EFM Bituminous Boiler Testing Is Next Week

Well, you all are so high tech and knowledgeable about this stuff that I hate to start asking questions for fear of revealing how truly ignorant I am... but I will never learn if I don't ask. If there is a different thread I should be on, feel free to let me know.

I have a Honeywell control box that has a timer on it. It resets every time the motor kicks on. If the motor doesn't kick on after a certain period of time (I have it set at 10 minutes), it automatically turns the motor on for two minutes to keep the coal bed burning. Is this an uncommon thing? (Especailly, will the new efm have such a thing?)

Glad to hear it'll be bin fed as I have a 2 1/2 ton bin. With the new efm, can the auger side be adjusted (feed in from the right or the left)? Also, is there a way to manually adjust the water temperature? Forgive me, I have no thermastat in the house. When it feels too cold, I go outside with a screwdriver and turn the temp up. I have two zones, one where everything is pretty normal and the other where it's a 30'x50' space with 22 foot ceilings. If it gets too warm in the first zone, I have a valve inside to slow the water flow. Primitive, I know, but it works.

My old Prill is 200,000 BTU. I have no way of knowing how to test the efficiency of the unti but am certain it's not doing so well. I also don't know of what can be done to increase its efficiency. The local heating folks say there are only two Prills in the county they will even consider working on, mine being one. However, two years ago, they started asking me if I could get by with just borrowing some of their tools Hence my jubilation over the new efm!

It is expected that the efm unit will have a Wil-burt timer, the same as our regular anthracite units use. Wil-burt is a soft coal boiler manufacturer. I don't know how many minutes per hour you'll need on the timer until testing is done. If you have the old Honeywell mercury timer, keep it. They are good timers.

We expect that you will be able to feed from the right or left side, your choice.

You will be able to regulate the water temperature with the aquastat and control the heat with a thermostat and zone valves, or circulators.

We are trying to have units available by late Summer, but testing is not yet done.

The final Prill parts are arriving next week and if all goes well, units should be available for the late Summer.

The hold-up has been the feed worm. We now have a special worm that we believe will work and are going to be testing again soon. We are also going to test Bit coal from Western PA at the same time to see how that will work. Testing might be complete in two weeks.

Testing with the WV coal should go on for several days... just to see how the firepot/ashpan/feedworm handles this coal.. this going to be much more challenging than the Wyoming coal..

You are gonna need more over fire secondary air... at least my WV coal needed a LOT of secondary air to burn off the soot.. this is gonna be interesting

If it can burn WV coal.. wow.. what a market to open up..

Greg L

Special Worm

One that puts itself on the hook so I don't have to???

I just got a question about burning Bit coal in our hand-fired WCB that is coming out. I have to check into that.

I have no experience with bit coal. Will the extra effort be worth the savings for anthracite users or is this unit primarily for markets outside the pennsylvania coal region's economic trading area?

I would never burn bituminous if I have anthracite available.. I had virtually free bituminous available.. it was such a hassle, the bridging, the fines, the soot, the stink,, anthracite was a blessing.. There really is no comparrison..

Wyoming bitum is low swelling, so a lot of the clinkering issue is not there, but it still has lots of soot..

Greg L.

mikeandgerry wrote: Will the extra effort be worth the savings for anthracite users

The price of bit. has gone through the roof and has doubled in a year. The current spot prices are approaching those of what you pay for anthracite that you pick up yourself. As I have suggested before the rise in price for coal will not effect the anthracite market that much because its a niche. I love being right. It's still $130 over Hudson the last I heard. Hopefully the price will stay level but that's a wait and see thing.

Even when it was cheaper for those close to the anthracite source it wouldn't save you anything because of the shipping and it certainly isn't going to now and would undoubtedly cost more. This will be a good product for those outside the anthracite region close to the source for bit.

Above is the link to our test. It's using the Prill pot with Wyoming coal. Note the small amount of smoke.

https://www.youtube.com/v/H5-0kFxBCLk&hl=en&fs=1

Video link above.

Notice how quiet the feed mechanism is. It's running on about 4 teeth; about the requirement for an average house.

stoker-man wrote:http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h306/joeyancz/E ... tcoal5.jpg

Above is the link to our test. It's using the Prill pot with Wyoming coal. Note the small amount of smoke. More pictures to follow.

That machine -- just like that - the one there in front of the handsome man kneeling

Thats what I want the whole shebang - even the plastic bucket and the cinder blocks - Ill take it all

How ? Where? When?

That is the website and email address to inquire about these. There is no pricing yet or availability because we are going to test for awhile. Every other day I'll post some more pictures. TR will be handling these units in the entire Western US. Outside of his territory, we might handle them.

http://www.rockymountainhydronics.com/

[email protected]

Who will take care of Wisconsin?