IN NEED TO UPDATE COAL FIRED BOILER FURNACE

My father has a old Crane boiler with Wards feeder to heat his house. Other than the name tags I have not been able to find other tags on it. And I don't know anything about it. The pot is shot and I am looking to update with a new coal boiler. I have read several feeds and looked at several names like Harman and Keystoker. I don't know alot of the technical stuff on what i should be looking for and welcome all the info i can get. I am not sure what size of coal these new ones burn. The old one burns what is called stoker coal and ranges around 3/4 of an inch. Is there a boiler setup out there that burns this size? Looks not important, it goes in the basement. I am not sure how big of as boiler i need to look for either, The house it goes in is 1800 sq feet and well insulated, In Wyoming.
Thanks
wyclodbuster

Your question is the same one that brought me to this forum. Welcome! There are quite a few stoker boilers available, however, most are made to burn anthracite coal. Our Wyoming coal is bituminous or sub-bituminous. The only sizes of coal I've seen around here are pea, stoker, and lump. My understanding is that you can't use bit coal with an anthracite stoker. It is too soft. There are some new bit- burners, but I believe they are hopper fed rather than bin fed. This means you need to the load the hopper every 100 or 200 pounds of coal you go through, depending on the model. New boilers are a little hard to get ahold of right now as demand for them has sky-rocketed. Can you post some photos of it? At the very least, we might be able to help find some replacement parts.

Hello Wyclodbuster, welcome to the forum.

Charlie is right, your coal in Wyoming will not burn in most of the anthracite stokers..

EFM is testing a new burner for their 520 model, but won't be able to market it this year.. they are months behind in current, allready sold production. As are all coal stove/boiler/furnace makers..

I have a boiler using an antique [1930's, maybe 1940's] Iron Fireman under feed stoker.. this is probably very much like your Wards feeder..

Please post a few photos of your boiler, the feeder and especially the firedbox. Show us the burnt out sections.. Maybe someone has some parts.. not much of a chance, but worth a try..

Is your boiler still OK, just the burn pot for the feeder/stoker shot??

Since this is Bituminous related, I'm moving this thread to the Bituminous forum..

Greg L

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Thanks for the information, so far I didn't realize that they wouldn't burn the coal here. As far as the pictures it might be 3 weeks or so before I get back to my dads house to take some pics, might see if I can get a friend to do it. As to what is burnt or rusted away is the pot in the bottomthat the coal augers into. The outter part that controls were the air blows up through is gone and the air now blows into the box below the pot and I have it sealed to make it blow through the right holes somewhat. It's not very good, but it might make it through another winter. I will get some pics as soon as possible. Again thanks, Doug