Bought A LEMON

slabadie · Post by **slabadie** » Thu. Dec. 04, 2008 8:37 pm

My oil burner broke down at the end of the heating season this past winter. I decided to buy a coal furnance for a hot water system. My first choice was a Harman. When I went to order it I was told that they are backordered until February 2009. Being desparate I turned to my plumber and he suggested a coal furnace from New Yorker Boiler. My first question was is this a stand alone unit, he told me yes. I finally arrived this past October and was installed. Come to fine out the it had to be connected to an existing oil or gas furnace. So he plumb the coal furnace into my old oil burner to cover the warranty. The first night of running the water temperature went up to 260 degrees, the water pressure topped out at 60 PSI, the relief values failed to open, so I had to open them manually to release the steam. After contacting the manufacture, I was informed that there is a fusible plug in the fire box that will pop if the firebox exceed 450 degrees and dump the water from my radiators in the box to put out the fire and flood my basement. Since than I have been spending 4-6 every night trying light a wood fire in order to start my coal. I also have learned that this unit is not made to run 24 hours a day, at most 6-8 hours a day. The manufacturer said that it is possible to get it to run 24 hours a day if I keep feeding coal every 3 hours, which mean I can't leave the house or sleep at night. This is the abreviated version to save space. I welcome any and all comments.

Flyer5 · Post by **Flyer5** » Thu. Dec. 04, 2008 9:10 pm

Not trying to knock anyone .But does your plumber know what he is doing ? Are the relief valves the correct ones ? Open at 30 psi ? Also did he add more expansion tank area for the increased water volume ? Oh yea did he properly bleed the system ?

slabadie · Post by **slabadie** » Thu. Dec. 04, 2008 9:25 pm

Yes he did add another expansion tank, the radiators were bled, and the relief values just failed to operate. They have been replaced.

Post by **stoker-man** » Thu. Dec. 04, 2008 9:43 pm

Something must not be hooked up correctly or plumbed correctly. The efm hand-fired boiler is similar, with the same plug, and it works great. I think yours can also be made to work correctly.

syncmaster · Post by **syncmaster** » Thu. Dec. 04, 2008 9:44 pm

I also have learned that this unit is not made to run 24 hours a day, at most 6-8 hours a day. The manufacturer said that it is possible to get it to run 24 hours a day if I keep feeding coal every 3 hours,

this is crazy....
It sounds like your plumber dosen't know what he is selling you.
you mention radiators.... is this a steam system?

if you have hot water heat, the Harman VF3000 is worth waiting for.
in cold weather you have to load the hopper and empty the ash every 3 days.
it runs 24/7 with no problems
I never have a second thought about leaving the house while it is running.

slabadie · Post by **slabadie** » Thu. Dec. 04, 2008 9:51 pm

This is a hot water radiator system. I would love a harman, but I have spent $4500 for this dinosaur. I plan on asking to have it removed and get my money back. I was thinking of getting a coal insert instead. My house is only 1100 sq ft. so I believe that this might be an option. What are your thoughts?

syncmaster · Post by **syncmaster** » Thu. Dec. 04, 2008 10:25 pm

It is really comfortable having the vf3000 in the basement and setting the thermostat to whatever I want.
the house is evenly heated and you don't have one room hot and the rest of the house felling cold because you were sitting in the room with the insert. plus you can't get domestic hot water from a insert.

I know getting a Harman VF3000 is difficult and there is a reason for that it is a great boiler.

since home heating oil has dropped alot ($1.95/gal here) you might find a Harman dealer that had a person cancel their order and you could get it. If you can get rid of the lemon, try calling around and see if you can locate one.

CoalHeat · Post by **CoalHeat** » Thu. Dec. 04, 2008 10:29 pm

http://www.newyorkerboiler.com/pdf/M24775R4-3-06.pdf

Something is wrong with the installation, a quick read of the manual doesn't make me think it's the boiler at fault.

Rick 386 · Post by **Rick 386** » Thu. Dec. 04, 2008 10:34 pm

Slabadie,

Patience !!!!!

It appears that you have bought a hand fired boiler. There is some discussion below on another thread dealing with the WC -90.

Click this link : New Yorker Wc-90 Add on Boiler

It appears to be working for them. Perhaps you need to PM (private message) the other member(s) and then you guys can get together to talk about them. Most coal boilers can be plumbed in series (with the existing heating system) or in parallel (stand alone system.)
I think that your particular boiler can go either way. But it needs to be set up properly. I am not sure that yours is this way. Spend some time here reading about how various systems are set up. I'm sure that your system can be made fully functional.

Perhaps it will help if you can post a few pictures on how your system is plumbed and wired. Then the experts can better help you.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Rick

djackman · Post by **djackman** » Fri. Dec. 05, 2008 1:14 am

Mabye a "lemon" installer but unless there is a major air leak under the fire I doubt you have a "lemon" boiler. The New Yorker is simular to many other "modern" hand-fed boilers. One difference is that it does not have a intake draft control that will fully shut off - it has a blower that is controlled by an aquastat and an adjustable shutter over the air inlet.

Any chance your installer wired the fan to run full time? That would easily explain the temperature overruns.

Is a barometric (aka "baro") draft control installed, calibrated, and operational? Without a fully closing inlet draft control if you have good chimney draft the fire could suck air thru the fan, even with the fan off. On your boiler I would think a baro is mandatory due to the inlet draft design.

I run a Tarm hand fed boiler which is very simular to yours, actually used the NY'er plumbing diagrams as my reference when I installed it. Load it twice a day, shake once a day, everything else works automatically. It did take a while to get "dialed in".

Not for nothing, if your old oil burner doesn't leak water then what exactly is the reason your repairman can't fix it? Plumbers love to say "you need a new boiler" when all it needs is a new burner or repair of the burner itself. If it's not leaking water it should be repairable.

Post a little more detail and pictures if possible of your setup. How are the heating zones controlled?

Post by **Richard S.** » Fri. Dec. 05, 2008 1:36 am

slabadie wrote:The manufacturer said that it is possible to get it to run 24 hours a day if I keep feeding coal every 3 hours, which mean I can't leave the house or sleep at night.

Are you sure about that? I've seen a lot of hand fired boilers in my life and the only way they differ from a standard hand fired stove is they heat water. From the PDF That particular one looks like one a customer of mine had for a few decades and she was nuts, e.g if it didn't work I'd of known about it. You should be able to get a 12 hour burn out of it and if that is not possible then I'd be less than happy myself.

My guess is there is problem between the coal bin and the shovel.

Took that from the oft quoted problem between the chair and keyboard for computer issues.

I wouldn't give up yet, first thing to do is get it out of your mind that you have lemon and approach it with a fresh start. Try using pea coal if you're using chestnut. How big is the firebox? I'm guessing that you're overfiring it, you're using an excessive amount of coal and all your heat is going out the chimney. You don't need a huge ball of fire to keep it going, it should be just idling along.with barely an flame coming off the coal.

I now the one my customer had was pretty complicated and you really needed to know what you were doing.

efo141 · Post by **efo141** » Fri. Dec. 05, 2008 11:23 pm

Its not a lemon. I have the same wc-90, got it used. Its been about 2 weeks since I hooked it up and it performs great. It takes time to get the air and aquastat set right but after that you should get 9-10 hrs between loadings. You do need to bring the coal level up higher than the coal line on the front of the boiler, mound it up to the bottom of the door but get you air adj right so it wont over fire.

slabadie · Post by **slabadie** » Sat. Dec. 06, 2008 9:11 am

Since I have a very good draft I was considering removing the fan and just putting an adjustable flap over the hole and use it in the same fashion as the one on the fan.

slabadie · Post by **slabadie** » Sat. Dec. 06, 2008 10:31 am

One thing that I need to clarifyis that I am trying to use this as a stand-a-lone boiler. Now I now that it is not made for this, but it was sold to me as a stand-a-lone system. I need some how to make this work, because there is no money to purchase something else. I turn to this forum for help and advice.

JRW · Post by **JRW** » Sat. Dec. 06, 2008 2:26 pm

I just fired my wc-90 back up today after being down a week, just installed in nov. I am working on the draft and amount of coal per loading, also the colder outside the better it will run. I live not far from stroudsburg so the weather is the same. The more I learn as it burns I will let you know.JRW