Portage and Main OWB
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portage and main boilers
I have posted several times about the Portage and Main.
They can burn wood easily as the bottom of the fire box has water circulating through several tubes acting as grate,
They can burn wood and coal with coal shaker grates.
They can burn pea coal with the coal stoker, you can order a coal stoker that can be installed and removed to burn wood in the boiler or left in the fire box. The stoker is gear drive through the auger coal feeder into the retort/burn pot. The retort/burn pot has a mechanical soot scraper to keep the coal ash from collecting on the burner head.
I saw the portage and main boilers for the first time at the empire farm days last year and I was impressed the quality of the boiler and its simplicity.
But the fact that it had absolutely no fire brick is a problem for me as fire brick does two things insulates the boiler walls from excess heat and possible cavitation corrosion.
The evergreen boiler from (www.wdheat.com) has one row of fire brick on both sides of the fire box so coal can be burned on the shaker grates as well as wood.
I was thinking about eventually buying an evergreen boiler to replace the inside wood and coal boiler I own as it only has 25 gallons of water storage.
I was told by the young man at the evergreen boiler dealers place of business that if you buy any out door boiler you should buy a boiler twice the size of your house furnace as it heats much more water and the hot water will last longer.
Another thing that he mentioned was the fact that the forced draft on the boiler adds more oxygen to the boiler and that you can can burn less wood more efficiently as the fire is burning flat out at full burn when it finally gets going and all the wood thrown in burns well.
The more wood you throw into any boiler the less room the forced air draft has to work and when it shuts down it smokes and wastes fire wood-a small hot fire will create a huge amount of heat and the heat is absorbed into the boiler walls and water.
I hope to buy the evergreen sequioa which is the largest unpressurised boiler
they make with a very large water capacity to heat lots of water longer.
The only change I would make is adding more firebrick by welding more angle iron on th eboiler walls to hold more fire brick inside the boiler and a piece of 12 inch channel iron to cover half the length of shaker grates-wait I am getting to it.
I would fill half the fire box with fire brick- seriously would do this as I have done it on my indoor boiler- the only problem with my boiler is that it is natural draft- but saying that more often than not I have a huge bed of coals in the morning to add wood too. and with burning coal the fire brick acts as a firebox reducer to concentrate the air being blown under the grates to burn the wood and coal hotter and more efficiently wth zero smoke.
The fire brick is a heat sink and holds heat very well and the boiler water is hotter longer.
leon
I have posted several times about the Portage and Main.
They can burn wood easily as the bottom of the fire box has water circulating through several tubes acting as grate,
They can burn wood and coal with coal shaker grates.
They can burn pea coal with the coal stoker, you can order a coal stoker that can be installed and removed to burn wood in the boiler or left in the fire box. The stoker is gear drive through the auger coal feeder into the retort/burn pot. The retort/burn pot has a mechanical soot scraper to keep the coal ash from collecting on the burner head.
I saw the portage and main boilers for the first time at the empire farm days last year and I was impressed the quality of the boiler and its simplicity.
But the fact that it had absolutely no fire brick is a problem for me as fire brick does two things insulates the boiler walls from excess heat and possible cavitation corrosion.
The evergreen boiler from (www.wdheat.com) has one row of fire brick on both sides of the fire box so coal can be burned on the shaker grates as well as wood.
I was thinking about eventually buying an evergreen boiler to replace the inside wood and coal boiler I own as it only has 25 gallons of water storage.
I was told by the young man at the evergreen boiler dealers place of business that if you buy any out door boiler you should buy a boiler twice the size of your house furnace as it heats much more water and the hot water will last longer.
Another thing that he mentioned was the fact that the forced draft on the boiler adds more oxygen to the boiler and that you can can burn less wood more efficiently as the fire is burning flat out at full burn when it finally gets going and all the wood thrown in burns well.
The more wood you throw into any boiler the less room the forced air draft has to work and when it shuts down it smokes and wastes fire wood-a small hot fire will create a huge amount of heat and the heat is absorbed into the boiler walls and water.
I hope to buy the evergreen sequioa which is the largest unpressurised boiler
they make with a very large water capacity to heat lots of water longer.
The only change I would make is adding more firebrick by welding more angle iron on th eboiler walls to hold more fire brick inside the boiler and a piece of 12 inch channel iron to cover half the length of shaker grates-wait I am getting to it.
I would fill half the fire box with fire brick- seriously would do this as I have done it on my indoor boiler- the only problem with my boiler is that it is natural draft- but saying that more often than not I have a huge bed of coals in the morning to add wood too. and with burning coal the fire brick acts as a firebox reducer to concentrate the air being blown under the grates to burn the wood and coal hotter and more efficiently wth zero smoke.
The fire brick is a heat sink and holds heat very well and the boiler water is hotter longer.
leon
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