From OWB to EFM520 Installed in Truck Box

Post by **Rob R.** » Sun. Feb. 15, 2015 7:56 pm

I think you are the first person on this forum to put a 520 on its knees in a non-commercial application. However, you are not the first person that has had a stoker struggle to reach rated output with Blaschak rice. Their rice tends to contain a lot of barley, and that restricts airflow. A clean boiler and good coal makes a huge difference, but as you have demonstrated it isn't always easy to have both when you want.

I always brush my boiler around around Xmas, but when I saw the forecast for this week I gave it another brush down last weekend. I'll admit that I would clean it less often if it was a round-door boiler. My dad's is a round door and we do that once per season...which is usually 6-7 tons of coal.

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Sun. Feb. 15, 2015 8:07 pm

With all the brutal WINDS of last nite & today & the -1* this a/m, 10* for the high today, we only added 270# ! I looked back to Jan 8,2015 when the low was 5*,the hi was 17* winds were not quite as strong & we added 270#.~~~~ So I was curious as to why this brutal cold took the same amount as that slightly less brutal cold time did. We were burning Superior then & shortly after that we ran out of the Superior,switched to Reading & now this is supposed to be Blashack. I had fully anticipated putting at least 30# more in this time,but I had forgotten what coal we were burning early Jan.

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Sun. Feb. 15, 2015 8:19 pm

Rob,i wish I had spent the $$ for a hr meter back when we installed this boiler. I wanted to add one since but $$ are too few & all $$ need to go for buying coal. If I had an hr meter on maybe I could have seen the need for a step up in feed rate b4 sending it to its knees. I actually thought of setting it up to 7teeth yesterday But I figured it did so well on the 6/6 setting b4 & didn't bother.I plan to purchase an hr meter when our cash flow steps up again.

Post by **Rob R.** » Sun. Feb. 15, 2015 8:23 pm

The last 24 hrs has been pretty rough. It only reached 0 today at my house, and the wind roared all day. It calmed down around sunset, but now it is back with a vengeance. -6 on the porch. I have burned about 175 lbs in the last 24 hrs. Banking the house with snow seemed to help a little, have you banked the trailers?

HR meter is neat for tracking, but it can't predict the weather. I have a nice one installed and havent even looked at it in a month. How much coal you add per day tells the same story.

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Sun. Feb. 15, 2015 8:52 pm

We are currently at 4* & the winds are still bad but the brutal gusts seem to be less numerous than last nite & earlier today. I do not feel bad with burning 270#,i compare other single house holds usage & multiply by 3 & am generally pretty happy with our usage.We did push the Crane harder today to keep the WARM feel in our living room,so we may have used 50# in it for the last 24 hrs.No, we have never banked any of our buildings,shoveling all that snow would take away too much of the precious little energy that Lyme allows a person to have.

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 10:24 am

-5* this a/m,breezy,all t-stats are satisfied, I took a long HOT shower,seems as tho 7 teeth/8air is doing the job just fine!! I forgot to empty the ash first thing this a/m, 15.5 hrs & the tub was full & running over ! Looks like I could already add +/- 180# to the hopper,we will find out tonite just how much it took to keep us warm thru this brutal cold day.

Pacowy · Post by **Pacowy** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 12:37 pm

Rob R. wrote:I think you are the first person on this forum to put a 520 on its knees in a non-commercial application.

Greta? IIRC some of her issues were fixable, but I don't remember ever hearing whether they were fixed.

Mike

Post by **Rob R.** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 12:41 pm

Pacowy wrote:
Rob R. wrote:I think you are the first person on this forum to put a 520 on its knees in a non-commercial application.
Greta? IIRC some of her issues were fixable, but I don't remember ever hearing whether they were fixed.

Mike

I forgot about her. Don't think we ever found out if she got it running any better.

Pacowy · Post by **Pacowy** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 1:05 pm

I know he's been sailing close to the line, but I think windyhill has done a good job of ramping up output to carry the load. I agree with Rob on the importance of cleaning the heat exchange surfaces to really get the max possible output during the times of heaviest load. My 900 was a round door and it was no picnic to clean, but using a combination of the round door, the ash door and the smoke pipe flange you should be able to get out a lot of accumulation fairly quickly.

Mike

Post by **Rob R.** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 1:16 pm

windyhill4.2 wrote:No, we have never banked any of our buildings,shoveling all that snow would take away too much of the precious little energy that Lyme allows a person to have.

I assumed you would have a tractor, snow blower, or neighborhood teenager to help with that.

Not a big deal if the skirting is TIGHT...but as you know, many trailers have drafts underneath that rob lots of BTU's from the duct work.

I know what you mean about the shape of the Reading rice. Last year I got some and I noticed that all the pieces were square or rectangular, not slivers or flat pieces like some other kinds I have gotten. These stokers really do well with "big rice", especially if you need to run more than 6 teeth.

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 1:24 pm

I've been noticing Blashak's usually stellar quality control has been lax this load. I'm getting a wide variety of sizing. Not that it matters with my setup- it seems to burn whatever gets thrown in there. That, and the bags are just absolutely SOAKING wet this season ....

Geesh and I was bitching about 80 lbs in 24 hours! I don't envy you guys one bit!

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 2:21 pm

Rob, the rental trailer has 2 " foil board behind the metal skirting,i was not able to get it totally airtight but it sure seems to have done a good job of keeping things warm under the trailer for the past 7+ yrs. Our trailer & additions are all on top of concrete blocks with 2-3 courses open to the outside air most of the way around,very little of the block is buried under ground.I will have to think about the idea of blowing snow against the walls .If we could afford to install insulated overhead doors on our shop that would surely do quite a bit as I can often see a few feet of snow melted out from the doors.

Dave 1234 · Post by **Dave 1234** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 2:26 pm

WH,
If you can get your hands on some buck sized coal while it's cold , try it.
I know its not for everybody, but it's cleaner and you can turn down the air setting too.
Not pushing as much extra cold air through the boiler may really add up.

Dave

Post by **Rob R.** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 2:35 pm

Dave - Just because you have the air pointer at a lower setting, doesn't mean there is less air going through the boiler. The air adjustment is just a damper inside the blower housing. Since the buck coal provides less resistance to airflow, you need to "choke it" a bit more at the blower housing.

It is possible that buck requires less air, my point was simply having the air setting at 3 instead of 4 doesn't mean that less air is going up the chimney.

cArNaGe · Post by **cArNaGe** » Mon. Feb. 16, 2015 9:06 pm

Rob R. wrote:\ Banking the house with snow seemed to help a little, have you banked the trailers?

I thought I was one of the few that did that. I always bank the snow around my stone foundation.. Helps quite a bit.