repair or replace?

I have an old Dutchwest India 224 CCL stove. Last year you all were an incredible help getting my bearing on this thing and helping me when I needed repairs. I love this stove. Never had a stove till I moved to this house and it was already here. The front end of my house heats very poorly from my forced air system so I run it whenever I am home for some length of time (I work a lot and am out some evenings) and as someone mentioned it is a little work horse--though not big enough to heat overnight. I love how funky it is with all the knobs and the doors etc. even thought it looks awful and is kind of a pain to run. Anyway, the center part of the grate ( the non-moving part) has partially caved in. When I cleaned it out this fall I thought there were some old coals and when I banged on it the metal literally crumbled.

So I happened to recently be in the neighborhood of a wood stove store and took a look at some of the beautiful new high efficiency easy to use stoves and there is also now an incentive in Mass. to get a $1000 voucher for an EPA approved stove.

However, I recollect from being on this forum last winter that some people with experience with the older stoves were disappointed when they purchased a newer stove.

So my questions are--is is possible to replace that middle piece of the grate? Does its crumbling indicate that its lif
e is over? And if so, any advice on replacements would be appreciated knowing that this site is partial to VC.

Please keep in mind that I am TOTALLY not mechanical or a builder so it is either have someone else work on it or buy a new one.

I posted this in classic stoves but maybe this is a better place

I have an old Dutchwest India 224 CCL stove. Last year you all were an incredible help getting my bearing on this thing and helping me when I needed repairs. I love this stove. Never had a stove till I moved to this house and it was already here. The front end of my house heats very poorly from my forced air system so I run it whenever I am home for some length of time (I work a lot and am out some evenings) and as someone mentioned, it is a little work horse--though not big enough to heat overnight. I love how funky it is with all the knobs and the doors etc. even though it looks awful and is kind of a pain to run. Anyway, the center part of the grate ( the non-moving part) has partially caved in. When I cleaned it out this fall I thought there were some old coals and when I banged on it the metal literally crumbled.

So I happened to recently be in the neighborhood of a wood stove store and took a look at some of the beautiful new high efficiency easy to use stoves and there is also now an incentive in Mass. to get a $1000 voucher for an EPA approved stove.

However, I recollect from being on this forum last winter that some people with experience with the older stoves were disappointed when they purchased a newer stove.

So my questions are--is is possible to replace that middle piece of the grate? Does its crumbling indicate that its life is over? And if so, any advice on replacements would be appreciated knowing that this site is partial to VC.

Please keep in mind that I am TOTALLY not mechanical or a builder so it is either have someone else work on it or buy a new one.

Oh right--I forgot about that place. Thanks. I will check into it.

I believe the grates are no longer available for the old DW's. Your local dealer might have some laying around. Give the local dealer a call.

thanks for merging--I am still learning how to do this-thanks for advice