Hello,
My wife and I moved into our home last December. The stoker seemed fine for the first few months, brilliant ring of fire with dark spot in the center and an ash ring beyond that. Since then it has gone down hill. To keep this short I will list the history I have with the stoker so hopefully someone can think of what may be causing the fire issue. I pull the fines lever twice a day.
January: Noticed pinhole in pipe coupler with fines dumping on my floor, put epoxy then duct tape then a fernco coupler that I sliced over the hole. (Band-Aid fix)
February: Noticed ashes were getting much heavier.
Later February: Noticed the front half (3 to 9 oclock) of the fire bed was darker and not burning as much as the back.
Early March: Ashes were still heavy, found front half of ash can was roughly 10-20% partially burned coal (not ash).
Summer: Fire bed still burning poorly at front. Partially burned coal content in front of ash can is around 50-60%
Late summer: Noticed the aluminum burner tube now had several pinholes in it dumping fines to the basement floor. There was also a white scale like growth coming from the holes. I spoke to a guy at work who works on stokers as a side job regarding the fire and the pinholes. Theory regarding fire was a cracked gooseneck sending air into the feed as opposed to through the grates. Guy came to my house, we put out the fire and found what we thought was a crack in the casting. I also started to notice clinkers in the ash can
Late September: After pricing around I got a brand new gooseneck casting for $435, new burner tube for $50 and used coupler for $50.
10/11/14: Coal bin was finally low enough for me to shovel to the auger.(5 ton bin). My father and I began to clean out the furnace and found a hole 3" long hole by roughly half the circumference of the burner tube. This was dumping "fresh" coal into my ash can. We had to take the gooseneck out to get the remnant of the burner tube out, at which point we decided to put the new gooseneck in for good measure. When we took the old gooseneck out the crack turned out to be just a line in the casting. The fire burned better for about 3 days. We also replaced the burner tube, coupler and bin tube. We also inspected the augers and they were nice and smooth with no sharp edges on any of the flights.
10/16/14: The fire went back to burning half a pot. Now between 5 and 11 oclock is dark.
10/19/14: I put out the fire to look over everything again. Packing looks good (new rope was used), clean out plate fits good, grates are in tact, grate holes look open (checked with flash light pointing up though clean out holes). I reread the manual and decided to back the air down from 6.5 to 4 because I was not seeing a dark spot in the center of the fire bed and was finding clinkers in the ash can. I am running 3 teeth on the drive. When restarting the fire I noticed the flames on the starter bag were being blown more heavily from right to left. The fire burned nice for a day, dark spot in the center and a bright ring of fire around it. After a day it petered out to half a pot.
10/21/14: Checked the fire. It is like night and day on the two halves of the fire bed. I called a service technician (same as who maintained it with previous owner) and have him coming in the next few days. When I explained this to him and referred to him as being "the professional" he didn't seem very confident with the title, which prompted me to look for help online. My ashes are still heavy with partially burned coal in the can.
Any thoughts as to what could be causing a lopsided fire? I want to figure this out before the cold sets in and I have to cover the auger a bin tube with 5 tons of coal.
Thanks in advance!
JW
EFM Burning Half a Pot
- Rob R.
- Site Moderator
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- Joined: Fri. Dec. 28, 2007 4:26 pm
- Location: Chazy, NY
- Stoker Coal Boiler: EFM 520
- Hand Fed Coal Stove: Chubby Jr
Welcome.
It sounds like something isn't assembled correctly, or there is a buildup of fines in the air chamber that is causing the air to come through the grates unevenly. Excessive fines in the coal can also cause strange burning patterns,
It sounds like something isn't assembled correctly, or there is a buildup of fines in the air chamber that is causing the air to come through the grates unevenly. Excessive fines in the coal can also cause strange burning patterns,
- GoodProphets
- Member
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- Joined: Sat. Jan. 07, 2012 9:14 pm
- Location: Lanc Co PA
- Stoker Coal Boiler: EFM DF520
- Coal Size/Type: Anthra Rice
- Other Heating: 3 Fireplaces
Double check the fines cleanout cover
Pictorial: the Burner Pot Assembly W/Part Numbers
Make sure the holes line up and when lever is release (in normal run mode) that the holes are sealed and no gaps.
I have run in the partial pot burn a few times.
I found out that since I had a few outfires and that I would dump that coal back into my 55gal drum,
that I had the partial burn from ash/fines/poor quality coal feeding in was the culprit.
After I finally emptied my bin and put in 100% fresh coal....burn was awesome.
It also helps when you can have long burns with heat/dhw calls
Have you tried different coal yet? it should only take 2-4 bags to test out.
Pictorial: the Burner Pot Assembly W/Part Numbers
Make sure the holes line up and when lever is release (in normal run mode) that the holes are sealed and no gaps.
I have run in the partial pot burn a few times.
I found out that since I had a few outfires and that I would dump that coal back into my 55gal drum,
that I had the partial burn from ash/fines/poor quality coal feeding in was the culprit.
After I finally emptied my bin and put in 100% fresh coal....burn was awesome.
It also helps when you can have long burns with heat/dhw calls
Have you tried different coal yet? it should only take 2-4 bags to test out.
- McGiever
- Member
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- Coal Size/Type: PEA,NUT,STOVE /ANTHRACITE
- Other Heating: Ground Source Heat Pump and some Solar
If excessive fines are the problem, perhaps now that bin is low, a method to more readily remove the accumulated fines short of running the 5 ton bin low can be found and implemented.
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- Member
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- Joined: Tue. Jul. 03, 2012 10:00 pm
- Stoker Coal Boiler: efm coal boiler
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- Other Heating: Bryant evolution heat pump
How is your worm I had same problem I had a bad worm
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- New Member
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Thanks for the reply Ryan, my worm is brand new. I shut the boiler down Sunday night assuming I would have to take everything apart. I began to clean off the burner pot and realized that something was "stuck" down in the pot between the auger and the first set of air holes. It was almost as if it was melted plastic but harder, I had to chisel it out. Something got in my coal bin and I have no idea what is was but luckily I was only down for one night and now she is burning beautifully. I have been using my df520 for six years and have never had anything like this happen, I had the whole boiler apart this past year and replaced all the gaskets, new worm, and a good cleaning, I may have contaminated the bin when everything was apart hopefully I'm good to go for twenty years or so. Thank you again for the reply ...
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- Member
- Posts: 145
- Joined: Tue. Jul. 03, 2012 10:00 pm
- Stoker Coal Boiler: efm coal boiler
- Coal Size/Type: rice
- Other Heating: Bryant evolution heat pump
I had coal pull the bottom of the grate rope gasket out one time I used 1/2 instead of 3/8 that made it only burn half of pot also