Mind Boggling EFM 520

I have my efm 520 ~ I never had a problem with heating my house til last night ~ radiators are all hot ~ boiler looks like its burning the way it should but last night temps went down to neg 20 and my house temp dropped to 56 deg. I have my thermostat set @70..This morning the temp back to 5 deg but my house taking forever to reach temp...anyclue???? ALSO aquatate set and 180 ~ it shuts off at 140 (as per pressure gauge) I raise it to 185 the shuts off at 160....input?

Tony

Negative twenty? This must be -20 Celsius. At 56F I would guess it would take about 4-8 hrs to get back up to 72,

tnf75 wrote:I have my efm 520 ~ I never had a problem with heating my house til last night ~ radiators are all hot ~ boiler looks like its burning the way it should but last night temps went down to neg 20 and my house temp dropped to 56 deg. I have my thermostat set @70..This morning the temp back to 5 deg but my house taking forever to reach temp...anyclue???? ALSO aquatate set and 180 ~ it shuts off at 140 (as per pressure gauge) I raise it to 185 the shuts off at 160....input?

Tony

Did you ever resolve the issues with your aquastat?

EFM 520 Imput Needed

It sounds to me like the aquastat is mounted in the wrong location and/or not getting the correct reading. Also possible that the stoker is not set at a high enough feed rate to deal with those temperatures.

davidmcbeth3 wrote:This must be -20 Celsius.

No. It was -20F yesterday.

Sounds to me like either the temp gauge is bad or the aquastat is bad. This is probably the last hurrah for the winter season because it two weeks we will be looking at rising temps for March which as you know is in like a lion out like a lamb! When March starts, it's still winter, and by the end of the month spring has begun.

If it were my druthers I would first replace the temp gauge. If the new one still reads the same stuff, then replace the aquastat. I always go with the cheapest item first....

If your only pushing 140 or even 150 to 160F water out with minus 20 OAT it will take FOREVER if it recovers at all.

davidmcbeth3 wrote:Negative twenty? This must be -20 Celsius. At 56F I would guess it would take about 4-8 hrs to get back up to 72,

No he means -20 F.

Wonder where this guy lives?

Ya does he mean upstate as in Albany? Or upstate as in rob and I? Lol

I have always had my auger set to 5 clicks with 4 -1/2 air. With zero deg weather my house maintained the heat with no problems. (4 zones)
Of course Sat night it went down to 23 Below (ugh) in the beautiful Adirondacks ~ (Schroon lake) and of course this past sat I was away for the night ~ Son calls me and tells me the first floor is 56 deg. I get home yesterday sure enough house is cold even after telling my son to turn up thermo. I went to auger turned up clicks to 7 the burn looks nice and hot with about 2 inches of ashes at end with no un-burned coal.
Last night I turned off one of my zones to dedicate to see if my house catches up. I left my thermo set at 74 and today when I woke up my house was at 62. Now ~ I have always had this problem of setting aguastat 180 then it will turn off around 140 and kick back on 110-120 area ~ Yes I have changed the aquastat ~ I think today I will change pressure gauge.

so a true "upstater" lol there coming out of the wood works up here more and more. Did you turn your air up when you went from 5 to 7?

I did not ~ What would be the right setting for the air?

Rob or scott could answer this best, but from what ive read and understand on here, you mostly want to move both adjustments together, up or down, so I would think to try 6 or 6.5 on the air? anyone correct me if im wrong.. you don't want more than a 2" ash ring all the time after a long heat call.

tnf75 wrote:I did not ~ What would be the right setting for the air?

Try 6 teeth and 5.5 on the air. The stoker needs to run for 30 minutes or so nonstop before you judge the ash ring.

Is your circulator hooked up to the triple aquastat? You should be able to turn up the thermostat and have the stoker & circulator start quickly afterwards. If not, I think the way the controls are wired may be contributing to your problem.

hotblast1357 wrote:anyone correct me if im wrong.. but you want at least a 2" ash ring all the time after a long heat call.

You don't want more than a 2" ash ring because you would be blowing cool air through dead ash into the combustion chamber. You don't want the ash ring too small because it would mean the coal hasn't finished burning when it moves past the outermost row of air holes.

Mike

Here are the baseline settings recommended by EFM.
It is recommended that you don't make drastic adjustments, and give the unit time to react to the change before you make additional changes. Generally speaking, when the stoker has been running nonstop for at least 30 minutes, the fire should be at a mature state and have about 1.5-2" of ash around it.

To Mike's point, ideally you want the fire to stop right at the last set of air holes on the grates. This ensures that you aren't blowing air through ashes (just sends heat up the chimney) and that the coal is burned before it gets pushed beyond the flow of combustion air.

With that said, I think most of your issues are with the controls. If your stoker is not running NONSTOP trying to get the boiler temperature up to setpoint, then the issue is not lack of feed.

tnf75 wrote: I have always had this problem of setting aguastat 180 then it will turn off around 140 and kick back on 110-120 area ~ Yes I have changed the aquastat ~ I think today I will change pressure gauge.

Your radiators won't do much with 130 degree water. If you want this solved, you need to give us more information. Pictures would be great, so would a wiring diagram. My suspicion is that your aquastat is just controlling the boiler temperature off the low limit setting, but I need more info.

First TY everyone for the help... I believe its my aquastat ~ I put in a new temp / pressure gauge today. I set boiler @180 and it would shut off @ 170 ~ I raised aquastat to 190 then the boiler would shut down @180 ~ Here is the kicker the boiler wasn't kicking on until the low temp of 120 and its running til it hits 180 ~ the differential is set at 10 ~ I tried at 5 and 15 & 20. On another note my pressure is @50psi?? Concern?? I let out some water and it did return to 50.