Help with 1980's Avalon wood stove insert

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cathymcmanus

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Nov 22, 2007
6
Ipswich, MA
I picked up a 1980's Avalon wood stove insert about the size of the Olympic but it was made before Travis Industries bought Avalon so I don't know it's model name, and I need info that would be in the owner's manual that I can't find. It didn't come with any fire bricks inside, and has a cast iron baffle on a shelf. It has a nice brass door, and the blower was making a screeching noise so I have ordered another one. I bought firebricks but I'm not sure how they go in because there are no brackets. The vent hole is 8" and Travis industries said that means it is prior to 1992. It looks like a great stove and will fit in my fireplace...does anyone have info on this stove that would be helpful? I am especially interested in how to put and keep the bricks in along the sides, and I am curious if it might be missing anything else essential. This stove is overall 29" deep and 25" wide and about 21" tall. It has no legs or pedestal base and it's heavy! The panel on the top is worn and no words are legible, but there is the number 0288 inscribed in it. Any help or information is welcome.

I am attaching some photos in hopes you might recognize it!
 

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catmcmanus said:
I picked up a 1980's Avalon wood stove insert about the size of the Olympic but it was made before Travis Industries bought Avalon so I don't know it's model name, and I need info that would be in the owner's manual that I can't find. It didn't come with any fire bricks inside, and has a cast iron baffle on a shelf. It has a nice brass door, and the blower was making a screeching noise so I have ordered another one. I bought firebricks but I'm not sure how they go in because there are no brackets. The vent hole is 8" and Travis industries said that means it is prior to 1992. It looks like a great stove and will fit in my fireplace...does anyone have info on this stove that would be helpful? I am especially interested in how to put and keep the bricks in along the sides, and I am curious if it might be missing anything else essential. This stove is overall 29" deep and 25" wide and about 21" tall. It has no legs or pedestal base and it's heavy! The panel on the top is worn and no words are legible, but there is the number 0288 inscribed in it. Any help or information is welcome.
Click to expand...
Did you check the back for a plate? If it has one look on there. Also, post some photos, would be helpful in Id'n that sucker.
 
I don't remember the 8" flue at all on the Avalon model - but Avalon basically made three units
700
900
1100

the 1100 is the only one that would possibly have that flue size,

Only some good pics would help more.

Does this have a movable damper (rod sticking out the front)?

No avalon had a cast baffle, just welded angle irons with firebrick on top. The interior firebrick layout is probably similar to the existing larger model woodstove. It started our as the 1190, then 1196, then the current models with names.
 
Webmaster said:
I don't remember the 8" flue at all on the Avalon model - but Avalon basically made three units
700
900
1100

the 1100 is the only one that would possibly have that flue size,

Only some good pics would help more.

Does this have a movable damper (rod sticking out the front)?

No avalon had a cast baffle, just welded angle irons with firebrick on top. The interior firebrick layout is probably similar to the existing larger model woodstove. It started our as the 1190, then 1196, then the current models with names.
Click to expand...

Maybe instead of baffle, he means the damper slider? When I was looking at the Avalons befoer I bought the Summit, they had both an air inlet lever & a slide damper at the outlet? Am i remebering correctly, or is my brain mush?
 
I added a couple of photos, yes there is a rod at the top right that looks like a damper adjustment, and there is a handle at the bottom that seems like it adjusts the airflow. The baffle is metal, perhaps not cast, but it sits on shelf brackets in the top back inside. It has a distinct trapezoidal shape from the side. I will try to find the manual for the 1100 to see if that's it. So far so good! I can't get more than two photos to load...
 
Wow, looks like a rare bird....perhaps a really limited 1100 model. I sold avalon from 1986 on and this model does not look exactly like any regulars. It looks like a "stretched" 945 model......... perhaps there was a few 1100 series models before the 1190, like maybe 1145 or 1150.

The difference is in the convection shroud. On the 1100's I remember, it was not curved in the rear (only the 945 had that shape) and also the shroud came further forward. I am almost guarantee that this was some kind of limited production model.

Either way, the firebrick in the box bottom and sides should be similar...and you can probably work out a pattern with split firebricks and pieces (and ash or sand) to fill those spaces up. I think tht rod on the right controls a turn damper in the stovepipe? Is that true?

OH, it's coming back to me now! I thing this is a catalytic model.....maybe. See if that makes sense. There might be somewhere that rectangular or a round cat element goes? Check it out.

This design would probably work pretty good without the cat if the baffle was done right.
 
Looking inside the stove the shelf for the baffle if that's what it is, is set back toward the rear. Perhaps the catalytic part sat on top. I don't know enough about wood stoves yet, I've always been a fireplace girl until the price of home heating oil went out of sight. Now we have a Hampton insert in our home, and picked up this used one for our second home in Maine. I am tracking down the user manuals for some of those model #'s you provided in case we find a close match. It almost seems custom made due to the depth. Or, it's early 1980's, its the same dimensions as the 945 except deeper. Could I be measuring the depth incorrectly? I measured overall depth as in the widest point front to back at 29."
 
Get ahold of an Avlon dealer and make him go to the backoffice. That manual is there in pdf format. And I guess I might as well point out that Travis should have these on the site. They're on the dealer site why not make an old manuals section or even an older stoves section in the consumer site that has the old manuals and some other helpful info on the older units.
 
Thanks, I have contacted an Avalon dealer. Hopefully he has been selling them for a long time! I will also try Travis again and suggest that they must have had access to this info when they took over in 1992 to service their "current" customers so perhaps they have archives somewhere. My husband thinks he saw somewhere on the stove that it might be made in Canada. Was Avalon making stoves in canada in the early 80's? Could I have an Avalon door on a God knows what stove?
 
Thank you so much. We have gotten everything together and installed the Avalon insert. It gives off great heat, and looks beautiful. It seems like a custom 945- the same dimensions except it is 10" deeper and has a brass door which the 945 apparently only came with a black door. We touched it up with stove paint- and we are waiting for a new blower to come in since this one is burned out.
 

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