Upgrading my Magnum Stoker to a Stoker Boiler

beatle78 wrote:Ok, so an Eshland 130 is the equivalent to an AHS S130?

This is great stuff. Thanks for all the replies.

Any more VF3000 and Keystoker boiler owners out there want to chime in?

Don't want to start any controversy, but if you look through the posting archives, you will find posts from some of the other boiler owners regarding Explosions in their boilers, the vent pipe and or barometric damper being blown off, problems with feed mechinsms clogging, and a few other repetitive problems that were reported by more than one boiler owner. I've never had any such problem with the Harman, well other that almost killing myself and my family with CO that is. That was on the initial firing due to the combustion fan restrictor plate not being installed. (Lousy Harman manual)
Other than that, I shovel 250lbs of coal in the hopper every 3-5 days depending on the weather, empty the ash pan, empty the "fines" collector and that's it. It's a simple design which in my experience usually translates to fewer potential problems. I've replaced nothing on the boiler in 4 years. I'm sure at some point I'll have to replace a fan motor or feed motor but knock on wood, nothing yet. Gotta go with the Harman. Trouble free, bullet proof.

coalkirk wrote:Don't want to start any controversy, but if you look through the posting archives, you will find posts from some of the other boiler owners regarding Explosions in their boilers, the vent pipe and or barometric damper being blown off, problems with feed mechinsms clogging, and a few other repetitive problems that were reported by more than one boiler owner. I've never had any such problem with the Harman, well other that almost killing myself and my family with CO that is. That was on the initial firing due to the combustion fan restrictor plate not being installed. (Lousy Harman manual)
Other than that, I shovel 250lbs of coal in the hopper every 3-5 days depending on the weather, empty the ash pan, empty the "fines" collector and that's it. It's a simple design which in my experience usually translates to fewer potential problems. I've replaced nothing on the boiler in 4 years. I'm sure at some point I'll have to replace a fan motor or feed motor but knock on wood, nothing yet. Gotta go with the Harman. Trouble free, bullet proof.

That's what this forum is for opinions, facts, and debate... thanks!!!

I will need to lookup that explosion problem that I wasn't really aware of. Yah the VF3000 looks like it has the same stoker mechanism as my Magnum Stoker. (well from this pics anyway).

Do you setup the VF3000 like this:

1.Adjust the feedrate so that on a continuous call for heat the burning coal will make it to ~1" from the end of the grate.
2.Now when the call for heat goes away the stoker mechanism goes into a maintenance mode where it comes on for X minutes and stays off for X minutes.

Or is there a better failsafe to prevent the boiler water from getting to HOT?

Matthaus wrote: Actually I think it came that way, but I have been discussing it with flyer5 and I'm going to modify the AA I currently have to be the same setup except with a variable speed drive and a 3 phase motor driving the fan. That way I can get rid of the hokey twisted belt set up for the auger and put that on a circuit with the ash drawer to eliminated wasted coal delivery to the firepot. I am eventually going to sell the AA but in the mean time it will be a great science project.

Cool. Wow, I love reading about all of these science projects you are into. Your wife must be a SAINT!!!!

I would think in your design of your hot water system/boiler, you would also have the AquaStat or Temp. Sensor/pump for the water hi.lo temp and circulate the water from becoming too hot. Also, pressure/temp. releif valves would pop if it gets too hot.

One man's explosion is another man's bump.

beatle78 wrote:Cool. Wow, I love reading about all of these science projects you are into. Your wife must be a SAINT!!!!

Yes I have submitted her for the Nobel Prize... I figure if Al Gore can get one so can she after putting up wiith my ornery, junk collecting ass!

U235a4 wrote:WHY you ask because after doing some research on the subject I feel the AA and AHS have the best heat exchanger out there another words your going to transfer more heat from the coal you burn into the water then the other units. BTW if you must keep oil then keep your old unit and use a Tekmar 265 contoller which will control both units and fire the oil boiler only if it needs to.

OK, so I also need to look into a new boiler controller to control 2 boilers.

WOW, that Tekmar 265 is going for $500 on ebay. Are there other options for dual boiler controls?

My neighbor said he's gonna help me break my house up into zones this summer. Right now my whole house is 1 zone and 1 zone is for the domestic storage tank.

I want to make sure I get the correct controller now, so that when I get my stoker boiler It will be a plug and play install.

Im very happy with the Harman VF 3000. The only thing that bothers me a little is that I couldnt get anyone at Harman to give me some tech support on a couple questions i have had, they want you to go through your dealer exclusively. I felt their installation and setup manual especially on the oil burner option could have been better. As to my settings ive played around a bit what ive found is that if i see the forecast is going to be in the 40 degree area in the day and 30 degree at night i have set the aqua stat at 160 with a 10 degree differential and it works fine and i do notice less coal usage than leaving it at a higher setting which even on cold nights i ran at 170 degree with a 10 degree differential. Along with that i adjust the feed rate if if i change those settings. I have my dump zone aquastat set at 30 degrees so worst case scenario is it should dump at 200 degrees if for some reason it got that high but so far it has not.

Thanks for your input