Wood stoves - Q&A FAQ

What about the Transocean LTD Sheepherder stove for cooking and heating a small cabin under 700.ft with a open floor space set up both the heating and cooking in the smaller cabin area ..

the website say's it great for both cooking and heating up to a 800.square ft. place.

Transocean LTD is out of Salt Lake City Utah and there phone number is 801-261-3210--or 801-272-0946

toll free phone number is 877-440-6481.

 

Hey - post a link next time! You're talking about THIS, right?

I don't see any indication that it's UL listed, and they were pretty specific that it's for emergency use. That's CYA language if I've ever heard it.

When you read the manuals for stoves that fall into this non-UL listed gray area, they will tell you no residential installations. (Some of the cheap Chinese stoves have that wording cast into them!) Your insurance company will also tell you no if you ask them.

So - even in an emergency you'd really need to pay attention to what you're doing to get it installed safely, using the default installation clearances in NFPA 2.11.

It's made of 1/4 inch steel plate, which is normally sufficient for a wood stove. In this case, you have some unusually large flat surfaces, and the issues with that would be easier warping and increased potential for cracking at the welds. You should be very careful to never overfire it.

If you take the chance and install one in your house for emergency use, get the tall leg kit and do all of the following: 1) shield any floor that isn't solid concrete (tile or stone over wood flooring is still a combustible floor!) with two layers of Micore board under tile or stone - not just underneath the stove but two feet out in every direction. 2) be generous with all NFPA 2.11 default clearances. 3) have CO detectors, smoke detectors and lots of fresh batteries. 4) have a large ABC rated fire extinguisher nearby, and 5) don't leave the house or go to sleep unless the fire is down to coals.

(This is my formula for any unlisted stove for which current test data is unavailable!)

In a detached outdoor kitchen with a dirt or concrete floor and no combustibles within 36" of the stove, none of this would be an issue.

 

I ran across this sturdy looking wood stove that's not been used since their parents converted to natural gas. The photo's not mine.... I have no clue what it is. I can see a little rust on it in the photo but nothing major and it was in a damp basement sitting supposedly unused. Would $350 be a fair price for this wood burning stove?

 

I don't know but he said something about it being solid cast iron and from out east where his parents used to live. They were from Vermont and evidently they brought it with them when they moved to the midwest. They used it 1 year before the city forced the homeowners to connect to natural gas. His guess was the stove was about 20 years old since the moved out this way 10 years ago. I can ask about cracks and if you tell me where and what to look for.... I'll bring my magnifying glass when I go to look for them in person. I don't have to buy it and I certainly could offer a lower price if warranted but.... if $350 is a fair price... I'd rather just pay it.

 

Here's another one I looked at for a fireplace I have with a large brick hearth.... This sure is an oddball thing but.... I'm more interested if function not form and the guy claimed it was UL approved and that I could have it for $500 and he'd give me the metal plate mat underneath, all the pipe, the metal piece that fits over the fireplace opening, all the tools and the original manual for it, and he'd help me load it into a rental truck. He said it was a Jotul Yodel and that it worked fantastic and that the only reason they're not using it anymore is because his wife wanted a new one with glass doors. They do have a new one with glass doors. I could be getting bum information or high pricing but... I wouldn't be any wiser. Here's the photo.... it's not my photo.

 

No word on the other model other than that it weighed about 350lbs. #2 Cast is going for 11¢ a pound or a whopping $38.50....

 

I guess my hearing's not to good on the second one. I thought he said it was a Yodel.... he said Model. Oopsie. It's actually a Jotul Combi-Fire Model #4 B. No cracks inside or outside and I'm welcome to stop in any time to check it out and he'll give me a flashlight. He said he cleaned it out real good so I can get a good look. He has the original manual which would go with it. I found another one of these 4Bs online that appeared to be in similar condition for around $750 without all the extras this man said he would throw in. There are none of these models available used for price comparison at any of the retail places I called around to.

 

Equilibrium - The Vermont Castings stove is probably the better deal. Parts are still made for those right here in America by the VC foundry.

As with any cast stove, the Defiant is made of several more or less flat castings (sides, top, front, rear, bottom are the main parts) that are cemented together. Over time, the stove cement fails and the stove needs to be rebuilt.

If you continue to use the stove after enough cement has failed, you won't be able to control the burn rate due to all the air leaks, and the stove you're looking at is old enough for this to be an issue. Keep in mind that if there's a lot of cement missing, the stove has almost certainly been overfired a number of times and you shouldn't buy it.

You pound it apart with a rubber mallet, clean the mating surfaces and re-assemble it with fresh cement. Be sure you buy very fresh stove cement, too, as it hardens in the tube. The tube will be almost as soft as toothpaste if it's fresh. That's the time to repaint the whole thing with high-temp paint as well. (There are about 30 colors to choose from these days!) It'll take a day to do the whole job, and it's a pain, but then you have a perfectly serviceable stove.

Jotul makes good stoves as well, but they are European made and it's already a painfully slow process to get parts for older models. Because of the supply chain costs, spare cast parts for current US market Jotul stoves are been made by Vermont Castings under a contract that is several years old now. (I haven't kept track but they may actually make new stoves here by now. Sure would cut costs...) Interestingly, the VC foundry also makes Lodge brand cast iron cookware under contract.

In my admittedly limited experience, Jotul has had far more recent problems with casting failures than VC. A few years ago, Jotul bought Scan (another European stove manufacturer) just as it's own problems with casting failures peaked.

One of the biggest Scan dealers in America was near me. (I met a member of the family that founded Scan at a party there, and scared the hell out of him when I asked if they were thinking of selling the company!) The year after that party, that same dealer went out of business and orphaned a few hundred Scan owners in the foothills west of Denver. I repaired a few of them and replaced several more. Many more have been scrapped, but I still know where there are a couple of badly damaged Scan stoves sitting in garages awaiting expensive repairs.

I'm on record preferring plate steel stoves for their extra durability. I really like the look of cast iron stoves, but personally I'd go spend $500 to $800 at a local farm store for a new Englander or US Stove product that was EPA approved and made of welded plate steel. (This is a good time of year to make a deal, too...)

Bottom line for the survivalist is to buy the stoutest US or at least North American made product they can afford. Given what the Fed is doing to the dollar, I wouldn't want to be dependent on any form of overseas trade to keep my heat source working.

 

What the seller told you is incorrect. Seasoning only relieves stresses in new castings. It does nothing to protect them from future overfiring.

Cast iron is relatively brittle, and I've seen several cracked by inadvertent blows when they weren't even in use. Best personal story: I passed on installing a new VC Intrepid in a rickety mountain cabin. I told them that I wouldn't chance the installation unless their wood balcony was rebuilt first. Two weeks later they called me back to repair the stove after they rolled it 75 feet down the rock face below the cabin. It had 5 cracked castings and a bunch of cosmetic damage. I told them it would be far cheaper to buy a new one. Later, that stove showed up on Craigslist saying "brand new but dropped and cracked - easy repair" They took the ad down after I sent them a message that I'd testify if they defrauded anyone.

In contrast, an employee of mine dropped a plate steel stove off a forklift (his first week on the job!) from the third level of pallet rack about eleven feet up. It landed upside down on the concrete warehouse floor on a top front corner of the stove. The top plate was seriously bent, but the stove body looked almost straight, the door worked fine and the welds were intact. I sold it to a customer to heat his wife's pottery studio above their garage. They're at 8700 feet west of Boulder and that stove has eight hard winters behind it - still going strong. That's the durability of welded plate steel.

Bottom line: you need to inspect every used stove, regardless. Cracks can occur anywhere, but most often they'll be near the top where it gets the hottest.

Good luck!

 

Your good luck to me across the miles paid off. We picked up the Vermont Castings yesterday and passed on the Jotul. I couldn't let that Defiant slip away after getting another helpful tip then checking around and finding it selling for over 1k used at a few fireplace stores. We took off the legs to transport it and it didn't get dropped once when we relocated it to its new home in our basement. I guess legs get broken a lot when folk move them so they should probably be removed if possible. Thanks for the tips on taking it apart....we got really lucky in that the guy from Craigslist had all the original paperwork and the manual and they pretty much lay it out step by step. It's going to be professionally installed in our basement next month.... we're not comfortable playing with fire. Thanks for the tip on plate steel stoves. I'll be on the lookout for one that would work well in a large fireplace we have with a 12" flue. I think I'm going to need a rear flue collar for that one... maybe not. Not sure yet... will have to research what's up because I think the size of the flue on the stove is critical so we don't end up running new piping up the existing chimney.... I might not have all this right but I guess drafts are a problem if the size of the outlet on a wood burner doesn't match an existing flue.

 

What is the difference between the 2?

Why wouldn't B-Vent work in a pellet stove?

If it will handle flue gases from a gas-fired appliance why not a pellet stove?

Sounds like I might need to change out my vent, yes/no.

As far as JOTUL woodstoves goes, I never thought about the ability to repair it compared to a mild steel stove. It makes sense being it is easier to repair/weld mild steel compared to cast iron. However, with the correct welding rod and some pre-heating welding can be done on cast iron. Have you been successful in welding on cast iron woodstoves or does the filler metal usually end up looking like a cubbled up mess? I have never had much luck in making a good looking weld on cast iron, maybe I'm not getting enough pre-heat or I just suck at welding.

Great, now I need to look for a mild steel woodstove as a back-up, like I don't have enough to do already

 

ColtCarbine -

I don't remember the context of that quote, but no, you can't use gas venting for any solid fuel burning appliance. Get the right pipe.

I've never tried welding a cracked cast iron stove. That is not a procedure suggested by any manufacturer, and bypassing recommended procedures puts all the liability on me. No thanks!

I did weld up a friends semi truck engine where a rod through the side of the block. That repair was successful, but with a water cooled engine there's 1) much thicker metal for a strong weld, and 2) a lot less temperature variation to stress the repair. I figure that down below the water jacket, the block temp and the oil temp should be nearly the same, which means the repaired area probably never sees 300 deg. F., with nice gradual warm-ups and cool downs. That's WAY below the temps a stove body will register with a fast fire.

With a wood stove, I'm not very comfortable with welding such thin steel plate, particularly when it contains a fire inside someone's house. I'm just an amateur welder, though. Ask a certified pro welder not just if they'd try it, but if they'd bill it through their shop on their liability insurance. If that doesn't scare them away then discuss how they'd do it and what they'd use...