Help Im going to build a coalstove/boiler

Well at this time im a Boiler maker, I work in power plants in winter and make power plant parts in summer.I have a full welding set up at my home.Welder, torches, LN-25 ,tig .Right now I have 2 sheets 4x8 3/8 1 sheet 1/8 I have 21 feet of 309 stainles 2 inch sc 80 boiler tub. 40 feet 2 inch sc.80 A1 boiler tub. a bunch of c channel and angle.I dont have any grates and I dont know how to get them,And fire brick eather i could get refra. from zampell but not till this fall. Oil is way out there and try and get fire wood now in maine no way.But there is alot of coal.In winter im on the road alot so my wife will be feeding the stove.She can do it .I bent the stainles all ready for the coil to lay flat on the in side of the stove cold water in the bottom hot out the top.It would go to a holding tank no preasher then a het exchanger in the tank for hot water at the tap.The holding tank would do the hot water for basboard. Im thinking 100 gallon stainles tank.I was going to run the boiler tub threw the inside top of the stove for forced hot ait.All the metal I have is 309 or A1 it is what we have for the coil burners and oil burners in power plants .Thanks

Love to see some pics. This sounds interesting.

Mainaa, send me your email and I'll send you building photos of 'Big Bertha'

Here she is. all SS,

The firebrick are cheap, and available at any brickyard, or Home Depot. about $1-2. each..

Greg L

Didnt you say that if you did it again you would have flat sides not the v shape and it would be 10 inches deep. would a 36 inch long 10 inch deep and 16 inches wide what would be best how thick should the brick be what I cant seem to get is how the shack the grates from out side the boiler.And how do I get grates.I like all the stainles how long ago did you make it.ate you a welder nice fab work.

100 gal of water

Too large a vessel

Maybe scale it down a bit

unless you have a greenhouse to heat

Yes, I do not recommend the 'v' shaped firebox.. and unless you plan on burning mostly wood, I'd not go longer than 24" on the firebox.. 10-12" deep is good. I think you can find and rig up some shaker grates from another stove,, PM coalberner, he has a list of links to stove parts suppliers.. for some old stock grates to use, maybe coaledsweat as well, he searched for new grates last year.

I'd mimic the EFM firebox and heat exchanger, unless you are useing a lot of wood,, I have photos,, pm me your email and I'll send some in the AM,, I'm flying to SFO tonight [I'm a pilot].. so I won't be online again untill about 0200 est.

Take care,, Greg L.

AHS has a rotary grate base available. It works well with wood and coal. There are four sizes to chose from and the nature of the design keeps the grates fairly cool. Each grate can be shaken individually to fine tune the fire. Yanche mentioned it last year and if I have to modify mine, I may go with it. I never did find any for mine.

http://www.alternateheatingsystems.com/ ... oilers.htm

I will be using coal only no wood. you say 24l and 10D what about W? My E-mail is c.d.kinney@hotmail.com so 50 gallon tank for a Big house would be good.Thanks Agian for all the help I got some more metal today at the shop boiler tub,I think I can pull alot of heat from the forst hot air with it.Any links on shaker greats would be great thanks alot for all the info.Coal is 290 tun in my town is that good. if it took 9 cord of wood from oct. to april how much coal should I get.From what you guys are saying go with the biger coal the burn will be longer,also shouldnt I know what size coal I will burn to go with the size grates I get. What do you guys think about the over fired air.I see it in all the power plants.

I didnt see the page that showed the sizes of the grates?

If you look at the specs toward the bottom of the page you will see that the firebox comes in 3 lengths and 2 widths. The rotary grates are less prone to jamming and breaking. They also run cooler which should reduce the risk of warping considerably.

mainaa wrote:I will be using coal only no wood. you say 24l and 10D what about W? My E-mail is c.d.kinney@hotmail.com so 50 gallon tank for a Big house would be good.Thanks Agian for all the help I got some more metal today at the shop boiler tub,I think I can pull alot of heat from the forst hot air with it.Any links on shaker greats would be great thanks alot for all the info.Coal is 290 tun in my town is that good. if it took 9 cord of wood from oct. to april how much coal should I get.From what you guys are saying go with the biger coal the burn will be longer,also shouldnt I know what size coal I will burn to go with the size grates I get. What do you guys think about the over fired air.I see it in all the power plants.

Over the fire Air is for Bituminous coal soft coal that's what most Power plants are burning Anthracite coal is hard coal
The Air must come up from the bottom threw the coal bed What type of coal are you going to be burning Straight Flat sides Firebox will work best with Anthracite coal Not V shape sides Here are several Links to wood & coal stove Parts you will have alot of style grates to Pick from Why not make it a auto stoker fed boiler you could use a EFM under fed stoker unit Or a Keystoker style carpet stoker anyway here are the links Good luck on you Project

http://www.efmheating.com/d520.html

http://www.keystoker.com/coaloilboilers.html

http://www.stovepartsplus.com/Merchant5 ... de=GIB-LCC

http://www.stovepartsunlimited.com/cate ... nufacturer

http://www.woodmanspartsplus.com/4863/W ... rates.html

http://www.hearthstove.com/catalog.html

mainaa wrote:I will be using coal only no wood. you say 24l and 10D what about W? My E-mail is c.d.kinney@hotmail.com so 50 gallon tank for a Big house would be good.Thanks Agian for all the help I got some more metal today at the shop boiler tub,I think I can pull alot of heat from the forst hot air with it.Any links on shaker greats would be great thanks alot for all the info.Coal is 290 tun in my town is that good. if it took 9 cord of wood from oct. to april how much coal should I get.From what you guys are saying go with the biger coal the burn will be longer,also shouldnt I know what size coal I will burn to go with the size grates I get. What do you guys think about the over fired air.I see it in all the power plants.

50 gal

much better! You only used 9 cord last year - your load isn't that big and a coal fire is a much more even heat on the vessel than the wood was so you don't need or want an oversize buffer or energy storage.

I have a hell of a draft so i shouldnt need forst air? for the coal

Your going to need a barometric damper, you want to limit the draft to a maximum setpoint. Typically, this will run about -.06.
Beyond that, you are throwing the heat away to the outside.

The use of forced air isn't required, the old Burnham WOODLANDER used a natural draft control. However, in conjunction with an aquastat, the combustion blower allows the boiler to recover much quicker and to increasing demands placed on it by the multiple zones and DHW.

sorry but what is a barometric damper you can see im waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay new at this