Baffle Replacement for DutchWest 2500

[num1hitter]

My baffle in my Dutch West 2500 woodburning insert is sagging a little bit. I am not planning on doing anything about it until after the burning season is over since it still puts out a good amount of heat. I only found one website with this particular replacement baffle for just under $300. I would assume a local store would most likely charge around the same or more. I currently dont have the extra $300 and the insert is not worth much more than that. I was wondering if anyone thinks it would be a good idea, or has done it before, fabricate my own baffle. I was thinking about removing the baffle and see what it looks like and how it is put together. If it is a single piece of steel, i would think it would not be too hard to fabricate myself. Type of material, steel or iron? Any input or suggestions would be great. Thanks a lot.

 

[num1hitter]

I was doing some research this afternoon...Does anyone think it would be better to fabricate a new baffle out of Ceramic Fiber Board instead of steel? Since it is often used as a baffle in new stoves/inserts?

 

[etiger2007]

Hey I to have the Dutch West wood insert and I was wondering what kind of burn times are you getting with it and how hot are you burning? I get about an hour and half of good heat then the logs are coals my gauge on the door says it gets up to 600 degrees. I do burn small logs about the size of your four arm and i can only get about five of them in there. I feel it gets no where near the eight hours it says it does. Ive had my baffle red hot and till now it hasnt sagged at all. I have had mine for about a full burning season and I think i want an Osburn 2000 for longer burn times.

 

[wkpoor]

Probably cheapest rout would be to fab a new one or take to a fab shop. Even if it was cast iron a steel one would be cheap enough and last long enough to be a decent option. 300.00 seems alot for just a baffle.

 

[num1hitter]

I was thinking the same thing about the cost for a baffle was really high. Do you think using ceramic fiber board would be a good idea?? Or just fabricating one from steel or iron?? Thanks

Etiger- I am not sure about the exact temp mine gets to but I know its over 500 probably around 600. The burn time depends on the size of the logs and how hot I keep it. I can keep hot coals for about 7 hours after a hot burn with 3 logs a little bigger than my arm. This is after a day of burning or few hours of burning and it lasts through the night. If i wanted to keep it going I could throw a small piece of kindling on then when thats going a normal size log would easily start right up.

 

[etiger2007]

I wonder if my unit was defective from the Vermont Castings. Being such a small fire box Im really limited on how big of a log i can get in there and still keep enough air in there to burn clean. Whats wierd about mine is it realy dosent matter what the log size is after about an hour the logs start falling apart and I get another hour of demininishing heat from the coals. I would never get seven hours of heat from mine there might be some coals buried under ash but nothing more than that. I just loaded up the fire box with five pieces of wood three ash and two red oak at 2:30pm it burned hot over 600 degrees and now after a half hour the logs are falling apart turning into coals the temp is still 600 degrees though but no more flames.

 

[num1hitter]

Yeah I do not have that problem. I do no know what could be wrong. I am fairly new to burning as well.

 

[begreen]

Is this stove essentially the same as the Century CW2500 insert? That insert uses the C-Cast baffle.

 

[num1hitter]

It appears to be very similar by the look of it. The model number would also indicate they are very similar. Thanks for the input, I will look into it.

 

[num1hitter]

The baffle replacement for the CW2500 is definitely cheaper than the DW. It comes in 2 pieces...about $50 a piece. This helped a lot. I might fabricate it to the size of this model based on the measurements.

 

[begreen]

Great. There's a chance it will burn better too.