Keystoker a150 Efficiency

This is the first year in our new house and I installed a coal furnace in it. I'm familiar with coal as I had an alaska coal stove before. I'm just curious how I can make my furnace use less coal. I got 5 tons of anthracite rice coal started the furnace in the middle of October and I estimate I have about 1 1/2 maybe 2 tons left. My house is 1575 square feet 2 floors bhilt in 1927 and seems well insulated the furnace is a keystoker a150 it does have a seperate blower for the combust I on chamber and also in has a coaltrol system on it with a seperate fan limit switch to run the convection blower. The cold air return is not hooked up just the plenum for the heat ducts is. The intake size on the furnace seems small as it is only 18x18 should be at least 24x24? Also there is no "long hanging baffle" in the burn chamber. It is hooked to 8" pipe with a baro damper and the stack temp usually runs between 240 and 300. Any help would be great

Was this a used furnace?

Those heat exchangers req. very good cleaning...and they are not so easy to get that done thoroughly.

Baffle is an important item...buy one...you're wasting coal.

For the 8" pipe out the H/X, did you use the lower of the two to go out to chimney?...Cap the upper. You want the longer flue passage path for best heat extraction.
There is a fixed baffle in there too, if I remember correctly.

Standard 1st question around here,...have you checked the draft with a manometer?

Check the Draft.

Give it a good cleaning.

How warm do you keep the house? Sometimes lowering the temp a degree or two saves a lot of coal use. Depends on what your comfort level is. We keep ours at 64-65 and our stove runs around 5-70% Feed rate depending on how cold it is outside. If I go any higher, it seems like the stove runs constantly and uses more coal. I can go thru a ton or more a month depending if really cold outside.

Every heating situation is different. What works for someone, may not work for someone else, every stove/furance and home is different.

Whats your coaltrol settings? Min Max? Are you using the HLF? etc...

Forgot to mention, Return air from basement floor is wasteful unless it's desired to be real warm down there.

There's extra square footage down there and to constantly cycle the whole house's heat all the time through the basement is wasteful and probably it's a giant heat sink due to area not being insulated.

dodge2nv wrote:The cold air return is not hooked up just the plenum for the heat ducts is.

Exactly what McGiever said,
If air going into the house thru the warm air duct cannot get back to the furnace somehow, you could be using at least twice as much coal than necessary. Number 1, it pressurizes the house slowing down warm air flow which inhibits distribution and Number 2, you are heating cold air instead of air that is close to room temperature which requires twice as many Btus to heat. Even if you have a door open to the basement so house air can get back to the furnace, it will be further cooled as it rolls across a concrete floor as the ground underneath it sucks the heat from it. Proper convection is a vital component to a forced air heating system.. IN my opinion, this should be the first thing fixed.. Then, proceed to tweak your rig....

I figured the cold air return not being hooked up would effect coal use but my brother in
Law lives down there. Guess I could hook it up and just put a vent down there. Would leaving the basement door open help? As far as hooking the pipe up to the furnace there are 2 outlets on the furnace both are identical keystoker says to hook up to one and cap the one you aren't using. Dumb question for next year what if I turned the heat exchanger 90 degrees this would give you a higher and a lower place to hook up pipe? Just thought of that. Don't know if it would work

dodge2nv wrote:Also there is no "long hanging baffle" in the burn chamber.

Why not?

Believe it or not I picked up this furnace for 300.00 dollars off the side of the road and the long baffle was missing. Everything worked though and it sure beat paying for oil heat

A few pics of the furnace

Another pic

On the coaltrol the min is. Set at 6and the max is 85. What is hsl on the coaltrol?

What if I put lined the burn chamber with stove brick hooked up cold I air return and installed long hanging baffle