Under-performing stove this morning

[4seasons]

So I wake up this morning to 66F in the house. Not too cold but just not the normal 70+ that I have been seeing so I rake thru the coals to knock some ashes down and load the stove back up. Outside temp is 20 so I crank the damper up to high and carry on with my morning. Check back in an hour and it is still 66 in the living room where the stove is. Something isn't right. I didn't have trouble last week when it got below 0 getting the house warm. So I open the stove door to check my burn. Not many flames, certainly not as much as normal with the damper wide open. No smoke coming thru the open door so I must have plenty of draft. As I am looking thru the open door the fire starts to come up to speed. So I am not getting enough air in, must be something blocking the damper. I'm thinking surely I don't have that much ashes piled up as I emptied them a couple of days ago. So I open the ash door and have a look, a bit more ash than I was expecting so I go to pull the tray out and it is stuck. I look deeper in the ash pit and sure enough the cast iron grate that has been cracked is now broken and part of it is hanging down into the ash pan. Not only does it have the ash pan jammed in place but it has also allowed the ashes from above to fall into a pattern that has created an air dam around the damper. I grab the poker and use it as a pry-bar to move the broken grate out of the way. Since I had just loaded the stove an hour ago there is a lot of weight from the wood above holding the grate in place. The fire is now roaring as it is getting plenty of air. I finally get the broken piece lifted back up on its perch so I can pull the ash pan out. I take the ashes out to dump them and another piece of grate falls out of the pan. So my grate is in at least 4 piece now. Really have to love this Chinese cast iron. On the bright side in the 10 minute it took to get the ash pan out the living room temp rose 4 degrees. I just don't see myself paying the $150 for a new piece of Chinese iron to fix this stove. I guess I will let the fire burn down today and put a firebrick over the gap in the grate and try to get thru winter like that. Defiantly time for a new stove or at least a full rebuild of this one. I have got some good use out of this stove for the 10 years that I have been here and I would say it got a good workout for the 19 years before I moved in. Not sure if this is the original stove from when the house was built so I can't say for sure what I think of its durability. 29 years sounds pretty good for it's cheap construction but for all I know it my have only been put in 11 years ago. It is a WonderCoal by US Stove.

 

[zogger]

If it has been working that well, I'd just try and fix it.

 

[Whitespider]

I've welded cast grates before... did so in my old smoke dragon and it held for most of a season... and I just used regular rod, small short welds, kept stuff as cool as possible.
Might be an option to try... just to get through the season anyway.
*

 

[Jredsjeep]

you can get welding rods to do cast, heck they even have spools for mig welders now.

 

[flotek]

Not bad for a $700 unit but I think if it was me I'd find something a bit more pleasing to the eye. . Those wonder wood things are uglier than sin

 

[HadleyPA]

I have one in my garage that the grates rotted out of. I simply took some 1/2" plate and cut to size then used torch and cut wome 1" holes in it. Works just as good as the original grates, only rigid now.

 

[4seasons]

Well I let it burn out and did my patch up job. First I cleaned everything out of the box.
O.K. maybe not everything cleaned out. It was still to hot to vacuum ashes. Notice the longer tabs that the grate should rest on? Now here is the grate, out on my sidewalk.

Not only is it in 4 pieces but it has swelled, deformed and cracked in the back section to a point that it may break even more any day. The 3rd pic is the grate laying in the ash pan.
Notice how the sides have swelled where they should be straight?
So I rearranged the pieces and placed them back on their hangers.

Now to cover the gaps and to protect the grate from more deterioration I place some broken firebrick over the grate.

I now have to be much more careful when loading the logs and scraping the ashes and may even have to let it burn out once a week or so to clean out the ashes but I expect to finish out winter with this patch up job.

 

[4seasons]

I have one in my garage that the grates rotted out of. I simply took some 1/2" plate and cut to size then used torch and cut wome 1" holes in it. Works just as good as the original grates, only rigid now.

1/2" plate of what? Steel? Cast Iron?

 

[homemade]

The grate in my parents wood furnace broke last year. It only broke in half so it wasn't too bad but I welded it up and it's still holding. I used nickel rods in a Lincoln stick welder around 130 amps it I remember correctly. I V gouged the crack and got it as clean as possible. Heated it up to 800* with a weed burner and short welds. Random spots to keep it from distorting. Keep heating in between welding to keep the heat even and while it is cooling slowly I taped on it with a ball peen hammer to even the stress out.

Cast won't give like mild steel will. Think of it like welding glass. If one section is expanding more than another. It will crack when cool.

I've seen some way impressive welding from way more experienced welders done with cast.


Sent from the shitter, the only place it get to read arboristsite!

 

[disk_55FL]

The grate in my parents wood furnace broke last year. It only broke in half so it wasn't too bad but I welded it up and it's still holding. I used nickel rods in a Lincoln stick welder around 130 amps it I remember correctly. I V gouged the crack and got it as clean as possible. Heated it up to 800* with a weed burner and short welds. Random spots to keep it from distorting. Keep heating in between welding to keep the heat even and while it is cooling slowly I taped on it with a ball peen hammer to even the stress out.

Cast won't give like mild steel will. Think of it like welding glass. If one section is expanding more than another. It will crack when cool.

I've seen some way impressive welding from way more experienced welders done with cast.

Sent from the shitter, the only place it get to read arboristsite!

All excellant advise HOMEMADE !

Preheat the " stuff " out of it. Pro shops use air driven needle peeners for stress relief........ and the slower the cooling rate the better. Again Pro shops will cover it with a fire blanket to let it cool overnight ...... the Do It Yourselfer should throw it on a bed of hot coals and shovel more on top.

 

[brenndatomu]

Boy, you ain't kidding, them grates seen some better days!
FYI, I have had luck weldin cast up with regular ole 7018 rod, just preheat the cast, then wrap it up or put in oven to cool sloooowly. You can also fab up a new one out of heavy steel, may not last quite as long, but plenty good enough, alot easier to deal with.
A Wondercoal started my wood heating journey, those things will CRANK out some heat now!!! I got rid of it because I found it uncontrollable, I found out later that a manual flue damper would have solved all my issues...inexperience!

 

[Big_Wood]

start saving now for a blaze king. those suckers are so efficient i've seen them burn 16hrs on one load and the load ain't massive either. my grandpa has one in his house but they cost something like $4000 of coarse if you rent i would just replace it with the same quality you were provided with or even ask the landlord to replace it.

 

[Dan_IN_MN]

My inlaws have that stove. Their grate has gone out similar to what yours did.

 

[HadleyPA]

just 1/2" steel plate