Alaska Channing III refurb and hearth install
Posted: Wed. Jan. 12, 2022 2:45 am
Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to share my recent project. We bought an Alaska Channing III used last year to heat our ~1350 sqft ranch (plus ~800 sqft of the basement).
The stove was in a bit of rough shape when we bought it, all the gaskets were worn out, the hopper had rusted through in some spots, the plate under the paddle was warped (carpet plate?), and I don’t think it had been greased in a while. Between last year and this year it was torn completely apart. I brought it to a local auto body repair shop for it to be sandblasted and repainted, replaced all the gaskets, bolts, carpet plate, hopper, greased and oiled all the mechanical bits appropriately (after reading information from the forum, and talking to Alaska employees), built a hearth for it, bought / setup the coal trol system, installed a baro damper and draft gauge.
We love the stove. It’s located in our basement, it uses about a bag of coal a day since we set it to be pretty toasty (73 during the day and with the recent single digit nights 80 at night). Which results with the upstairs being between 67 - 72 depending on location/ what doors are open/ how the air is being circulated. Our home is pretty well insulated, we had the attic re-insulated last year to R-50 and the house was pressure tested.
I’d have to say the only thing I found frustrating when putting the stove back together was the door hinges, the holes were not drilled centered. I didn’t notice this when I was taking it apart so I spent over an hour shuffling through different combinations to find the best match so the doors would shut and seal well. I really don’t understand why they were not all machined centered. If you look at them straight down two of them have their holes extremely forward and to one side while the other two are decently centered. Some of the combinations I tried you can’t even get the doors to close, not to mention some of the combinations resulting with a massive gap at the top with and an extremely tight fit at the bottom. In the end I found a combination that resulted with decent uniformity, though I am tempted to go a size larger for the door gaskets in the future to compensate for the non uniform alignment.
I noticed this year with the gaskets replaced on the door glass, the gaps around the door hinge supports sealed, and a tighter seal around the base of the burn grate we have an excellent draft. I’m guessing it’s from the better seal around the base of the burn grate making more of the combustion air flow through the coal? I ended up having to add paper clips to the baro damper to get the draft down (it’s set to about 0.035 at full burn).
Overall, it was a fun and interesting process and we look forward to using the stove for many years.
I just wanted to share my recent project. We bought an Alaska Channing III used last year to heat our ~1350 sqft ranch (plus ~800 sqft of the basement).
The stove was in a bit of rough shape when we bought it, all the gaskets were worn out, the hopper had rusted through in some spots, the plate under the paddle was warped (carpet plate?), and I don’t think it had been greased in a while. Between last year and this year it was torn completely apart. I brought it to a local auto body repair shop for it to be sandblasted and repainted, replaced all the gaskets, bolts, carpet plate, hopper, greased and oiled all the mechanical bits appropriately (after reading information from the forum, and talking to Alaska employees), built a hearth for it, bought / setup the coal trol system, installed a baro damper and draft gauge.
We love the stove. It’s located in our basement, it uses about a bag of coal a day since we set it to be pretty toasty (73 during the day and with the recent single digit nights 80 at night). Which results with the upstairs being between 67 - 72 depending on location/ what doors are open/ how the air is being circulated. Our home is pretty well insulated, we had the attic re-insulated last year to R-50 and the house was pressure tested.
I’d have to say the only thing I found frustrating when putting the stove back together was the door hinges, the holes were not drilled centered. I didn’t notice this when I was taking it apart so I spent over an hour shuffling through different combinations to find the best match so the doors would shut and seal well. I really don’t understand why they were not all machined centered. If you look at them straight down two of them have their holes extremely forward and to one side while the other two are decently centered. Some of the combinations I tried you can’t even get the doors to close, not to mention some of the combinations resulting with a massive gap at the top with and an extremely tight fit at the bottom. In the end I found a combination that resulted with decent uniformity, though I am tempted to go a size larger for the door gaskets in the future to compensate for the non uniform alignment.
I noticed this year with the gaskets replaced on the door glass, the gaps around the door hinge supports sealed, and a tighter seal around the base of the burn grate we have an excellent draft. I’m guessing it’s from the better seal around the base of the burn grate making more of the combustion air flow through the coal? I ended up having to add paper clips to the baro damper to get the draft down (it’s set to about 0.035 at full burn).
Overall, it was a fun and interesting process and we look forward to using the stove for many years.