Coal boiler installer?

jbdpayne

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. 

retiredguy

Burgettstown, Pa. you say. Try this, call CS&E in Pittsburgh, Pa. at 412-821-8900, ask for Tim Fuch or someone in the service dept and ask them the same questions. They do or did lots of coal units mostly commercial/industrial but they may know someone in your area that can help you.

hot_rod

For the flue portion of the install? The piping of the hydronics is nothing special. A return protection valve is wise on any non condensing type boiler if connected to a high mass, large water volume system.
Download Idronics 10, it shows wood boiler piping options, about the same animal🔥

leonz

jbdpayne said:

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. 

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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.

CLamb

You might try asking on the CoalPail forum https://coalpail.com/coal-forum/. Oooops. I see you already did. Sorry.

jbdpayne

Thanks all for the recommendations. Called around today with no luck. I did through google come across epic heating and cooling in brockway pa. Matt was super knowledgeable and sent him a few pictures of the setup. I would love to learn the setup, i simply dont have the time or tools to plumb it myself and i definitely want to do it right. Matts in the area as well every month, so hes going to look itno the setup/install. In the meantime im going to get a couple more opinions locally to see if anyone is willing to give me a hand

Mad Dog_2

Please keep us apprised.  Mad Dog 🐕 

Robert_25

Call Alternate Heating Systems and ask if they have a dealer in your area.  Hooking up the boiler is straightforward, but it would be good to have someone familiar with your boiler walk you through the startup.

hot_rod

Unless you have a tankless coil in the oil boiler I would not pipe them in series 

a % of your energy goes up the flue pipe of the un fired boiler.

The unfired boiler becomes a cooling tower🫢
Taking fuel dollars from your pocket  to the outdoors

Parallel piping allows either or, or both to run
efficiently

Unless it is steam, copper piping is the best option. East to assemble, less corrosion potential 

leonz

With no disrespect to hot rod, Mr. Payne has a tankless coil in his Indirect Drive AHS S130 coal stoker.

Basing my statement soley on my extremely bad experience with my coal stoker installation, DO NOT USE COPPER for the close boiler piping. The potential for leaks and blown fittings which happened to me will always be there. As I have mentioned previously the soldered joints also begin to corrode for whatever reason.

Threaded black schedule 40 pipe is much less troublesome to use as it will tolerate the expansion and contraction of the coal stokers operating temperatures.

The AHS S130 coal stoker boiler has a 5 inch flue breech and uses induced draft combustion to fire the gravity fed coal fire using pea coal for fuel.

With any solid fuel burning furnace or boiler heat loss up the stack is a given due to the idle fire which is referred to as the hold fire sequence which operates several times per half hour or hour depending on the type of coal stoker.

In my case with my keystoker KAA-4-1 boiler with its the domestic hot water coil my intermatic 30 minute timer operates for 14 minutes every half hour in a 4 minute/3 minute/4 minute/3 minute span over thirty minutes every hour to keep the fire burning due to the stoker using a flat firebed with a very small amount of coal on the fire bed.

My coal stoker uses a forced draft combustion system where the combustion air is blown under the flat bed coal stoker and passes through a large number of air holes to provide combustion air to the burning coal.

Mr. Paynes Indirect Drive Alternate Heating Systems S130 coal stoker uses an induced draft combustion system exactly like the Axeman Anderson 130S and 260S coal stoker boilers built in Williamsport Pa. which it copied for its basic design.

Both the Axeman Anderson and AHS coal gun coal stoker boiler use what is referred to as a stepped rolling fire grate stoker which carries a mass of coal forward and backward using a Cam Operated arm to allow the coal ash to fall off the end of the rolling grate and for new coal to fall on to the rolling grate to continue feeding the coal fire. as the same time the coal ash that is accumulated on the end of the firebed is pushed off the end of the fire bed as more coal is added by the feed auger of the Axeman Anderson Coal stoker or by using gravity in the case of the AHS coal stokers.

The Axeman Anderson Coal stoker boiler uses an open auger feed system which lifts coal up into the tube which has an open center auger to carry the Anthracite Pea Coal to the transfer head where the Anthracite Pea coal drops through the feed tube to the coal fire.

The Axeman Anderson coal stokers use an anthrastat to control how long the hold fire time operates each hour which senses the temperature of the ash bed on the rolling grate.

The design of the Axeman Anderson coal stokers employs a physical fire break by not allowing coal to accumulate in the open auger and the transfer head as any coal left in the open auger when it stops falls back down the center of the open auger when a heat call is satisfied.

The design of the Axeman Anderson coal stokers uses one electric motor to power the induced draft combustion fan and the reduction gear drive for the rolling fire grate using a twisted V belt and a reduction gear box.

A ratchet and pawl system controls the advance and retraction speed of the rolling fire grate to feed coal on the fire grate in combination with the anthrastat probe which senses the coal ash temperature and which controls the length of time the hold fire sequence operates to keep a fire going. If there is a heat call the coal stoker operates to satisfy the heat call and then stops.

The AHS coal stoker uses 2 electric motors to power the induced combustion fan and the rolling grate which also employs a separate cam arm.

Here is a file showing the 130S and 260S Axeman Anderson Coal Stokers.

Robert_25

leonz said:

With no disrespect to hot rod, Mr. Payne has a tankless coil in his Indirect Drive AHS S130 coal stoker.

Basing my statement soley on my extremely bad experience with my coal stoker installation, DO NOT USE COPPER for the close boiler piping. The potential for leaks and blown fittings which happened to me will always be there. As I have mentioned previously the soldered joints also begin to corrode for whatever reason.

Threaded black schedule 40 pipe is much less troublesome to use as it will tolerate the expansion and contraction of the coal stokers operating temperatures.

The reference to use of a tankless coil was for the oil boiler. If you wish to use the tankless coil in the oil boiler that is not being fired, you must constantly circulate between that unit and the solid fuel boiler.

As for your bad experience with copper, I can tell you with a high level of confidence that whoever did your installation did not know what they were doing. A properly prepared and soldered fitting will take way more heat and pressure than it will ever see in a proper residential boiler install.

The coal boiler in my own house was installed using reclaimed copper that was at least 30 years old.

Clean fittings & pipe + Nokorode flux + Oatey Safe-Flo solder = good results for me.

leonz

We disagree, having an inch of thread and unions are more of a plus in my opinion.