Preliminary Estimate of Watts of Electricity Consumed by AHS

I'm starting out with an initial educated guesstimate of 60 Watts consumed per pound of coal burned in my AHS S130 Coal Gun.

Does that include your circulators for the house, or is that just isolated to just the AHS on board motors and electrics?

Does it use power while it's idling? Seems like Watts per pound would depend on heat demand..

Though this does include the single circulator and the 4 zone valves (and the zone valve control module), it is primarily for the boilers fan motor and the ashing motor. The fan motor is a whopping 1/2 HP.

Lightning wrote:Does it use power while it's idling? Seems like Watts per pound would depend on heat demand..

Yes, this is dependent upon heat demand.

I wonder what negatives would be associated with changing out the 1/2 HP fan motor for a 1/4 HP fan motor. Seems that I heard somewhere that the fan motor on the quite similar AA 130's is only 1/4 HP.

lsayre wrote:I wonder what negatives would be associated with changing out the 1/2 HP fan motor for a 1/4 HP fan motor. Seems that I heard somewhere that the fan motor on the quite similar AA 130's is only 1/4 HP.

Mine is a 1/4 HP and in the manual it specifies 1/4 for the 130 and 1/2 for the 260. But I think most the HP is to turn the auger.

When I shut down the motor on mine when only the fan is connected it spins quite a bit longer then when only the auger is connected. I tried both.

An entire year of running our S130 Coal Gun sets us back roughly $95 in electricity charges. ~26 cents per day on average. A bit more than the equivalent of 1/3 of a ton of taxed and delivered coal in these parts. Something that needs to be considered when trying to determine the overall savings of coal.

An oil burner would use about the same, yes ?

Sure but, doesn't any fuel consuming appliance with the exception of a free standing hand fed use power to distribute heat?

Lightning wrote:Sure but, doesn't any fuel consuming appliance with the exception of a free standing hand fed use power to distribute heat?

Yes, they have to.

tsb wrote:An oil burner would use about the same, yes ?

Probably in the same ballpark.

Larry,

I have spent considerable time recently contemplating the pros and cons of a stoker stove vs a hand-fed stove. As of now, I have concluded that a hand-fed stove like a Kodiak or DS Circulator more economical than a stoker stove when electricity and disaster-preparedness are factored in.

For example, the other day my stove went out because a lump of coal the size of a jumbo egg got jammed in the hopper throat. Luckily, I was home on a vacation day and got the stove working again in short order. Coal, above all else, should be cheap and reliable. If it isn't, what is it then?

EarthWindandFire wrote:Larry,

I have spent considerable time recently contemplating the pros and cons of a stoker stove vs a hand-fed stove. As of now, I have concluded that a hand-fed stove like a Kodiak or DS Circulator more economical than a stoker stove when electricity and disaster-preparedness are factored in.

For example, the other day my stove went out because a lump of coal the size of a jumbo egg got jammed in the hopper throat. Luckily, I was home on a vacation day and got the stove working again in short order. Coal, above all else, should be cheap and reliable. If it isn't, what is it then?

I'm still contemplating a hand fired back-up stove with hopper. We've whittled the choices down to the Keystoker HFH 90 or the Alaska Kodiak w/hopper, as both of these apparently are well suited to burning the same pea coal that we burn in the Coal Gun boiler. Still haggling with the better half over where to install it if we do go that route. I say living room and she says basement. I like to be warm and she likes to be cold. The living room would require adding a double lined SS chimney. The basement would utilize the existing fireplaces outside terra-cotta lined chimney (which in the past has given us several backdraft issues with the woodburner insert that presently is connected to it). But so far no installer we have discussed this with will install a stove into a terra-cotta chimney. They all say we need to get it lined with a stainless steel chimney insert. Many hold ups are therefore delaying the hand fired stove project.

After monitoring the electric meter daily for awhile I'm revising my estimate of Watts consumed per pound of coal burned downward from 60 to 40.

For what it's worth: 40 Watts = 137 BTU's

If I burn a ton of coal this month, then my electrical cost to burn it in the Coal Gun will be:
2,000 lbs. x 40 Watts/Lb. = 80,000 Watts = 80 KWH
80 KWH x $0.145/KWH = $11.60