My keystoker kaa-4-1 coal stoker boiler
My coal stoker boiler was cleaned the day after Thanksgiving 2023.
Justin Warner from Warners Stoker Stoves and Coal in Owego, New York was the very nice young man that cleaned my coal stoker.
Since Justin cleaned and serviced my coal stoker my coal use has dropped drastically averaging 75 pounds per 24 hour day in below freezing temperatures.
Previous to this I was using more coal because of the chimney extension on my 16 foot tile lined block chimney.
The stainless chimney extension was there for 8 years because I had a down draft problem with my hand fed boiler previous to this.
The stainless steel chimney extension with aspark arrestor and rain cap had rotted and was blown off the chimney and its mounting plate in a windstorm last summer.
Once the chimney extension was blown off the chimney the stoker no longer needed a longer hold fire time as the chimney no longer had a chimney extension.
Justin removed the extra timer pins and returned the timer to the factory timer presets and has been running without a hiccup since the day after Thanksgiving 2023.
I used more coal than was needed to heat my home and hot water but now I am using 2/3 less rice coal than I was.
I am very happy.
Comments
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No pics?
There was an error rendering this rich post.
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I have to find them, but I can upload the manual.
They still use the &%^&*(*&^% hydrolevel 3250 plus. I am glad I have Honeywell & Bell & Gossett controls and a Dwyer triple gauge instead of the chinesium junk they sent that failed twice.
I will upload them as soon as I find them.
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Pictures of my boiler, The 30 year old Reillo burner is junk and gone and I only use rice coal to heat the home. The hydrostat 3250 plus is gone as well as the junk chinese gauges and replaced with a Honeywell L8124L triple aquastat, Bell and Gossett RB-122-E Low Water Cut Off Switch(immersed sensor tab) and Dwyer 4 inch square triple gauge- I have slept well since all the chinesium junk was ripped out and replaced.
I probably could have used two single aquastats for the high and low limits along with the dump zone
aquastat but this works well so, I am happy.
The 30 minute intermatic timer maintains the coal fire when there is no heat call by operating the stoker in 2 minute intervals every 10 minutes.
I burn 75 pounds per day on average now even with the very cold weather.
I tell anyone that is considering a coal stoker boiler to eliminate the hydrolevel 3250 plus as a control because they have failed repeatedly and to add an immersed low water cut off switch.
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To update all of you about my boiler so far;
I have lowered the high limit to 170 degrees Fahrenheit and the low limit to 150 degrees.
I have been burning 50 pounds of rice coal per day for the last week.
I have had to add timer pins to increase the hold fire time as the temperatures have become warmer of late and the fire would go out as there is no heat call and as a result the gaps between the end time of the previous pin set and the beginning next set of pins and the fire went out and I ended up with unburned coal in the ash pail.
So far so good as we have more yo yo weather coming.
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My coal heat is working very well and we are using much less Anthracite Rice Coal this year as well.
We eliminated the 2 soot traps and improved the flue gas air flow by reducing the length of the flue piping by half using two 22 gauge 12 inch long stove pipes, two 90 degree adjustable elbows, one 45 degree adjustable elbows, one 7 to 6 inch reducer and a third 6 inch tee and 6 inch cap for the cleanout into the 7inch chimney thimble.
The original 6 inch RC barometric damper was relocated with a new tee above the 6 inch cleanout tee and 6 inch cap on the flue breech.
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That's a nice compression tank with the sight glass. I wish ours had a sight glass. I've experimented with alternate ways to determine the water level in our tank. One that seems to work is heating the dome end of the tank uniformly with a hair dryer, then using a thermal imager on the tank end. With a little practice I can get the thermal image to show a distinct straight line where the water level is, but this method is not as foolproof or convenient as a sight glass.
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I wanted a compression tank to avoid all the problems I had with the expansion tank when I had the hand fed boiler and I no longer have to bleed the ^&*( baseboard again.
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Airtrol working for ya? 👍️
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.0 -
Yes it is!!!! I am happy to have that 80+pounds of water bearing down on the boiler through the B+G Internal Air Separator to keep it free of microbubbles too. 😀
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Why do you keep the pressure so high?
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Gauge looks pegged. Sightglass on compression tank seems awfully full. Might want to drain that @leonz
I always put a Drain-O-Tank on with the Airtrol- just in case. Those sightglasses can leak air- with predictable results. I'd suggest leaving the valves closed generally.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.0 -
@delcrossv I'm guessing that photo was taken some time ago when Leon was setting up his new compression tank. He would know not to run the system with the sight glass that full and the pressure gauge pegged.
I installed an Airtrol in our tank last year and it seems to be doing its job. I put a Drain-O-Tank on the other end as you said.
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No the system pressure can vary from 5 to 12 P.S.I.G. @1,140 feet above mean sea level with a 170 degree low limit and 190 degree high limit with a ten degree differential; My 225 foot single house loop is the dump zone
The gauge in the picture is the vacuum gauge which is at Zero HG. The only time it was pegged was when I was chasing down the screaming vacuum leak (13 Hg.) that turned out to be loose packing nuts on the gauge glass.
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@leonz OK thanks. I got thrown off by your comment about "80+ pounds of water" which I misread to mean 80 psi. But the photo also shows the water level in the compression tank is at the top of the sight gauge, meaning the tank is full of water, and it also shows a pressure gauge with the needle at full scale, so I'm guessing those were temporary conditions related to your initial setup, not how you normally run the system.
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I was not at all happy that the clown car plumbers had piped the riser the way they did from the Internal Air Separator to the Airtrol Valve when they installed the boiler back in 2015. If I was not sick from my neuropathy at the time(I still am) I would have used black iron pipe and a pipe threader for all of it.
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Great. No worries.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.0 -
I know the pipe to the Airtrol is supposed to be pitched along the entire run, but it's probably OK as is.
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If the tank isn't filling with water, it's working. I mount them 90 degrees off with an ell so I can get slope.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.0 -
That's how I did mine, rotated 90 degrees with a constant 12 degree pitch which was the most I could get from my geometry.
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