New Member From Islesboro With Questions About AA130

Okay… I am new to this forum and have many questions…. I was excited to see that one of the members is from Deer Isle… I live on Islesboro and heat with AA 130 and thought that I might be the only one. I do not know of another person who heats with coal. My biggest issue is that my partner, who was the coal furnace expert, just passed away and I am left trying to figure this thing out. I will say that we have been heating our house for the last 10 years with the furnace. I know the basics but always relied on him to do the problem solving. We have had some difficulties and he was in the process of figuring them all out. I do have access to a young man who was working with my partner helping him out and between the two of us we know a little. I had a big problem this morning that really scared me. When looking in the viewer window the fire looked out and appeared to be all clinkers (?), however the fire was all the way up the transfer head. I did pull the ash off the grate and got the fire settled into the firebox. I was a little concerned because I am not sure if any hot coals went back down the auger. I called down to Axeman and they said my grate was not being activated enough. I checked the anthrastat and it was at 140. After reading this thread I set it to 145. I also am wondering if my fire is (?) sitting to high in the fire box (?) because there is always red hot coal right there when you open the viewing door. I have way to many questions.

Karen, Welcome to the Forum! Perhaps start a new post asking your questions. To ask them in this post might get lost or be confusing. To set your mind at ease.... (I just called the factory to be sure)... it is impossible for the fire to follow the auger down & start a bin fire....just can't happen. It's common to have fire up high, and close to the top, but if you have fire climbing up into the auger head then, as the factory thought, you're not augering enough. Is the belt loose, missing? Maybe it's not "clicking" enough. On each stroke it should be making 2 or 3 clicks. If it's only making one, maybe that's to blame.

Hi, Welcome Aboard...Sorry to hear you're having difficulties and lost your partner.
The answer you got from Anderson is a general one but quite accurate none the less.
There can be multple possible solutions for fire climbing up toward auger head.
1. Grate too slow...or not moving at all...like linkage arm came apart inside ash pit/base.
2. Adjustment needs made on side linkage to get required number of clicks on ratchet with each revolution of the auger-tube.
3. Electric solenoid is shot and needs replaced.
4. Anthrastat switch broke and needs replaced...or maybe just recalibrated.

My top picks are Anthrastat switch or Solenoid needing replaced.

YOU MAY KEEP THE FIRE LOWER BY MANUALLY WORKING THE SIDE LEVER UP AND DOWN SERVERAL TIMES EVERY SO OFTEN
This will keep heat working also while you arrange for repairs.

Hope you find speedy repairs.

I'll send a PM to *Keving* over at Deer Isle to let him know about this.

Hi Karen and thanks Mcgiever for the heads up, we are so close by sea but so far by land, but neighbors for sure. I have only been running my 130 for about three weeks now and my experience is minute compared to the guys on this board but I have stared at my 130 enough and tinkered with things enough that I should be of some help to you. Sounds like you have a good grasp for how it works and what it should be doing. I'd be more than happy to help you any way possible. Perhaps a good place to start is to confirm that it is ashing. With your anthrastat set at 140 or higher it should be ashing quite often, especially on start up. Can you confirm that the ashing solenoid clicks open and that the ashing grate is actually moving back and forth. I think you already know this but you should be able to open the side door and see the grate moving as the unit runs. If you would rather give me a call and go through this please feel free to do so. My home number is 348-2749

Welcome Karen, and sorry for the loss of your partner. There are a number of folks burning coal all around you, and you probably have already met Keving. He will be an excellent resource for you to bounce issues off. I know you aren't exactly neighbors, but it is a BIG state. Your 'high riding fire' could be many things, but NOT GOOD is the first one to worry about.
Understand if you see the fire that high again, you can manually ''shake' the grate by continuing to move the lever up and down. Depending upon the position of the cam on the auger tube, the strokes could be short or long. As you exercise that lever, look forward and watch the arm turning the gear end of the ashing shaft. You should hear one, two or 3 clicks. If the arm is difficult to move, you have issues with the rollers under the ash grate. Keving can explain that to you easily. Back to the fire being so high in the pot.......something was not working as planned.
The problem could be a lose or worn out belt (twisted one) or perhaps the gear box has issues. If not that, the ashing arm and mechanism may be defective. Feel free to PM me if I can be of any help, Keving and freddy will sure help, too. The young man helping out may want to read these posts and he will surely learn a great deal also. Please call or PM, you need this resolved before it gets really cold....like tomorrow.

Thanks for the information as it stands now the antrostat is set at 145 it was at 140. The fire in the firebox is really hot and is sitting level with the viewing window. It is ashing as I have a half of a pan full, however, when I went down and manually started the furnace using the timer so I could check, the solenoid was not activating the lever. I was able to manually move the side level and the grate appears to be moving easily (a trick I did not know before). As I was typing this, I heard the furnace activate, so I went down and the solenoid was activating the lever arm and turning the gear two clicks. If the solenoid is working properly should it always activate the ashing grate? How do I know if the anthrastat needs of be recalibrated? I think that the belts are okay because they were replaced this summer.

Hi Karen,

The anthrastat has a long sensor that protrudes behind it and into the ashing area. It acts like a thermostat, senses the ash temp and tells the solenoid when to trip and start the ashing process. So to answer your question the solenoid should not be tripping all the time, only when the anthrastat tells it to. It sounds like everything is working but we just don't know if the anthrastat temp is accurate. Did you notice any difference in fire height after increasing the setting to 145? Be sure and use a allen wrench to make adjustments by placing it in the center of the black knob. The knob is only intended to be a indicator and I am told they can get loose and not be accurate if used to make adjustments. Is there any chance you could post a photo of your fire height for us to look at?

I think that the fire is sitting even higher tonight than usual, however, the boiler is running a lot tonight… . I do use an allen wrench to change the settings I keep it in the cover of the anthrostat.

Karen, I can't see if the top of the fire is above the door opening or not, but the burn looks excellent...same as mine is. Obviously you know Waaaaaaaay more than the normal young lady, so this adventure may not be so scary. As Keving said, you can 'hand ash' by pulling the arm up, and back down if the fire seems too high. What controls the number of clicks of the gear if the small bracket on the lever. It has two bolts/screws and all you need to do is to loosen them up, and slide forward toward the gear box to go downward in clicks. Going back toward the solonoid, increases the arm travel and allows for 3 clicks. You can go more than 3, but I typically run 2 clicks year round. The anthrastat operation is very critical at this stage of tuning the boiler, and you were well aware of the allen wrench requirement. Once again, I must add that your partner was also a good teacher, plus being a nice guy. I asked Keving if he could swim the crossing quicker than drive around, but the jury is out on that one. You have his number, and he says to fee free to call at any time. I'm headed to bed, and I hope your overnight is without issues. An Axeman is nearly impossible to kill, so it won't let you down.

I tried to take a better picture but I can't seem to. I will try to describe it. When you look in the door the coal is glowing and red hot up to the bottom of the transfer head. I can see the new coal sitting just coming out of the transfer head sitting on top of the hot coal. There is a blue flame towards the back of the firebox. The fire looks similar to the picture at the top of this page. My next question now is the ash looks more chunkier. It looks like it did in previous years before Skip started to "fine tune" the boiler. Here are the pictures of what the bucket looked like this morning. This is about 17 hours worth of ash. After our last delivery of coal, we were getting really fine ash with not so much chunks in it. Is this because I went up to 145? What does the 145 number mean? Does it make the ash pan move more or less. Thanks for explaining how the gears work and how to make an adjustment because I did not know that, Right now it makes two clicks each time. Skip did replace the anthrastat a few years ago how often do they need attention?

Skip was an excellent teacher and helped me to understand this machine. He would have enjoyed this forum so much. He was so proud of and in love with this "beast" as he referred to it. He could talk for hours about coal and would have been happy to find someone else to exchange ideas with. I was not so excited about this source of heating because we were having major issues with the fly ash and the basement was full of dust and everything was dirty. That was the project he was tackling this summer before he died. I was ready to get rid of boiler and threaten him that I would if he were to die before me. However, he just had a big delivery of coal this summer, the ash problem has improved (there still is some) and it would cost a lot o money to heat my house with oil, so I am trying hard to figure this out. Thanks for the support,

Those chunks in the ash are called clinkers, and they occur when the ash gets hot enough to fuse together. It is not uncommon to have a few of them in the ashes. If you ran the boiler for a while without the ashing system working properly, it probably created more clinkers than normal.

As for the fly ash around the basement, something is wrong. Either there is a gasket that needs to be replaced, or the flue pipe is poorly fitted.

You aren't dumping the ashes in the basement are you? Carefully slide the ash tub out and carry it outside, no dumping inside.

Skip called them clinkers too. I thought it was a name he made up! I do take them outside. This morning the pan was full of the clinkers with very little ash. Is this because the higher number on the anthrastat. Skip replaced the gasket around the blower this summer and that helped a lot but has not solved the fly ash accumulation completely. I am wondering if the cone (cyclone separator ?) is clogged and if it is how do you clean it,

Good morning Karen, My fire looks exactly as yours does in the photos when I am running Kimmel brand coal and I get a good amount of small clinkers. About 48 hours ago I switched to some 20 year old coal that I had in trash bags and wanted to get out of the way. It was amazing the difference in fire height and ash with this coal. With the old coal my fire is lower and I have a lot of unburnt coal in the ash. Do you know the details on your recent coal delivery and if it was the same brand and supplier as the previous coal. It could be that your beast is a fussy eater and will need to be tuned to the newer coal.
If you set the anthrastat to 145 it means that the unit will ash until it senses a temperature of 145 at the sensing probe and then stop ashing. Relatively speaking the higher you set it the more it will ash and the lower your fire should be. If you went up to 145 you are going in the proper direction to make the fire lower. If that makes no sense to you don't feel bad, I think I read about fire height a good 50 times before it made sense to me.

You are lucky to have some very good Mainer's close to you. The Cyclone separator is most easily accessed from the top. You would need to remove the stack(not always fun if it has not been off before) and it is possible to break the 5" increaser (if you have it piped that way) . Have a Vac handy, because there could be some fly ash. A dust protector mask is also handy. Assuming you get it off in one piece, take a look down the stack...yes exhaust gases will be in your face, so make sure the switch is off.......I have seen bird caucuses, dead mice, dead chippys, big rust chunks...you name it down there. ( I thought I had found Jimmy Hoffa in a 260 that I bought from Scranton, but it turned out to be rat........) If you are lucky, there will be nothing. If it is rotted out, the replacement takes a more than a few minutes to replace. If it is only plugged, a broom handle or piece of pipe will do the job.

You can access the bottom opening of the separator from the bottom, also. It is easier to replace from that location, too. The fly ash increase might lead you to the separator, and/or you will also se or not see ash fines on the left front of the ashing tray( side opposite the auger) That funnel empties on that corner of the tray, so if you put your hand up onto the plate, you will feel the fines......or look at the ash bucket for the same tell tale pile of black fines. I should mention that you may want gloves, HOWEVER it is not that warm way out on the end of the ash plate. I guess we'll let you check it out further...AND feel free to 'ash' the boiler by hand every time you are near it if you think the fire is getting too high.
Your ash looks to be textbook...and clinkers are just 'fused coal' that made it through the ashing process in bigger pieces. If for some reason the ash has fused into something that didn't break up, that would be another issue. You are not there, so relax. You are now aware that a higher ashing temp on the anthrastat means MORE ashing, lower is LESS ashing, so obviously you were a very good student, AND the teacher was well versed in the understanding and operation of Axeman-Anderson products. I hear Keving slipped on his swimming trucks......but I am not sure how far he will get. Perhaps he will be shocked back into 'Normal Thinkin' and drive, should that become necessary.

whistlenut wrote:Perhaps he will be shocked back into 'Normal Thinkin' and drive, should that become necessary.

Ahhhh, well..... that wouldn't be what most people around here would call "normal thinking"..... the only way to drive is on the ice and that water hasn't frozen since 1947! No bridge, just a ferry.

I think you're fire looks normal. It's very common for my AA130 to look exactly like yours. In warmer weather when it's not running as much the fire will drop down so you can barely see it, but when it need to make lot's of heat, it does!

Fly ash... When I started mine this season I was getting flyash all over everything, every day. It was crazy! And...it took a few days to finally find the problem. Typically I use high temp silicone and seal the cracks between each piece of stove pipe and where the stove pipe attaches to the boiler. After chasing it for a few days I found a tiny crack on the boiler, about 1/2 inch from the stove pipe. There's a tin flange on top of the boiler that the stove pipe fits into. I just went & took a picture...sorry if it's huge! Behind the arrow you see silver goop from the factory. In front of the arrow you see new red silicone that fixed a little crack in the silver. The red that's all covered in fly ash is the 2 or 3 days before. I'd add silicone, it would get covered with fresh flyash. Once I patched the actual crack it dried without getting covered with fly ash. Typically very little dust is created around the boiler. On the new red silicone you can see how much ash has escaped in the last 4 weeks....zero!

If you open the ash door on the auger side and look with a flashlight you can just see the bottom of the cyclone. It's the funnel that dumps on the ash tray way up high on the far side. In order to see it you might have to hand ash until the ash tray is toward the front of the machine. If that funnel is clogged, use a coat hanger & unclog it. Knock on wood...mine has never clogged, but, if it get's clogged all bets on fly ash are off.

A cold one tonight!