Need help identifying awesome romantic wood box stove (pics!)

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KristenS

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Jul 10, 2011
7
Northern NJ
Hello, Hearthers! I'm a regular poster on the OldHouseWeb forums. Everyone there suggests you great folks when people have questions about wood stoves. So, here I am.

My man and I just picked up this wonderful wood box stove at a garage sale. The woman said it had belonged to her aunt, but she had no info on where or when it was from.

My limited research makes me think it's a Jotul. The side panels just look so much like theirs. But there's no Jotul name on it (or any other name that I can find.) It measures around 13w x 16h x 22d, without the legs.

Any guesses on what I've got?

stove%25201.png

stove%25202.png

stove%25203.png


not pictured: the 4 legs it came with

I'm completely new to wood stoves. So once I do a lot more reading, I'll be asking a million questions here about how to get it up and running on my porch.

Thanks so much!
 
Welcome Kristen. Sorry, but I think this is a Taiwan knock-off of the Jotul 602. If it was a Jotul it would say so proudly, right on front.
 
Most probably a Scandia - a company which made knock-offs in Taiwan for year, before they were sued for trademark violations - and went out of business.

It may be a copy of a Trolla or another similar European model - if it was one of those models, it would very likely have the name cast into the door.

Looking around a bit, it appears it is a Trolla 104 copy, but the original would have the name. See enclosed.
 

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I'm so glad for the info. Thank you folks. :)

I imagine others are sorrier for me than I am. While I wouldn't knowingly support a knock-off company, my purchase/use of this isn't exactly helping a defunct company now. I'm happy to learn where the panel comes from. We'd thought it looked somewhat Dutch or Scandinavian. Fun to learn that we're probably right. Can you imagine making that panel for a wood stove?! I mean, bears and moose make some sense. But this weird romantic scene?! I love it!

It surprises me that Trolla and Jotul have such similar images. Particularly the trees. They're almost identical. Were the companies related in any way?

I'll have to have the stove checked out by a professional. Just to make sure it's not dangerous or ill-made. I don't need burning hot cast iron cracking open on my front porch. But it looks like it's been burned in often. And it's got the ceramic (?) stuff on the inside walls. So either the previous owner was a real daredevil, or this thing's good to go.
 
The ceramic stuff on the inside walls is probably creosote from burning the stove too cool with wet wood. I'm guessing it's a Taiwan knock-off, too, probably a Scandia. Scandias were sold in hardware stores but I actually saw them for sale when they were around in my grocery store!
 
Oh, there's definitely some black glossy hard stuff inside! Which I assume is creosote. And some general charred crapola. So it'll need a good cleaning.

But that's not what I mean by ceramic stuff. This is actual white blocks adhered to the sides of the box. I've seen them on other working wood stoves. This one even came with a bunch of extra ceramic tiles. The guy of the couple who sold it to us said that another friend of theirs said (I'm sounding like Ferris Bueller's Day Off) that these are used inside the stove to keep the heat in. Yeah?

Here are some pics. Don't mind the insane mess of leaves and seed pods!

ceramic.JPG

that.JPG
 
The ceramic keeps the hot part of the fire from resting right against the cast iron sides. Most Jotuls have a second cast-iron liner plate instead.

You might have a tough time getting a valid building permit for installation of the stove - if it has no label or lab testing proof. On the other hand, some building officials will let you use NFPA (generic) standards, which do address unlisted stoves.
 
We're already resigned to the fact that this thing might have to become a really cool porch table. But for $20, and picked up about two blocks from where we live, we're ok with that!

I haven't yet had to deal with our Code Enforcement Dept. But I'm going to be fixing our porch steps soon. So I'll get a sense from that whether they're sticklers or accommodaters. If the back deck and stairs are any indication, they're big-time accommodaters! That thing's a mess.
 
Sanded down and painted with five coats of Rustoleum (not to be put on a stove that is burned in) that would make a beautiful deck table. And a lot safer than burning fires in it except outside on non-combustible surfaces and 36" away from any of them.

And that wouldn't be much fun since you can't see the fire.

What nobody has been talking about is that we all consider the Taiwan knockoff stoves to be unsafe because of the inferior quality of the cast iron made there back then. But it sure was good enough to make a table. :smirk: And the old "light a fire in an iron box" technology is a smoke and creosote making mess.
 
Yeah-- as soon as BeGreen and Craig Issod suggested it was probably a knock-off, I started Googling the heck out of that. I saw that a lot of people consider them dangerous. Which prompted my comment that we'd have to have it checked out by a professional.

For my further edification, though... what happens with inferior cast iron? Does it crack under the heat? And/or are there other worries? The more I know, the more chance I can find the right person to check this thing out.

Actually, on that topic, if anyone knows of someone in the Northern NJ / NYC area who we can bring this thing to, let me know! It fits in the trunk of our car just fine.
 
Myself, I would keep the pretty side castings and landfill the rest of it. Yeah, the danger of cracking is the deal. As much as it has been fired already it probably isn't gonna happen though. Imperfections would have probably cracked it during that amount of burning.

But at its age if you are going to burn in it, take it apart and seal the joints with furnace cement. The stuff it was sealed with originally is a tad beyond the useful life.
 
i have that same stove here in my basement that i don't run anymore. the difference between mine and yours is mine has scandia on the top of the front door. same picture on the side. i ran mine hard. when i ran mine i was doing something close by so wasn't to concerned about wrecking the stove. i took everything i gave it. the sides are now white from overfiring. i had the cooktop glowing a few times. the bad thing about that stove is it could only take 16 inch splits and 3 to 4 if they were small. you are also missing the baffle that sits on top of the fire bricks. that baffle would make the hot smoke go back by the air inlet and it would get smokeless burns out of it. it ran well but not practical for heating because of the 2 hour load cycle. great for cooking on thou.
 
I've got the baffle. I just didn't include it in the pictures. It's in the box with the legs and the other ceramic tiles.

How exactly does the baffle fit into the box? Is there some slot it should be sliding into? And where do the tiles go?

I've only used one other wood stove, and it was rather different from this one.
 
that baffle just sits on top of the bricks. if you get your bricks standing in the stove then just slide in the baffle and sit it on top of the bricks. the baffle has tabs that go over each brick to hold it in place.very easy to rebuild the stove. pop off the top of the stove via the screws on the top of the stove and from there you can wire brush the inside, recement the corners. put in the bricks, then the baffle. put a bead of cement between the baffle and the stove back to prevent smoke going straight out the chimney. recement the top and screw together and your done.
 
Because I know so little about how these stoves work, your answer is very confusing to me. If I stack up the bricks and put the baffle on top of them, where would the logs go?!

Here's a little graphic of what (I thought) should be happening with the stove. In which case...where goes the baffle?

baffled.jpg
 
all the bricks go on the sides, standing up vertical. then the baffle sits on top of the bricks. that makes a firebox and a space on top of the baffle about 3 or 4 inches. so the air comes into the stove from the door and thru the wood. the smoke and hot gases rise up hit the baffle and travel toward the front of the stove where it goes up and hits the cooking plate and then toward the back of the stove and out the smoke pipe.
 
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