Finally Adding Outside Air

I've got some unexpected free time on my hands this week so I'm finally getting around to installing outside air to my boiler. At the same time, I'm also installing an exhaust fan adjacent to my hopper to suck out coal dust when loading my hopper. Two projects scheduled and planned for last year but didn't happen. I'll post some pictures later. The outside air is a 4" flexible metal and the exhaust is a 6" flexible metal with a 180 cfm fan.

My coal bin has two windows in it. One I use to load coal and the other is under a deck and not really accessible for coal loading. I'm going to replace that window with a piece of plywood for this season to try this. If I like the results, then I'll cut some new holes in my house. The 4" hood has a screen in it and the 3x10 has a damper.

coalkirk wrote:I've got some unexpected free time on my hands this week so I'm finally getting around to installing outside air to my boiler

Sounds like fun Terry! (What would we do without these little fun "Coal Related" projects to "play" with)

Well today I spent 6 hours mowing and bagging leaves. I did also manage to finish the fan and combustion air project.

That looks like a nice little setup. Let us know who well the exhaust fan works on the coal dust.

After I installed the fan, the first thing Ii did was to check and make sure the fan didn't create enough negative pressure to affect my draft. It does not. The manometer never waivered. Then I cleaned the top of the boiler, turned the fan on and loaded it up. I never will understand why a stoker is called a girly man boiler. Only with a stoker do you shovel 1/8th of a ton of coal at a time. I load my hopper with a coal shovel. It creates an airborne cloud of dust when doing so. Hence the fan. Wetting the coal or getting oiled coal is not an option. The way my bin is built, I get my coal from the bottom of the pile. The fan worked very well. There was some slight dust on the top of the boiler when I was done loading but it was just a very small fraction of what I experienced prior to the fan. Well worth the time, expense and effort.

Maybe by using one of those bucket setups with the spout that have been posted on here would help eliminate the rest of the dust you are getting?

coalkirk wrote: I never will understand why a stoker is called a girly man boiler. Only with a stoker do you shovel 1/8th of a ton of coal at a time. I load my hopper with a coal shovel. It creates an airborne cloud of dust when doing so..

Hey, My Vf3000 has the girly man setup. link to more pictures & info:
Post by syncmaster - Homemade Auger Feed Coal Bin

That's a nice setup and I'd like to duplicate it. i'd just have to convince my wife that a 5 ton coal bin would be an asset in the family room.

coalkirk wrote:After I installed the fan, the first thing Ii did was to check and make sure the fan didn't create enough negative pressure to affect my draft. It does not. The manometer never waivered. Then I cleaned the top of the boiler, turned the fan on and loaded it up. I never will understand why a stoker is called a girly man boiler. Only with a stoker do you shovel 1/8th of a ton of coal at a time. I load my hopper with a coal shovel. It creates an airborne cloud of dust when doing so. Hence the fan. Wetting the coal or getting oiled coal is not an option. The way my bin is built, I get my coal from the bottom of the pile. The fan worked very well. There was some slight dust on the top of the boiler when I was done loading but it was just a very small fraction of what I experienced prior to the fan. Well worth the time, expense and effort.

Wetting the coal or getting oiled coal is not an option. You know when you go to the breaker.They will water the coal down or you can get Veg Oil washed over the coal when they load it. Both the water and oil will be threw the whole load
top middel bottom. The oil is 5.75 a gal / Per ton. The oil will not freeze in the winter .

Thanks JC. That's good to know about the veg oil. They do that at Summit? My coal was plenty wet when I got it but it's dried out by now.

Fun projects, thanks for sharing. Just change the exhaust motor to a 5 HP 220V & you won't have any dust at all. Of course you may also not have coal in the bin, but no dust for sure!

coalkirk wrote:That's a nice setup and I'd like to duplicate it. i'd just have to convince my wife that a 5 ton coal bin would be an asset in the family room.

You can do it with the coal bin you have
here is a picture I am not saying buy the one above.
but build your own out of used farm equipment.

here is a ebay link to a auger.
**Broken Link(s) Removed**