HEATSOURCE 1

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nealj

Member
Oct 1, 2009
12
mn
A friend found one of these stoves that was taken out of service after 2 years because of a 5 gal per month leak. The owner is willing to trade wood for it. After doing a search on these stoves it sounds like the manufacturer was a real piece of work. My question is has any one had any luck repairing one of these OWB. Also how good is this stove when working properly?
 
I'd guess that fixing it would be a gamble. It may last a few more years or it may last a few more days a spring another leak.
I'm not familiar with this brand, but in general most convintional owb will burn a lot of wood for the amount of heat it puts in the house and will probably smoke a lot and stink. If you can get it for very little it may work for ya till you can get somthing better.
 
Had one. Repaired under warranty after a couple years, again next year on my own, leaking in several spots the next year, replaced with a Garn. When it worked used lots of wood and made lots of smoke and creosote. Heating twice the space and DHW in two buildings with less wood.

Tom
 
Do yourself and the environment a favor and recycle it. Make sure to tell the scrap yard that it's stainless steel. The company has disappeared so there are no parts available from that end of things.
 
Thanks for the quick responses, It is my friend that is looking at it. I am a happy owner of a Portage and Main. He sells wood to the owner so he wouldn't have alot of cash in it but repairing the ss is probably not as easy as it sounds.
 
nealj,
If he can trade for a couple hundred dollars worth of wood, he should jump on it if it appears that fixing the leak(location) won't be very costly. There is a good chance that the leak was elsewhere in his system if the boiler is only 2 years old. Heatsource1 built a very good product.
There are other forums out there that will give you and your friend unbiased opinions regarding OWB's. The outdoor wood furnace information site is probably the best. Most here have the mindset that one needs to spend 15-20K to install a home heating devise that relies on a renewable resource for it's fuel.
 
Had a different brand but stainless none the less. My fondest memory of that stove was watching it go out my driveway with a set of tail light under it.
Most on here are DIY'ers that maybe have 10 or 12K in our 20K systems and will use 1/2 the wood and OWB will use in a 12 month period. Wood may be a renewable resource but my time and energy are not.
Also, there are some states that OWB are banned.
Rob
 
Isn't SS a pain to weld?

I guess it depends if he has the skills or has a friend who does.

If he can get it for the right price that is equivalent to scrap. And has the time to play. Well what is there to lose?
 
My understanding is that the coefficient of thermal expansion for stainless steel is much greater than that for regular carbon steel.

Thus, when welding on stainless steel the cracks tend to move around as heat is generated from the welding process.

Brian
 
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