Land Down Under

Check out this job! Holland stove probably installed in the 30's 0r 40's burning stove coal and still is heating this house. It needed a new grate but would have to wait weeks to get it made. After about 80 years of service the home owner decided to replace it. I installed a new Keystoker in its place. Here are some pics.....very interesting to say the least. It is not snowing in the pic...just coal dust constantly falling from the rafters. BTW I didn't scrap this gem, I had Joe from Marks Supply pic it up. I'm sure he will give it another life somewhere else.http://www.anthracitecoalstokers.com/

Way cool, thanks for posting the photos.

Matthew D thanks for posting this(the furnace looks the same except its not rapped in asbestos ) it reminds me of my Grandmothers house in Euclid Ohio and that old gravity coal furnace they had. The house was built in 1945 during WW2 fired on coal until 1949 or 1950 when they bought a sears NG conversion kit that ran (or is still running) until I sold the house in 1999.Thanks again and keep them coming .Keepaeyeonit

Matt, is that 4 six inch ducts coming off that one plenum? That keystoker looks so small compared to what came out of there.

Rev. Larry

Rev Larry,the ducts on gravity furnaces are big compared to forced air systems due to the lack of a fan to push the air but if I'm wrong someone please let me know.I don't think the Keystoker will last a nearly as long as that old beast did .Keepaeyeonit

I would say they sure got their money worth from that stove !!

Matt, is that the new Koker Lite ?

blrman07 wrote:Matt, is that 4 six inch ducts coming off that one plenum? That keystoker looks so small compared to what came out of there.

Rev. Larry

I used 6 inch ducts off the plenum. The old gravity fed ducks were 8'' and reduced to 6'' at the floor grate.

EarthWindandFire wrote:Matt, is that the new Koker Lite ?

Yes that is the new Keystoker Lite. He told me he would have to have a massive fire in the old stove to get very little heat up to the floors. I figured now that we are forcing the air up and insulated ducts we can get away with a smaller unit. Budget was also a big factor. That was the second one I installed this week. With this week getting cold I'll let you know how they work

No baro damper?

Keepaeyeonit wrote:Matthew D thanks for posting this(the furnace looks the same except its not rapped in asbestos ) it reminds me of my Grandmothers house in Euclid Ohio and that old gravity coal furnace they had. The house was built in 1945 during WW2 fired on coal until 1949 or 1950 when they bought a sears NG conversion kit that ran (or is still running) until I sold the house in 1999.Thanks again and keep them coming .Keepaeyeonit

That was a cool stove, I wish we had the time to rebuild it and get it working right. Thats why I refer to peoples basements as the Land Down Under, I never know what I will run into when I start walking down their steps.

Wood'nCoal wrote:No baro damper?

Not right now. The Keystoker Lite top vent comes with one, the bottom vent doesn't. Keystoker said you don't need one for the bottom vent. I took a draft test and it was getting a little high. I'm going to wait till it really heats up to take another test. Probably will install one. Good eye!!

Good looking job! It shows the advance in technology when you compare the size. But will that stoker be there in 50 years like that beast was? I don't think so. I would love to put coal in our church building but the problem is getting someone to tend it. We are a start-up church plant in a storefront and nobody heats with coal but my wife and I. And here we sit at ground zero for ant coal!

Reason for my question was I just got through installing a new to us donated 100K BTU Trane XLS80 85% efficient hot air furnace in our church. We got a sweatheart deal on the rent if we agreed to put in a heating system and do a cleanout of the building, some other maintenance, painting, repairs etc. My heat load calculations showed we needed between 60-70k BTU's. for the first floor which is 1,386 square feet. Insulated drop ceiling, four course shared brick walls, tenants on both sides with heat The walls are studded out and have peg board on them but no insulation.

I did some calculations on CFM's and decided to put in three 6 inch flex ducts with one of them T'd and supplying two registers and the other two going to their own registers. An HVAC guy who volunteered to oversee the lite off said we wouldn't get enough air flow. He said for this unit it should have been 4 independent eight inch flex ducts.

It is working just fine the way we set it up. I tested it several times this week and it brings the first floor up about 10 degrees per hour. We have the unit only firing on the first stage and the blower on low speed. We have a little room for expansion on the system once we build a Sunday School room and an office.

So far we saved $3,895 on the gas line install as the gas company ran the line to the building for free, about $750 on the unit as it was donated, and $$$$ for labor by doing everything ourselves. The HVAC guy declined to bill and said he would write off his time as a donation. The quote we got to have an HVAC company do the install with a new furnace was $7,100. So far we have about $275 in black iron pipe and fittings for the gas line, about $100 in flex ducting with ties and supports, and about $35 in misc angle iron and screws.

The real test is whether or not the ladies in the church are comfortable. That is the only true test the unit has to pass.
We will see this Sunday as it's the first Sunday since we fired it up.

Rev. Larry

blrman07 wrote:It shows the advance in technology when you compare the size. But will that stoker be there in 50 years like that beast was? I don't think so.

The other question is how much coal would each unit burn over the same amount of time. I have had the same discussion when people replace their 40 year old oil boiler and comment that the new one won't last as long. They are probably right, but in some cases the fuel savings is enough to make the new appliance pay for itself very quickly. Coal is a different story because of the reduced cost per btu, but the logic is the same.