Best Of

Hey all, bear with me here. We've been heating our home with the oil boiler since we moved in 2019, but we also have an old burham plumbed in that burned coal and wood as well. Heating 2900 sqft, really been wanting something newer and an alternative, so i picked up a coalgun last week (nat gas is not an option) I should have it in the boiler room this week, but i cannot find a competent tech that would want to install it or that is comfortable with coal and hydronics. We are located west of pittsburgh near burgettstown pa. I could have certainly missed someone, I did some searching on coalpail and a couple old threads sent me here. Also tried the find a contractor with no luck, so here I am hoping i can find someone local here that could install it. Any input is greatly appreciated. 

=================================================================

Hello Mr. Payne,

I lived through what you are going through now.

I genuinely want to help you with this to avoid the hell I went through.

You will not go wrong with a coal stoker boiler.

A steam licensed plumber can do this installation easily as the boiler controls are simple
and have been used for many years on these coal stoker boilers.

OK, I have to be nosey now to help you more effectively.

Is your coal gun new or used?

If it is a new coal gun, what model coal gun do you have, an S130, S260?????

Does it have the ASME stamp and H stamp for steam heating use?

Does it have the round hopper or the square hopper?

If you have a coal gun with a round hopper you should take it to a welding shop to have it cut to a lower height or if you travel to Schukyl Haven, PA. to exchange the combustion fan assembly for an indirect drive system ask if they have time to lower the hopper height by removing half of the hopper as your back will thank you.

Is the hopper equipped with the snap switch to shut the boiler off in the event of a hopper fire?

Is the induced draft combustion fan a direct drive system or indirect belt drive system?

If it is a direct drive induced draft combustion fan system you need to exchange it for the indirect drive as direct drive induced combustion fan system suffers from dielectric corrosion and the direct drive motor bearings fail prematurely due to the heat of coal combustion and dielectric corosion.

The V belt pulley drive system, for the induced draft combustion blower allows the 110 volt Alternate Current motor to operate at a slower Revolutions Per Minute speed and the 110 volt electric motor with the V belt pulleys will operate at a cooler temperature.

If you have not begun to pick up fittings and parts:

ALL of the close boiler piping needs to be schedule 40 black pipe to prevent issues with expansion and
leaks NO COPPER. Been there done that with propress fittings and copper that should not have been used on my coal stoker boiler system. The other issue is the corrosion that will occur at the sweated joints.

You need to use N.P.T. threaded gate valves NO BALL VALVES as the plastic ball valve plastic parts can and will leak from melting.

Now onward to the house plumbing;

Do you have cast iron radiators or baseboard heat?

Hydronic heating with circulators or gravity hot water heating?

How much of the current boiler plumbing and piping will you use or do you intend to install new plumbing and plumb the existing boiler in series or series parallel piping arrangement?

BE fully aware that you need both a backflow preventer and low water cut off control if you do not have one in your existing boiler.

I must suggest very strongly to you that you purchase 3 of Dans books to be able to understand how your boiler works and how simple the piping can be by using a pump module for the boiler by pumping away.

The books are "PUMPING AWAY", "CLASSIC HYDRONICS", and "HOW COME?".

You can purchase them from the Heating help bookstore page using a credit card and Mr. Holohan will be shipping them right to your door with no middleman involved and all profits go to the author.

As long as you have adequate ceiling height you can use a pump module installation for you coal gun.

I have a 15 gallon Steel Compression Tank, Internal Air Separator, and Airtrol Valve to the create pressure change for my keystoker kaa-4-1 coal stoker boiler and it makes life much simpler and the 10 gallons of water cushion allow the circulator in my system to run cooler.

If there is enough room, plumbing the boiler in series with the existing boiler will be easier than plumbing it in parallel as all that will be needed is steel pipe and knife gate valves.

I am sending you a PM as well.

A lot of a railroads operational need for electricity depends on the diesel electric generators that are mounted under the passenger car frames to deliver electricity to each car which is how was done as it segregate's the need for power generation in a single car that will provide power for cooling, lighting and heating.

I am not sure if the new AMTRAK locomotives use steam generators for car heating or medium voltage resistance heating is used in each car in the AMTRAK passenger car fleet using medium voltage cables between each car to deliver power for resistance heating and lighting.

Simple steam heating for a railroad passenger car uses a water reservoir in the locomotive engine compartment to make steam and the steam which I believe is or was single pipe wet steam is piped to each cars heating system via a steam connection hose between each car and I believe the last car was where the wet steam was vented.

Amtraks dining cars have propane tanks mounted under the galley cars where the dinners are cooked and served or at least they were anyway.

I am not sure if they have converted their new galley kitchen cars to induction flat tops, electric ovens and electric powered broilers.

Using an air to air heat pump cooling and heating system with fans and ducting for that mexican passenger railway is simpler than using a traditional cooling and heating system with a furnace mounted under each car.