EFM 520 SULFUR SMELL

i would have the guys who did the installation back and stay with them till it was made right, there are a lot of so called experts out there but all they know is coal is black and it should burn.Stoker installs are serious business S and i would would want to know history or have references on anyone who installed one, 90 percent of youre plumbers today do oil and in no way is coal similar to oil, have someone who is qualified or experianced in coal look at the unit. SCRAPPER

scrapper_23jr wrote:i would have the guys who did the installation back and stay with them till it was made right, there are a lot of so called experts out there but all they know is coal is black and it should burn.Stoker installs are serious business S and i would would want to know history or have references on anyone who installed one, 90 percent of youre plumbers today do oil and in no way is coal similar to oil, have someone who is qualified or experianced in coal look at the unit. SCRAPPER

Scrapper, I took off work yesterday (Thursday the 24th) and did just that. He came in Weds. night the first night and wired both zones together so they would at least "run". When it still didn't get above 60 thursday morning, I called off work (At great cost to me) and stayed home. He came 3 more times thursday throughout the day, purged the system of air (Again), replaced the auqua stat and and finally made the fire bigger in the hopes that maybe the fire wasn't hot enough for the cold weather. My radiators upstairs are hot (I have 2 cast irons, one in each bedroom) my downstairs baseboards are warm at best. I have burned through at least a half ton, maybe 3/4 ton in the last week alone waiting for this to be fixed. What else can cause this? I know my base boards can get hot as hell, and even if the furnace is running all the time, it used to be at least 70 in my living room. Circulator? He said it was running. What about all the vales attached to this thing? Could they be malfunctioning? I don't know, and he didn't seem to care much about diagnosing it. I'm a simple man, and I am one of the more patient individuals any home improvement guy or technician will ever meet (Much to the dismay of my wife sometimes). I give people the benefit of the doubt, but damnit I have kids and, and I want service. Coal was supposed to make things cheaper for me. This is turning into a very expensive heating cycle for me. I will have to order tons 7 and 8 here shortly because this thing has been running non stop for over a week now. Matt D, you're up. Expect a call in the morning.

I wish I could offer some help, I'm sorry to see you are struggling.. My biggest question right now is, where the heck is all that heat going?? You've burned enough coal to supply 4 houses with heat.. Is it possible that you are loosing that much heat up the chimney?? Where else could it be going? Are your boiler lines passing thru an area where they could be loosing a substantial amount of heat? like passing underground or outside and uninsulated? I just skimmed over this thread but didn't see anything about draft pressure or gaskets. My next step would be to make sure all the doors on the unit are sealing well (dollar bill test?) and that your draft isn't out of control (pulling too hard) lets make sure you aren't loosing a huge amount of heat up the chimney...

Hows the ash look? Is there alot of unburnt coal in the ash? And how about your coal? You are sure its good coal? Reason I ask is because apparently there is a thread on here about a seller that sells driveway filler for coal

How about your house? How many square feet? Did you try and fix some of the drafty parts mentioned earlier?? and you said its not insulated or at least not very well.. Could you elaborate on that a little? What was used to heat with before the coal boiler and how much was consumed? Maybe we could justify some of that coal your burning....

I do have a drafty house. But even with my oil boiler it was capable of being heated with my radiators.

If some radiators are getting hot, and others are not...the problem is not with the boiler. I suspect you have a valve closed, or the circulator is not working properly. But without standing in the basement it is a guessing game. Get a real heating man there to take a look.

mornin'

If you haven't done so call Matt. I dont know him but if he's on here hes got game. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck ,its probably a DUCK. Sounds to me like youve been hiring ducks. Hang in there, even with the extra expense and discomfort your having right now you will get it sorted out ,youll have good heat ,lots of it and a a price that'll make you wonder why you ever waited so long to do it.
If ya dont drink maybe today might be a day to experiment

Hang in,

Waldo

If I understand correctly that your boiler keeps running all the time and is burning up lots of coal, you might have a burned contactor somewhere. Probably in the aquastat. But you don't say that it overheats the water, so I doubt that. If it was running up to the high limit and shutting off, it could be a burned contactor somewhere, but then I would expect that your circulator would carry away the heat and your house would be warm.

It doesn't make sense that you would burn lots of coal and have a cold house. If your circulator was bad, the boiler would be shut down on high limit all the time and that also would happen if your lines were full of air.

I need a little more information

Any solution to this yet ?