I have slept good and the house is at 67 - 68 deg .

Question ? when the boiler is on the off cycle ( just lil fan blowing to keep fire lit ) I have it set to kick on about every 10 minutes for about 2 minutes to push a lil coal , from the factory is was about 15-20 minutes , does anyone have any comments on this. Well I am at work so I better get doing something but let me close in this. Again I want to thank all of you for what you have done and continue to do to help me in this time of need. Special thanks go out to Greg & Glen for the phone calls and time . Special thanks to all of the posters that have guided me on this adventure. Your time , thoughts , emails , kindness, is so much appreciated , so as always may God Bless each and everyone of you ! in all that you do.

Love in Christ Jesus

Jay Williams

jcw265 wrote:Question ? when the boiler is on the off cycle ( just lil fan blowing to keep fire lit ) I have it set to kick on about every 10 minutes for about 2 minutes to push a lil coal , from the factory is was about 15-20 minutes , does anyone have any comments on this.

That's just to keep it going, mostly for the summer time if you're heating the domestic hot water with it. Other wise it would go out before there was a need for heat. However I'm not familiar with your type of furnace so it may be different, on ours we have it set for one hour. In the winter you don't even need it on ours.

I think I will wait till weekend and out it back to factory default and see what happens Im sure it will help me save coal. Plus I can keep a good eye on it. Well got home from work everything A OK ,, Greg checked in with me and gave me a few more tips and all in all I think this is our first day with no issues. Thank you all so much and I will stay in touch through out the week, any more ideas or comments please let me know !!

Love in Christ Jesus

Jay Williams

Jay, I have an older Keystoker timer. I am pretty sure they changed since mine. My stoker runs 45 seconds every 14 minutes. Mostly necessary for the summer but during a warm spell in the winter you could loose your fire without a timer. The nature of the Keystoker requires a pretty regular feeding of the fire.

I am attaching a picture I made up to show where you want and don't want fire on the grate. Hope this helps you out.

What do you mean by Pilot ?? on the picture , sometimes my fire is longer then other times , why is this , I have not touched anything cause its working !! but I have noticed it does seem to move up and down the grate 1 or 2 inches from time to time , deadzone seems to not move just the fire and ash , still think Im ok but just wondering !! Thanks for the email gaw I replied to you as well !! Thanks everyone

Love in Christ Jesus

Jay Willliams

What I refer to as "pilot" is the size your fire will shrink to when being operated by the timer when there is no call for heat. Think of it as a pilot light in an old gas range. The fire bed is dynamic on a stoker. You will notice changes in size based on recent heating demands put on your boiler. On a very cold day your fire may be all the way down to the full fire line most of the time. It should never go beyond or you have too much coal being pushed and the feed must be backed off. If it is running for 15 o 20 minutes strait during a demand for heat and the fire has stalled in growth well short of full fire you can adjust more coal. Do your adjustments 1 turn at a time with hours in between. I like to give each adjustment a full day to see the results. You will be surprised at the difference 1 turn of the coal feed makes.

Based on your description the boiler is operating properly. Nothing to worry about, maybe a little fine tuning in your feed at most and possibly the timer. It will be very difficult or impossible to know if timer adjustments are set right. A day or two of real warm weather is needed to verify timer setting.