old wood boiler.....boiler guru needed.........

[mx842]

I just got my hands on an old wood stove that has a boiler sitting on top of it and was wondering if anyone has ever seen or owned one of these type stoves. There are a few pieces that are missing that I know I'll need before I fire it up and I need to get some information on it but I can't seem to find anything on it at all. It has PEBBCO on the plate along with a bunch of other stuff and I contacted Pebbco about it but I'm still waiting for them to get back. I've searched their site and they don't have anything like this anywhere. Everything they have is oil or gas fired.

I don't have any pics right now but I can get some if it would help.

 

[medic0648]

Probably going to have to get someone liscensed to work on boilers to fix it. Otherwise it could get really expensive and dangerous if it builds pressure.

 

[Depmandog]

I agree with the previous poster. This IS NOT a DIY project. A boiler, even a small one has tremendous amount of stored energy. Get a pro to work on this.

If you doubt me, google wood fired boiler explosion. Lots of horror stories, some fatal.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Post those pictures, I might be of help. I was a licensed boiler mechanic in OR State up till a couple years ago so know the codes. Wood fired is tricky as they are manually fed so no modulating auto control by a pressure control. You have to add fuel in small increments to keep from popping the safeties. What you may have is just a water heater that is open to atmosphere so no controls are used. Over fire just vaporizes the water to atmosphere.

Ron

 

[mx842]

Post those pictures, I might be of help. I was a licensed boiler mechanic in OR State up till a couple years ago so know the codes. Wood fired is tricky as they are manually fed so no modulating auto control by a pressure control. You have to add fuel in small increments to keep from popping the safeties. What you may have is just a water heater that is open to atmosphere so no controls are used. Over fire just vaporizes the water to atmosphere.

Ron

After I got it off the trailer and had a chance to look at it over it looks like the boiler and the stove are two separate units made by two different companies and just put together as one unit. The guy that had it said he had never seen it in action but the guy that had this property before he got it said they used it all the time. They had it hooked up to a big Cat radiator that heated a building next to the one it was in. The heat from the stove heated the building it was in. This guy was going to haul it to the scrap yard so I took it off his hands for $20.00 and he loaded it on my trailer.

I was thinking that maybe I could use it to heat the water for my floor heat for awhile until I could come up with a more permanent solution even if I had to put it outside and pipe the water into the building.

The pic of the plate on the boiler is hard to read so I'll put it here:
top middle..... PEBBCO
Under PEBBCO....... MWP Steam LB. Water 30LB
Next line.....there is some kind of logo, a symbol with an H in it and, [ H] LSL & MFG.........Serial 46813
Right under serial is,...... BLT 1960
bottom left........It's hard to make out but I think it says, SVRC Min 100 66 WV

Hopefully that makes some sense and you can get something out of it.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

You have two totally different units there. The vessel (what you call a boiler) originally had no relation to the fire box below. It was made long before the fire box. I am guessing the fire box originally was just a manual wood fired boiler. Their should be a pipe bundle or coil inside hooked to those two pipe stubs at the bottom. They were capped when it was not used as a boiler any more when the top vessel(what you call a boiler) was set on top.. You didn't show what the firebox flue system looks like. The plates on the units are the manufacturer's nameplate and test stamp. The H should be inside the symbol that looks like a 4 leaf clover. That is the National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel inspector's stamp. Pebbco should have a record of the vessel and what it was originally made for. Hard telling what it was. Can you tell if those small pipe tapings on the side are the in and out of a coil inside. It may be a side arm heater. Both are long out of date for re-testing. If Waterloo or whoever may have bought them out is still around they should have those records also. Setting the vessel on top like that does not provide good heat transfer so it would be very inefficient. With out an insulated outer jacket you have one large radiant heater. They both were formerly insulated I am sure.

Bottom line: You have a pile of scrap iron you paid $20 for. To make something usable would not be cheap and it will still be of iffy from a boiler safety standpoint. If you have never seen the destructive force of just a small home hot water heater going up in the air or sideways; take it from me you do not want you or your family to be anywhere close. I have seen the results of a relatively small boiler taking a whole industrial concrete block building to the ground.

Boilers are not something for the novice or DYIer should be messing with. Boilers go through a very rigorous manufacturing, testing, and re-testing program to keep them safe. National Board inspectors have a long torturous qualification process. Certified welders and even the shop also have rigorous qualification processes.

Haul it to the scrap yard, Ron

Bottom line

 

[aczlan]

Bottom line: You have a pile of scrap iron you paid $20 for. To make something usable would not be cheap and it will still be of iffy from a boiler safety standpoint. If you have never seen the destructive force of just a small home hot water heater going up in the air or sideways; take it from me you do not want you or your family to be anywhere close. I have seen the results of a relatively small boiler taking a whole industrial concrete block building to the ground.

Here is the mythbusters version of a 52gal HW heater blowing up: Mythbusters Water Heater Explosion - YouTube
And another one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rXwcDkobUY
Commercial boiler going off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCej2OQSKnY

Aaron Z

 

[hddnis]

Can it be hooked up to run unpressurised and open to atmosphere? Basicallly run it as you would an outdoor wood burner. Maybe add a storage tank to hold hot water as it comes out, siphon fed even if you can set it above the stove.


Mr. HE

 

[mx842]

You have two totally different units there. The vessel (what you call a boiler) originally had no relation to the fire box below. It was made long before the fire box. I am guessing the fire box originally was just a manual wood fired boiler. Their should be a pipe bundle or coil inside hooked to those two pipe stubs at the bottom. They were capped when it was not used as a boiler any more when the top vessel(what you call a boiler) was set on top.. You didn't show what the firebox flue system looks like. The plates on the units are the manufacturer's nameplate and test stamp. The H should be inside the symbol that looks like a 4 leaf clover. That is the National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel inspector's stamp. Pebbco should have a record of the vessel and what it was originally made for. Hard telling what it was. Can you tell if those small pipe tapings on the side are the in and out of a coil inside. It may be a side arm heater. Both are long out of date for re-testing. If Waterloo or whoever may have bought them out is still around they should have those records also. Setting the vessel on top like that does not provide good heat transfer so it would be very inefficient. With out an insulated outer jacket you have one large radiant heater. They both were formerly insulated I am sure.

Bottom line: You have a pile of scrap iron you paid $20 for. To make something usable would not be cheap and it will still be of iffy from a boiler safety standpoint. If you have never seen the destructive force of just a small home hot water heater going up in the air or sideways; take it from me you do not want you or your family to be anywhere close. I have seen the results of a relatively small boiler taking a whole industrial concrete block building to the ground.

Boilers are not something for the novice or DYIer should be messing with. Boilers go through a very rigorous manufacturing, testing, and re-testing program to keep them safe. National Board inspectors have a long torturous qualification process. Certified welders and even the shop also have rigorous qualification processes.

Haul it to the scrap yard, Ron

Bottom line

Yeah, when I got it unloaded inside my building I could see there was some modifying that has been done. I can take the top part off the stove part and you can see where someone has cut a hole in the 1/4 inch plate for the boiler part to fit in to. There are boiler tubes running through the boiler part for the heat to pass through to heat up the water. They used stove rope to seal the surface between the two units. I won't go as far as you did in saying all I have is $20.00 worth of junk because the stove part is in good shape and has fire brick in it that's in pretty good shape. Some of it fell out of place on the ride home over the bumpy road but it can be put back in place. It has a real big firebox and would heat probably heat my shop fairly well if I wanted to mess with a wood stove on the inside of my building. If the boiler part doesn't work out all I would have to do is weld the hole back up and and I would have a good wood stove to use or sell if I decided not to keep it.

If I have time I'll take the two pieces apart and post some pics of what the parts look like.

 

[mx842]

Can it be hooked up to run unpressurised and open to atmosphere? Basicallly run it as you would an outdoor wood burner. Maybe add a storage tank to hold hot water as it comes out, siphon fed even if you can set it above the stove.


Mr. HE

That's what my plan was when I first saw it. I was planing on putting it outside and piping the hot water into the building. I know I would have to put a shell around it and insulate it well before it would be usable this way but if I could get by with it like this for a while until I could either build a wood boiler stove or find something else to use that don't cost too much money to buy and run it would make my life better. Heck....I don't see why it wouldn't be something that could be made to work permanently with a little TLC and some aff a rowengineering'.

 

[Egon]

Looks like a vertical fire tube boiler missing all the control goodies. The two bottom Stubbs are air control for the firebox.

To make it into a proper low pressure (less than 15psi) would cost more than it's worth. For just a circulating water heater it will still take a few bucks to set up.

Setting it up in a situation that requires certification and a licence to operate would be costly.

Just going on your own using it as a water heater still requires quite a bit of addled hardware.

 

[mx842]

Looks like a vertical fire tube boiler missing all the control goodies. The two bottom Stubbs are air control for the firebox.

To make it into a proper low pressure (less than 15psi) would cost more than it's worth. For just a circulating water heater it will still take a few bucks to set up.

Setting it up in a situation that requires certification and a licence to operate would be costly.

Just going on your own using it as a water heater still requires quite a bit of addled hardware.

That's what I thought it was and was hoping someone had seen something like it and tell me who makes these things and where I could find a drawing with what it was supposed to look like in operation.

Where it's at I'm not worried about proper certification or license to operate. I was hoping to convert it into an outside boiler to heat water for my floor heat in my shop. I was going to build one anyway from scratch and if this could be used it would save me a lot because I was going to have to find the controls anyway. It has a smaller firebox than I wanted but that's not a real big deal because it's still pretty big and will take a fairly good sized log. I can add a holding tank of an extra 100/200 gals of water and just fire it once a day so I'm not too worried about a fancy draft control and both the stove and the tank will be insulated well to keep what heat is made in the unit.

What would it need to make it into a water heater that could be used for this purpose?

 

[Egon]

To see what all is needed for controls check out a modern water heater. Get names of the instrumentation.

Trying to recall.
Sight glass, high low water alarms and shutdowns
Make up water controller and valve
Temperature sensors and draft/fan controls
Zone distribution pumps and controls
Rupture disk of the proper size
Flame sensor
Blowdown valve's
PSV's
Emergency draft shut off.
Firebox water spray

Know I'll have missed more than a few.