Axeman-Anderson 130M

Hi,
Spent the summer installing my A&A 130M. Fired it up on Friday evening and am slowly "dialing" it in based in part on the advice I have read on this forum.
My question is what should the ashes look like? I assume you can tell by the ash if it is burning the coal efficiently or if I have the ashing mechanism set to high or if the anthrastat is set incorrectly or some other parameter is incorrect.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Carl in PA

I've found that the ash can be all over the place as far as looks go. Most times mine reminds me of granola about the size of gravel. Depends a lot on the coal as well.

If you aren't seeing unburnt coal in your ash pan, you're fine. Sometimes during a couple day warm spell you'll see some unburnt coal but that's normal with a no-call for heat.

I assume you have it set "by the book" right now? Give it a few days to run before you start making adjustments.

Ash appearance can vary widely depending on the coal itself. AA's commonly spit out some clinkers and occasionally some unburned coal. I'm sure if post a picture the Axeman experts will chime in.

I have the functionally quite similar AHS S130 Coal Gun. By this time of year you should not be seeing any partially burned coal in the ashes, and you should be getting complete burns. Some medium to large size clinkers may be evident though.

But if you just fired it up, and you did not first prime it with a bucket of old coal ash and clinkers, you will get unburned coal in the ashes for a few days. I speak from recent experience.

And keep in mind, the ash that comes out today was made yesterday...unless it's running extremly hard.
So setting changes made will take a while to be seen.

Only change one parameter at a time........make a note of that, also, record outside temp correlation. Don't freak out about anything, and wait to see after you do make a change. DO NOT sit by the boiler all day waiting for 'change' to be observed. Relax, and continue life as normal. Welcome to life in the slooooooooowwwwww lane. PS: You will love the results, if you don't play with the new toy all day. Experience is learned, not defined. Soon you will be comfortable with you 'friend'.

Mcgiever and Whistle bring up a good point. With the Axeman type ashers it takes a while to drop the ash in the pan after the burn. So, as has been stated, when you make a change on the ashing end; i.e. Clicks and/or temp setting, be patient.

Here's a pic that is fitting. We had some warmer weather here recently in Connecticut. I had the boiler down for skimming. When I fired it again the warm weather kicked in. I do not have a timer on my boiler. I turned up the T-stat to 80 just to get it fired good intending to shut it right off. Well, needless to say, with trying to square away dogs etc before I left for market I forgot to turn down T-stat. When I came back and opened door to house I was welcomed by a nice blast of 80 degree heat!

Thankfully nothing worse than warmth happened. I believe this pic represents the ash from that cycle. You can see the clinkers on one side of the pan. Maybe from the long cycle for the 80 degree call for heat?? Don't know. Also, I had a couple bags of nut size coal to dispose of and hand fed it for a couple days with the auger shut off. Might reflect that.

Anyhow, here are pics. Ash is fine though.

Those photos look identical to what I'm seeing.