The Bairmatic - Van Wert Project

Don, I expect the flyash was a big contributor to the high stack temperature.

Excess air creates excess flyash, which is another reason I preach about proper feed rate and air balance based on ash ring rather than ash appearance.

titleist1 wrote:Congrats on the exhaust temp improvement! Probably a combo of the cleaner walls and the new indirect exhaust path but the % improvement is impressive.

You weren't too overdue with the fall cleaning, we only moved into Winter about 5 days ago!

Thanks! I hope the stack temp stays down.

Usually you do a Fall cleaning before it gets cold out though. At least it did get done.

-Don

Rob R. wrote:Don, I expect the flyash was a big contributor to the high stack temperature.

Excess air creates excess flyash, which is another reason I preach about proper feed rate and air balance based on ash ring rather than ash appearance.

Running at the higher feed rate now and the ash ring is looking good. It's a little harder to tell on this one than the EFM.

I guess I can use the stack temp as a guide to tell when it's time for a cleaning?

-Don

Meter reading today, 2671.8 - 2655.3 = 16.5 hours, 4.1 hours per day over the past 4 days. 16.5 x 12.5 = 206.25 pounds, 51.6 pounds per day.
Today I shut down the GJ/EFM in the garage. I did a bunch of re-plumbing so that the monster radiator will still heat the garage once the GJ/EFM is removed. Right now I have it set up so that the pump is thermostatically controlled and is flowing through the GJ into the radiator. This means that the BairMatic/Van Wert will have a bit more of a load on it while we are testing this configuration out.

Stack temp is still running around 400 degrees. -Don

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAIRMATIC/VAN WERT!!!

It has been one full year since I completed and fired this boiler. It has run with no serious issues for 365 days and has been very reliable.

This has been a fun project. Yesterday I shut down the GJ/EFM in the garage so now the BairMatic/Van Wert is heating the house, DHW and the garage. I'm still working out some bugs but I can now remove the GJ/EFM and still heat the garage.

I was watching the video of the Spring cleaning and noticed that 3 hours after the cleaning, the stack temp was 650 degrees on a long DHW call. Since I have installed the block-off plate on top of the rear baffle plate, the stack has stayed well below 450 degrees.

Two things that I thought would be a problem with this conversion were, burning rice coal in the Van Wert and less than 2 inches of clearance between the ash ring and the front/rear of the firebox. Neither are a problem. The Van Wert burns rice coal very well and there is no fines accumulation at all. The ash has no problem falling off the front or back of the pot.

Yesterday I picked up some chestnut coal for the Harman. As I was finishing loading it into the bin the BM/VW kicked on for a heat call. I figured, what the heck? I'll put a couple shovels of nut on top. It looked pretty cool so I took a video of it.



The whole BairMatic/Van Wert playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIi1uGP5KOA&list=PLFU8SaWNbzx9mci79cXUaH2ECEraIT4AT

Happy New Year Everyone!

-Don

Very cool, I never thought of doing that here.

Don, how did you secure that hanging baffle?

I am having a hard time picturing it compared to the rest of the boiler.

Rob R. wrote:Don, how did you secure that hanging baffle?

I am having a hard time picturing it compared to the rest of the boiler.

It's hard to describe so I will have to draw a picture and upload it later. You can only see a little bit of it by looking in the flue. One thing I need to clarify is there are 5 baffle plates hanging in this boiler, for some reason I keep saying 4. The rear one (5th) is where the block-off plate sits.

Right now the block-off plate is kind of just jammed in on top of the plate and the screws help to hold it in there. Now that I know it works I should come up with something more permanent.

-Don

BairMatic Boiler gas path.
As you can see, the block-off plate forces the gas path down between the 4th and 5th baffle plates. The gasses have to flow all the way down and under the 5th baffle plate before they can get out the flue.

Without the block-off plate, the gas path is strait to the back of the boiler, over all the baffle plates, then out the flue.

I am trying to exploit a thermal law that states, "For a hot gas to flow downward, it must release energy". In this case the energy is heat that we want to release into the boiler water. So far, it seems to be working. The stack temps are down more than 200 degrees from the last boiler cleaning.

-Don

Meter reading today, 2691.9 - 2671.8 = 20.1 hours, 6.7 hours per day over the past 3 days. 20.1 x 12.5 = 251.25 pounds, 83.75 pounds per day.

The BairMatic/Van Wert is now heating the house, DHW, Breezeway and the garage. It took a few days for me to get the garage heating under control, Friday = 93.75 pounds per day, Sat = 81.25 pounds per day and today = 76.25 pounds per day. I will be happy if we stay under the 75 pound per day mark. Since we will be using more coal in the basement I should switch out the ashpan every 2 or 3 days. This was 4 days worth. They get a bit heavy when they're that full! The gofer hole is showing itself again. OK, it was pretty rough, but I have weened myself off of running 2 boilers. The GJ in the garage is still in the system but not fired up. I will keep pumping water through it on garage heat calls, this will keep it nice and dry inside. Whoops, I forgot to take the stovepipe off of it!

Ready for another year of burn'in COAL!!!

-Don

This is from yesterday, Sunday 1/8/17. I have been without internet service for a few days. They finally got me hooked back up tonight!

Meter reading yesterday, 2740.5 - 2691.9 = 48.6 hours, 6.9 hours per day over the past 7 days. 20.1 x 12.5 = 607.5 pounds, 86.8 pounds per day average. This is for heating the garage and breezeway as well as the house and DHW. It's been very cold the past few days and individual coal consumption was 122.5 pounds today,106.25 yesterday and 75.75 the day before. Gofer action. I guess that coal ain't gonna last til June like it did last year! Yesterday (Sunday), I had the itch to have a hand fed coal fire. Lucky for me I remembered how to fire up the Ol' Harman. Now I got 2 pretty coal fires to look at. I love Winter!

-Don

Nice hand fed fire !! That should slow down the gopher hole a little!

I've been using between 90 and 120 lbs a day since Friday in similar temps as you have. I've used the buckets for filling the hopper instead of the coal vac, and weighed them to try to get a feel for the lbs burned versus my stoker run times. It looks like a rough estimate is about 9 lbs per hour of run time for me since my run times have been 10 - 13 hours a day.

Thanks for the feedback Titleist, glad someone else is burn'in 120 pounds per day when it's real cold.

One of the things I didn't like about my coal vac was not knowing how many pounds of coal was going in the hopper. Now that you have a good idea of how many pounds per hour your stoker pushes and you have a way to measure how many hours per day your stoker runs, your in business!

-Don

Meter reading today was, 2775.8 - 2740.5 = 35.3 hours, 5 hours per day over the past 7 days. 61.5 pounds per day average.
The ash ring has been on the small side lately. Yesterday I set the feed rate back to 11 pounds per hour and had to re-adjust the air setting and ended up at 5.5, again. If the stoker run time goes up significantly we will go back to 12.5 pounds per hour.

This morning I raked more coal over to the gofer side of the bin. For the past few weeks I have been doing some major basement cleaning. This weekend I built another work bench, a 2'D x 8'W x 6'H shelf and re-enforced the metal shelf. Now I have almost enough room for my under-fed stoker parts. I was going to scrap that old truck toolbox. Then I realized I could put wheels on it and use it for storage as well as a place to sit while at the new work bench. There is still some stuff that has to go, like the old metal sink, but that will be another time.

-Don

Nice job on the workbench SD....and good idea re-purposing the toolbox.....i say splurge on yourself and get a cushion for the top of the box if your gonna sit on it!!

My coal usage also went way down this week in the warm weather. I was averaging about 5 hours a day on the clock which isn't much more than just idle time.