Got a Free Keystoker Warm Air Furnace!!!

I went by a place in St. Clair Pa. called Trader Joe's on Monday afternoon. He sometimes has some stoves that are not in the best of shape but sometimes rebuildable for short money. All he had was an Oak which was ready for the scrap pile and a couple of wood stoves that had seen better days. The Oak wasn't even good for parts as it was missing parts. He did have one box shaped wood stove that looked like a chinese knock off. it was decent and if I had been after wood stoves I would have picked it up. Still might go back and try to flip it at least when the first frost hits....

Sitting along side the fence was a large box shaped thing covered with a gray and blue tarp. The bottom 1/4 was showing and I thought I recognized the paint color. I lifted up the tarp and sure enough it was a Keystoker hot air coal fired furnace with coal still in the hopper.

The owner came out and we pulled the tarp off. It is in rough shape but rebuildable with some sheet metal and pop rivets. I asked him how much he wanted for it and he asked me where it was going. I told him that I was interested in putting it in our church. He said that it has sat there because it's too big for just about everybody that looks at the thing. He said he was told it was 170,000 BTU, about 1975 vintage. Hmmm 40 years old. Possible... He wanted $950 for it. Pricy for a bunch of rust that will require total rebuild before you could get a match near it much less coal.

Then he said that since I was a pastor and if I promised to put it back into service in our church and not resell it, we could have it for free if we could move it by this Friday.

I went back today and started disassembling it for transport. Even the rust is rusted on this thing. I have some photo's attached and as you can see the hopper is just a pattern now, the casing has some metal termite issues in the coal handling area but as long as the heat exchangers are good, it's rebuildable. I got all the bolts and nuts off without breaking any which was a miracle in itself. I did have to chisel one nut which is holding the burner mounting plate because the head was inside the firebox and it was pretty much round when I got the rust off of it. That one nut was a bugger to split. Must have been that good US Steel materials in that nut!!!! Usually I can split a nut with no more than 10 hits with the chisel and hammer. Not his one...no sir... it laughed at me. I finally got it after 30 minutes of pounding on that thing and only hit my chisel holding hand twice.

We are taking a crew and a truck tomorrow and will load it up and bring it to it's new home at the New Beginning Church in Ashland Pa. We will have to disassemble it completely so we can navigate the stairs to the basement. The Bilco doors in the sidewalk are 36x36. The furnace is 28x52. OOPs. but I'll chainsaw the floor to get that thing down into the basement if it comes to it Shouldn't have to do that if I can disassemble it to where it should fit down the stairwell.

More pics to follow.....

Great find. How does the heat exchanger look?

I would call Keystoker and see what to look for to ID the model...also ask for a price on the hopper. You may be pleasently surprised at how inexpensive a new hopper is.

I won't know for sure that status on heat exchangers until I can get it to the church, get some good lighting on it and start pulling those side panels off. Name plates are either gone or someplace I haven't looked yet. I did plan on calling Keystoker just to see if I could send them some photo's to get an idea on the size and age. I should know more in a couple of days.

Good for you, but I would be worried about the heat exchange portion with all that rust.

Great find ! Not too bad a price Will be watching for when you get this unit all fixed & fired up.

The hopper should be easy enough to replace but I understand the old heat exchanger design may have changed over time so that you can't just bolt a new one onto an old combustion chamber. Good luck.

Mike

Great find Reverend. I hope you can get it back into useable condition.

This unit has two heat exchangers. The main exchanger above the grates and another one where the return air comes in so you get some preheat. Even if the heat exchanger(s) are bad and can't be replaced, I can maybe get a usable stoker from it as well as some controls. The blower unit could be mounted in a window in our second floor and supply some very much needed "air conditioning" for youth group nights if nothing else.

Maybe "Stoker Madness Don" would be interested in another project if he had another stoker assembly?

Got there to pick up the unit today and the owner said he had some other stuff we might want. He gave us two stoves, one oak and one kenmore that looks like a Locke with a different cabinet around it. He also gave us a 275 gallon oil tank which we needed for the house the church is refurbing. The killer was a 16 section 4 foot high radiator. That just about killed us getting it into the truck.

My wife doesn't know it yet but that is going to be cleaned, painted and then put in our front room in front of the big window. That's my story and I'm going to stick with it.

Good job on getting that as a donation Larry!!!

He has been selling that one for more than a year. He has had the price from $2000 down to $950. I have been very tempted to stop by and take a look at that one, my Aunt lives near there. Is that one a 4 grate, or even a 5 grate maybe?

-Don

I have two more bolts to get out of the burner mounting plate and then I can pull the whole assembly out. It will have to be completely disassembled so I can see what is up with it.

I got the top off this afternoon and both heat exchangers look OK. I will know more when I can pull the side panel off and get a good visual inspection completed.

If it turns out they are good we will have it in the basement in a couple of weeks if all does well.

McGiever wrote:http://www.keystoker.com/products.php

Warm Air Furnace
Specifications

Model No./ Bonnet Output B.T.U./ Length/ Height/ Width/
A-80---------------- 125,000 ----------------66 48 27
A-150-------------- 150,000 ----------------78 48 30
A-250-------------- 250,000 ----------------88 54 ½ 36 ¾
A-350-------------- 350,000 ----------------94 60 41
A-450-------------- 450,000 ----------------94 66 41

StokerDon wrote:Good job on getting that as a donation Larry!!!

He has been selling that one for more than a year. He has had the price from $2000 down to $950. I have been very tempted to stop by and take a look at that one, my Aunt lives near there. Is that one a 4 grate, or even a 5 grate maybe?

-Don

Three grate. Long three grate.

It's a 3 grate, Hummm. I know a guy that has an old keystoker boiler that looks like its a 3 grate. It is missing the stoker and the sheetmetal. I think it has the fire door and ash door. If you feel like turning this into a boiler project, I will pass you his info.

-Don