Looking for a Company to Design & Supply a Coal-Fired Steam Heating System for a 40' × 60' Shop

First things first;

what type of coal do you have access to?

Eastern Anthracite Coal, Western Sub Bituminous stoker coal or Eastern Bituminous Coal?

Buying in quantity will save you money, can you store a 22+ ton load of pea stoker coal on your property if a lean to is used to house the stoker boiler and your coal supply?

If you are located in the east and only have access to Bituminous coal it is going to smoke a great deal even with induced or forced draft combustion.

This will not be a problem for a coal stoker steam boiler using Sub Bituminous or Eastern Anthracite coal.

Do not expect your insurer or an installer to place it in your shop you will need to place your stoker boiler in a lean too with your coal supply bin.

Do you have enough room to back a coal truck near a lean to unload it with its elevated dump box or conveyor?

Do you have a skid loader that you can pile your coal in a lean too?

How many cubic feet is the building interiors size?

How much insulation R value do you intend to have?

Is the building slab going to be a slab on grade construction or will you be installing a perimeter footer?

A slab on grade construction needs to be insulated with reflective foam insulation, The same goes for a slab and footer foundation whether the footer is to be poured neat or in a concrete form.

If your building is going to have a central exhaust fan you should plan on putting the coal stoker in an attached lean to assure it has enough combustion air as a central exhaust fan can cause a down draft through a chimney if the stoker is in the same area.

For continuous service you need an underfed tuyere burn pot stoker like the EFM DF520 coal stoker boiler to make steam as the Underfed Tuyere/burn pot stoker is the least troublesome to take care of as it has many fewer parts than a rolling grate steam stoker.

Using a top fed steam heating system with your proposed design will allow you a great deal of flexibility in radiator placement and by using a double drop header you will be able to create dry steam that will heat your shop and offices quickly by using a single riser to feed dry steam to the entire structure with a single ceiling hung header pipe at one end with crosses and drop pipes to the radiators.

Feeding the dry steam to the central header will not be a problem from an attached lean to.

Now for the assembly of the double drop header to make dry steam: The riser for the double drop header has to be the same size as the steam chest tapping which is 3 inches.

The riser from the steam chest tapping must be 3 inches and it must be at least 24 inches tall to allow the assembly of the double drop header.

The double drop header will have a 3 inch header pipe feeding a 4 inch header pipe that will feed the dry steam to the single riser that creates the top fed steam riser for the building.

The four inch header pipe will have a street ell at one end that feeds the condensate back to the boiler water level. The dry steam is fed from the end of the 4 inch header to the to the four inch riser that will reach the roof line of the third floor.

The top of the riser at the elbow or T is where you want the first main vent or vents to be located to allow the atmospheric air to be pushed out of the header pipe to allow the dry steam to travel to the end of the header and the crosses feeding dry steam to the drop pipes feeding dry steam to the radiators.

At this point it would be advisable to contact EFM and ask if a change order is possible to allow 2 three inch steam chest tapping's to allow steam to be delivered to the double drop header faster before it enters the double drop header as the wet steam will enter the drop header faster with 2 three inch tapping's connected to the double drop header.

You may very well not require two 3 inch tapping's if you use 3 inch pipe from the riser of the steam chest to feed wet steam to a 3 inch header and then to the 4 inch header in the double drop header feeding the 4 inch riser that reaches the third floor ceiling to feed dry steam to the 4 inch header pipe.

If you have access to or can buy tested and cleaned surplus steam radiators from an architectural salvage company all the better as that will save you a great deal of money and work.

A bottom fed dry steam system will be harder and more expensive to plumb in your shop and offices as there is more pipe, labor and parts.

A top fed overhead steam system will let you run steam lines in a direct drop from the top floor radiator to the bottom floor radiator in a direct line and have wall hung radiators if desired on the bottom floor.

Your system designer will just have to decide how many crosses in the header pipe will be needed to meet the number of radiators needed for the building where the last tee is to be located and how much insulation you will need if the building is to be insulated.

By using the top fed/overhead dry steam delivery method it will allow you to have your main vents located within easy reach if they need to be replaced in time as well.

I have to ask you this; do you really need a mezzanine? Do you have enough square area/land surface to make this building a longer 2 floor building with a lean to the length of the building to store coal and have the coal stoker boiler fed by the EFM auger out of the coal bin and have a barn door to access the boiler to remove ashes every day instead of a 3 floor building.

Using a lean to attached to the building will let you place the stoker boiler at one end and the coal bin behind it where the bin could be filled through the wall of the lean to and you could keep the coal ashes dry and out of the weather until you dispose of them.

By putting a coal stoker and coal bin in an attached lean too it will keep the coal ashes and coal handing away from the shop floor and keep the coal dust from entering the shop space and at the same time allow the coal fired steam stoker to have its own air supply for combustion air.

For the EFM DF520 stoker boiler you need a tile lined 8" by 8" by 30 foot block or brick chimney and an adequate foundation for the chimney.

Are you planning on installing an underslung hoist overhead crane in this building?

How many overhead doors will be installed? How many man doors?

How much insulation?

Will the building slab and entrance aprons be heated or remain cold?

Will you be storing oil, grease and other combustible products in flame resistant safety cabinets?

You only need a steam licensed plumber to install a coal fired coal stoker boiler and an architect to design the double drop header and steam piping layout unless your building supplier has a complete start to finish inhouse design office.

The EFM DF520 only requires 110 volt power to run it and plumbing code requires 2 low water cut off switches.

If the building is not to be insulated:

An old heating method used by the Great Northern Rail Road in its round houses and shops was to use hot water to keep the unused engines hot by pushing hot water in the boilers at all times to keep them hot.

You could do the same thing with a simple nurse tank that would be connected to the boiler drain and upper tapping to allow the hot water to continue entering the steam chest at all times.

radiant in the slab is a great way to heat a shop like that

Air handlers for the upper allows for AC

Problem with hot-water heat in such a building is that it can freeze if someone leaves the garage door open too long, or if there is a power or fuel failure. If a pipe in the slab bursts from freezing, you have to break up the slab to fix it. Since most of a steam system drains dry when the boiler shuts down, there's much less chance of frozen pipes.

@Subdural , you'll want to have the boiler far enough below the lowest steam-carrying pipe that the condensate can return by gravity. This eliminates the need for a return pump. Also, size the pipes so the system can run on maybe 8 ounces, tops. This will keep your fuel consumption down.

Where is this located? We might know someone who can help…………..

With his open floor plan and full access with the overhead door he will need high mounted wall hung radiators or batteries of steam to forced air heaters above the overhead doors to drain back the condensate by gravity.

systems like that often have glycol in the radiant tube, to protect against freeze up

You need to he concerned about plumbing pipes freezing during long power outages.

Or a back up generator or power source.

With radiant you could heat with a 90% boiler, or heat pump at 3 COP

@pecmsg @hot_rod glycol introduces more maintenance and can exacerbate leaks- a whole 'nother can of worms.

There are no problems

There are only solutions!

why do all the radiators have a nipple on the bottom tapping of the supply side…

Hello mattmia2,

I think it is a generic radiator image.