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DOUG
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Post by DOUG » Sat. Jul. 19, 2008 9:02 pm

I have been reading the Anthracite Coal Forum on and off for about a year now and just joined in. I have read alot of good topics by alot of great folks and see that there is alot of great products out there. I have successfully installed a central forced air hand fired wood an coal system with natural gas back up in the house and it works great. But my wife wants something more automatic. Being I like to tinker with this kind of stuff, I'm ready to attack a stoker unit. The problem I'm having is where to lay the hard earned cash without taking another mortgage on the house. I have thought about a boiler unit with a water to air coil. But, with the A/C coil and the series downstream solid fuel unit, it would present too much of a restriction on the conventional circulation blower that can be modified to handle. Besides, I would have to mortgage the house to pay for it. So, that leaves me with a parallel forced air set up. I need a unit that will produce 140,000 to 190,000 btu's. I am going to use Reading Anthracite buckwheat coal. I have concidered purchasing a Leisure Line hyfire II and modifying it with an insulated hot air jacket and return. Leisure Line seems to make a top shelf product but, they are back ordered until december, and I'm not sure it will work the way I want to use it. I have also concidered purchasing a Reading Stove susquehanna, modifying the outdated stoker with a seperate combustion blower, Coal-trol, and an insulated hot air jacket with return. But I'm not sure it will work the way I want to us it either. Then I am concidering purchasing stokers and custom fabricating my own unit. I have been studying coal combustion and heat exchange for a few years now and may have a firebox and heat exchange design better than what is currently available in my price range. I plan on power venting the new stoker and didn't completely rule out installing a fabricated stainless steel chimney out the back of the house. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Keep the coal fires burning.

 
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Freddy
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Post by Freddy » Sat. Jul. 19, 2008 9:13 pm

My one suggestion is to not power vent it. With coal the power venter has to run 24/7/365. A chimney will be cheaper in the long run.

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Sat. Jul. 19, 2008 9:33 pm

It is going to be difficult to find a new furnace or boiler this summer and fall, the rush is on, and it's a seller's market.

Personally I'd still use a boiler and an water/air exchanger, run the circulation fan at a continous but slower speed and vary the temp in the exchanger for temp control.. A steady slightly slower circulation with a constant temperature is much more comfortable the blasts of scorched air followed by a cooldown.
The slight added restriction won't matter if the fan runs constantly instead of in intermittant blasts of hot air.

Greg L.

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e.alleg
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Post by e.alleg » Sun. Jul. 20, 2008 5:09 pm

Be aware while the method LsFarm described will work there's a potential problem with running the fan at a lower speed. There needs to be a way to get more BTU's of heat into the house when it gets really cold, and a low speed doesn't work. There's formulas that are too technical for me to even try to understand, what I do know is that I have a boiler hooked to a h20/air heat exchanger and when it got down below zero I had to re engineer my system. I have the blower set to the highest speed (this is the A/C or black wire on a Nordyne furnace) and it's controlled by a fan/limit switch installed in the plenum above the heat exchanger. Full temperature water runs through the heat exchanger once the thermostat calls for heat and the circulator comes on, within a minute the plenum is up to temp and the fan comes on circulating all that warm air. When the thermostat is satisfied the circulator shuts off and the excess heat continues to be distributed throughout the house. Once it starts to feel luke-warm it shuts off. What I would prefer is a complex system with a mixing valve and a variable speed fan. A computer would control both the fan speed and water temperature based on indoor/outdoor temperatures, but that's just a dream for now. I'd bet that if someone invented a similar device to work specifically for boiler-to-forced air installations (wood or coal) they would sell all they could make.


 
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Yanche
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Post by Yanche » Sun. Jul. 20, 2008 5:43 pm

The Taco 007 variable speed pump with outdoor reset will do what you want. You will need to re-pipe to a injection system that blends supply and boiler water to your water to air heat exchanger. See:

http://www.taco-hvac.com/en/products/Variable%20S ... d_id=15463

Wow, that's a long URL

I'll have to dig a bit to find a blower speed controller. The continuous variable speed ones are very expensive. A multi-speed motor is cheaper and may be good enough. A fancy multi-stage HVAC heat pump room thermostat could be the controller.

 
syncmaster
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Post by syncmaster » Sun. Jul. 20, 2008 5:53 pm

DOUG wrote: But my wife wants something more automatic..
I would say go with a coal boiler, but if you wife is like mine... I think she is thinking more automatic means you flick a switch on the wall to on and set the thermostat to 72* and your done.

She probly wouldn't concider carrying & dumping 6 buckets of coal into a hopper and draging out a 25 gal ash pan every 3 days very automatic.

 
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DOUG
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Post by DOUG » Sun. Jul. 20, 2008 7:50 pm

Thanks for all of the great and quick responses. My wife said she would be willing to refill the hopper and change out an ash bucket because, it sure would beat the hand fired everyday, a couple of times a day, methed we have now.
OK, I like the boiler and water to air coil idea. I have a first floor gas furnace downdrafting through an A/C coil into the basement solid-fuel unit, then to the main duct to the rest of the house.

QUESTIONS?
1. Where in the duct system should I put the water to air coil so it will not condensate in the summer when then A/C is on?

2. What should I be looking to do to create the stoker fired hot water? Buy a boiler or build a boiler?

Thanks for the circulation pump attachment.

Thanks for the chimney advice.

Keep the coal fires burning.

 
syncmaster
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Post by syncmaster » Sun. Jul. 20, 2008 8:42 pm

Since you didn't do anything yet, something you might want to concider is forget about the hot water/air exchanger and maybe do floor radiant heating with the new coal boiler.
depending on how your house is built, if you have acess to the floor rafters you could add this system and leave your air /gas system alone.
your house floors would be nice and warm and your gas system probly would never turn on.
The best thing is the water only has to be about 110* so you will be using alot less coal,maybe you will load the hopper once a week.

here is a link to info:
**Broken Link(s) Removed**by the way do you know there is a backlog for coal boilers and if you ordered one today you probly won't get it till spring 2009?


 
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DOUG
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Post by DOUG » Sun. Jul. 20, 2008 9:06 pm

I had fialed to mention that I had already installed radiant floor heating in two rooms that could not be accessed with any duct work. I just have not hooked it up to any water yet. When I was rebuilding the house after the hurricane Ivan, I was talked out of doing the whole house with radiant floor heatng. I probably should have done it. But it is too late now. It is all close up. I already own a 22 x 22 x 3 inch water to air coil and two Grundfos circulation pumps. I just have not decided what to do with them yet. I'm happy to have found this wonderful forum, with all you geat guys for some straight honest advice and insight. Thanks for the response.

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Sun. Jul. 20, 2008 9:20 pm

Find a good used boiler,, contact your local heating contractors, tell them you want a stoker boiler if they are removing any coal units.. you will help or do the remove.. many are scrapped for the steel..

Put a boiler to work, you are already part way their.. I wouldn't consider building a boiler, I've done it once already.. find a used one.. there will still be boilers showing up..

I think there are two van wert boilers for sale in the 'items for sale' forum on this site.. the van wert is a very good unit..excuse me for preaching, but don't hesitate,, it's a sellers market with $4.++ heating oil already..

e.alleg is correct that it will take some controls, or just some manual valves to increase the heat output from a water/air exchanger when the weather gets cold.. but it can be as simple as a two speed switch and a ball valve or two.. all the way to micro processor controled, heat and cold anticipator, multispeed pumps, and electric motor driven mixing valves.. But since you are working with a hand feed unit now,, learning a few proceedures to adjust the temperature should be a welcome relief over feeding the beast every 8-12 hours..

You will really enjoy he radiant infloor heat when you get it working.. I have it in my master bathroom,, and love it.

Greg L.

 
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Yanche
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Post by Yanche » Sun. Jul. 20, 2008 11:23 pm

You have the possibilities for a very efficient and economical use for a boiler. You would pipe boiler supply water to the heat exchanger in your supply duct. The heat exchanger return water temperature would be lower and with careful design could be used to directly supply your rooms with in floor radiant heat. The combination would be very efficient because there would be a large boiler supply vs. return water temperature. I strongly suggest you consider a stoker boiler.

 
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Post by DOUG » Mon. Jul. 21, 2008 5:57 am

Back in march 2008 I had recieved a red and white color brochure, installation and operation instruction manual for an A-A Anthratube, an Anthratube fact sheet, and an old original January 1953 copy of "TESTS OF THE ANTHRATUBE by J.F Barkley, L. R. Burddick, and R.E Morgan done by the Department of the Interior- Bureau of Mines report Pittsburgh, Pa." from the very nice man from Axeman-Anderson. After reading the material, I wanted to buy one really bad. But when I found out the price for a 130-M was $6518.00 and the price for a 260-M was $8530.00, I knew It was going to be some time before I could get one. I never considered a used one. I thought if someone was getting rid of one something must be wrong. WHY WOULD ANYONE GET RID OF AN ANTHRATUBE, COME ON NOW! But after reading the forum replies, maybe I'll find a used Anthratube. I have been a little gun shy and slow on the draw with the "Items for Sale page." I"ll look at it moore often now. Thanks for the reply and any more help will be greatly appreciated!

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Mon. Jul. 21, 2008 6:24 am

Many perfectly good coal boilers are taken out of service when homes are sold, the new, younger owners turning their noses up at ' that dirty coal'.. their loss, our gain. Also older folks who can no longer haul the coal in and the ashes out..

A functioning used boiler is the way to go, you may have to repair and refurbish a bit.. but so what?? Better than the now $7000+ price for a new boiler.
Or a wait till next March

Greg L

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