Abused Stove

This is my first post,but I've referenced this site alot before I got serious about switching to coal. I currently have 2 wood stoves, an Upland and a Vermont Castings. This year I had to pay for wood for the first time, so I decided if I was paying, I'd be paying for coal. I have experience with EFM stokers and CFBs (industrial boilers), but not with hand fired coal stoves. I found one in the Papershop listed just as a Harman stove, called, it was an SF-250. We negotiated over the phone (it was about 1.5 hours from me and if I was going it was coming home with me.) The price ended up at $400 which I thought was a great deal. It's 10 years old, he told me there were no problems with it. My brother in law and son went with me today to pick it up. I gave it a once over and handed over the cash. While we were monkeying it onto the hand truck, the deflector fell off (drops down when you open the door.) It was then that I saw the damage: the top of the firebox/bottom of the heat exchanger was warped and twisted into a funnel formed out of brittle steel with a huge hole, obviously letting the gas straight up and into the flue, bypassing the swirling section. The exchanger tubes are in good shape. I didn't say anything because I think I can cut it out and weld a patch in place, and the price still seemed good to me. I think the guy honestly didn't know. You couldn't see it without removing the deflector. My question is: does that sort of thing happen over time or can it happen by overfiring once? Is it realistic to weld a plate in place? The only place I could see being a problem is welding to the back vertical wall. I always thought that overfiring got the grates before anything else, but nowhere else on the stove shows signs of metal fatigue. BTW it was in a basement and I couldn't get any of the bricks out (and therefore the grates) to drop some weight because they were either cemented or clinkered in place. Me and my brother in law got it up and out somehow, though. That is one heavy stove.

Welcome to the FORUM my friend--if my memory serves me I beleive this problem has been dealt with before, or something similar--be patient--you will get some suggestions on that problem My own opinion is that yes you should be able to cut & patch without too much trouble--just take your time on the back weld & get good & comfortable when you get to that part these hand fired are rugged--it can be salvaged--safety first

Ohhhhhh man, thats nasty....
Someone mustve been running it with the ash door open.

The back wall above the firebrick doesn't look too good either. Tap it with a hammer to see how brittle it is. If the hammer goes thru, its shot.

I think that is just alot of ash & could be peened/ sledged down straight if needed plus if needed--an add on in the corners--maybe a couple of short pieces of 1/4" angle???

DVC500 at last wrote:Ohhhhhh man, thats nasty....
Someone mustve been running it with the ash door open.

The back wall above the firebrick doesn't look too good either. Tap it with a hammer to see how brittle it is. If the hammer goes thru, its shot.

I've been disagreed with upon on this point before, but I believe that kind of damage comes from running a stove, engineered with a heat exchanger, hot, without the use of the fan. excessive heat builds up in the exchanger. If a radiant stove was over fired to the extent that kind of damage would have happened, the grates would be toast and the sides of the stove would look like the ocean on a windy day.
On a positive note, if you are good with a torch and welder!!!

Wow, thanks for all the quick replies. I did bang on the back wall with an iron bar, it sounded OK to me, but it is slightly bowed out. I'm debating now whether to cut the top section from the stove and work on it or work on it as is. I think it will depend on that back wall and how hard it is to get at. I think that may only make more work when putting it back together, and I wouldn't want to risk leaking the gas side into the clean air side. The only steel I've ever seen like that is stuff that gets fed into the boilers at work and trapped in the bed until we pull it out in an outage. A friend of mine says he thinks the guy overheated it one time real bad, and kept firing it, just making it worse each time. I still think he didn't really know what happened, or he has a good poker face.

Pete69- that was exactly my first thought on what happened. He had the add-on plenum and had it plumbed into the air duct. I figured when the house was hot, the blower got shut off and there would be very little heat exchange.

As long as you know your abilities/limitations welding wise --remember, SAFETY is the main issue--you need to get at it Where are you from my friend ? In my infinite wisdom, I could guess around the Pine Barrens in Jersey??? There's a place in your avatar for that--nobodies gonna steal ya In my world, we focus on the solutions--but for the curious at heart--I'm sure what happened is that somebody let the stove get way too friggin HOT piney, keep us posted with progress pix.

I fixed my location. I thought I filled that stuff out. I won't be welding it, I'll be doing the prep stuff and my dad will weld it, he's been a professional welder since he was 17. I can weld a bit, but I'd rather have him do it right.

Ahhhh, the nice thing about a steel stove is that you can cut, form, shape, pound & weld & it's good as new! Yup, I'd get it prepped & let Dad weld it, but I'd be there with a spare welding hood & watch the entire time. One of these days you'll need to do it yourself.

You forgot one Freddy--if it comes to the point of no return--you can blow it up--hell, if you can do it with an anvil--no reason a stove wouldn't make an outstanding sight

Freddy wrote:Ahhhh, the nice thing about a steel stove is that you can cut, form, shape, pound & weld & it's good as new! Yup, I'd get it prepped & let Dad weld it, but I'd be there with a spare welding hood & watch the entire time. One of these days you'll need to do it yourself.

freetown fred wrote: if you can do it with an anvil--no reason a stove wouldn't make an outstanding sight

My favorite pasttime

Completed the patch job. I ended up getting help from a guy I work with rather than my dad. Less driving around with the stove in the back of my truck waiting for our schedules to work out this way.

Cut out the bad (the stove is upside down):
The scrap:
Pieces fitted in, he welded up the piece around the flue pipe that was warped and crystallized in the above pictures. We added the angle iron just to act as a baffle in case there was any gap in the back. I'm going to put some cement or blue ram back there just to make sure.
And welded in:
Now that the big deal is taken care of, I'm going to replace the angle for the brick and try to figure out a way to keep the ash from going down the sides of the pan. I hear that's a problem with the SF-250.

Outstanding my friend. You're gaining on it & she looks real good Thanx for the progress pix

Looks like your friend is a pretty good welder. Sometimes it is hard to get a good looking weld like that on corroded steel. I like to see things get salvaged.