Yellow Flame Grate Experiment

I just did a 175 pound fill up. 5 full buckets. Thats about 43.75 pounds over the last 4 days.

Current settings;

Feed rate= 2 (Second lowest)

Air= Closed down to about 1/3

Keystoker continuous blower= about half way opened.

Timer= 15 minute cycle, 8%, 72 seconds ON

Aquastat= 160/175 10 degree dif

Draft= -.02 at idle, I changed the baro opening point from -.05 to -.04

I also closed the boiler bypass valve half way to see if that has any effect on the heat output now that we are into the heating season.

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Don

I opend the Keystoker blower all the way. I want to see if this will change the ash content. So far, with it half way open, I have not noticed any difference, the ashes are still very heavy.

It puts out enough air that I need to be careful it doesn't overfire the boiler at idle. Tomorrow I will likely close it back down again.

-Don

I just did a 175 pound fill up. Thats 87.5 pounds a day for the last 2 days.

I shut the Keystoker blower down to half way again. I didn't see any difference in the ashes.

It seems to be clinkering a lot so, I shut the air down as far as I could. We'll see if that helps.

I tried to get some photos up through the fines clean out hole. I didn't do a very good job on the photos but, it looks like some of the furnace cement used to block off some of the grate air holes has fallen out!
I will have to get a better look at that. I was wondering why the burn pattern is uneven.

-Don

I did a quick shut down and clean out today. I wanted to pull the grates to see how the furnace cement was holding up. Turns out, the furnace cement is still right where I put it!
I did a brush down of the inside while I was shut down. There was a lot of flyash and sluf on the walls.
Then I through the grates back in.
Fired it up.
One thing I noticed about the grates. I ran my hand over the grates with the blower on before I loaded it up. The strongest amount of air comes out where the fire is in the above photo, it gets much weaker as you go back from there. Interesting...
I filled it up with 5.5 buckets. Thats 190 pounds or so, 96 pounds a day for the last 2 days.

-Don

I just filled up with 4 buckets, about 140 pounds. That's 70 pounds per day for the last 2 days.
In an effort to curb "Clinkering" I have made a big air adjustment. I have installed a bottom air inlet cover (choke) on the big blower. I have closed both covers about as far as they can be. I have also opened the Keystoker blower all the way. My thinking is, this should make it fun more like a modern Keystoker taking most of it's air from the continuous blower.

It will be interesting to see how well this works.
I may have to back off on this setting if the continuous blower over fires the boiler.

-Don

I went out and checked on the boiler and the temp was up to 190*!!! Setpoint is 175*.

I closed down the continuous blower to 2/3 open.
This is what my last ash bucket looked like.
I'll have to check it again before bed.

-Don

Remind us where you got your rice coal.

Why its Blaschak rice coal. Thank you for asking.

I just went out and checked again, the temp was a little over 190*. I shut the blower down to half open.

One thing I didn't consider, covering more of the big blower inlet effectivly puts more of the continuous blower air into the fire. Less of a hole for it to leak out of.

-Don

So far this is still working. Here is a visual comparisson of ashes "Before" the combustion air change and "After". Tomorrow I will have a full bucket of "After" ashes and I will weigh the two.
I also took some nice flame shots
-Don

Damn that some nice looking stoker flames going.

Thanks Ed!

This is my BEFORE the big air adjustment / AFTER the big air adjustment ash comparission.

OK, So, I have an old ash bucket with the "BEFORE" ashes. The empty bucket weighs 3 pounds. And I have a new bucket with the "AFTER" ashes. The empty new bucket weighs 2.5 pounds.

The BEFORE ash bucket weight = 33 pounds - 3 pounds = 30 pounds of ash.

The AFTER ash bucket weight = 27 pounds - 2.5 pounds = 24.5 pounds of ash.
The "BEFORE" ashes. The "AFTER" ashes. Keystoker continuous blower about half open. Big blower closed off as much as possible.
I just filled up with 4 buckets, 140 pounds. 70 pounds per day over the last 2 days. That means the 140 pounds put in it 2 days ago made 24.5 pounds of ash. That's 17.5% ash.

The 30 pounds of "BEFORE" ashes came from 140 pounds also. That's 21.5% ash.

These are very rough measurments but, they seem to bare out the fact that this big air adjustment has burned the coal into a lighter ash.

-Don

Two possible scenaios, aside of lighter ash tub;
You benefited from more heat...
or you sent more heat up the chimney.

It can be a slippery slope.

McGiever,

With these settings, the continuous blower seems to run the boiler well over the setpoint of the aquastat. Up to about 190* or so, aquastat set for 155*/175* 10* diff. When there is a heat call, this higher temp charges the heat exchanger quickly making the heat call shorter.

So, if heat calls come on a regular basis, this puts the extra heat into the boiler / heat exchanger. If the heat calls become infrequent, then heat will be wasted.

Running outside of the control of the aquastat could be a little risky. So far, I have seen no sign of a PRV blow off.

There is another reason for doing this. Last winter I started getting a lot of lower back pain. A week after I shut down the boiler, my back felt a whole lot better! Then the light went on, carrying a 35 pound bucket of ash out in front of you all the way out to the ash pile every night is a good way to hurt your back!

-Don

StokerDon wrote:McGiever,

There is another reason for doing this. Last winter I started getting a lot of lower back pain. A week after I shut down the boiler, my back felt a whole lot better! Then the light went on, carrying a 35 pound bucket of ash out in front of you all the way out to the ash pile every night is a good way to hurt your back!

-Don

I use a wheel barrow.

Pat,

You just gave me an idea. For me, dumping the ashes into the wheel barrow would be a problem, flyash everywhere. But, if I put the ashpan in the wheelbarrow and cart it over to the ash plie, problem solved!
Now I need to get a wheelbarrow.

Thank you,

-Don