Crack in Alpiner furnace

[lincolner]

My wife and I recently moved to a house which has an Alpiner wood furnace. I believe this is basically a knock off of a Fisher Papa Bear, and was made at some point prior to the late 70s.

This morning, my wife noticed that there is a crack along the top of the firebox which you can see light through. My guess is it's been there all along; you have to be standing to one side with the room lights off to see it. Note that this stove was inspected by both a home inspector and chimney inspector. The chimney/fireplace people saw no problem with it; the home inspector noted that the manifold had a crack implying that there had been very hot fires there at some point. (I've used a surface thermometer to keep it from burning hot since we've been here).

I am trying to understand if this is something I can think about repairing, with stove cement or otherwise, or if we need to just not use it and replace it. We have oil heat, as well as another wood cook stove on another level, so we can stay plenty warm in the meantime.

Here are pictures with the room lights on and off:

 

[begreen]

It looks like the stove was at one time black but the paint has all been oxidized by high heat. The crack might be repairable by welding, but it's questionable whether it would be worth it when there are other issues/signs of long term abuse. This may be a good time to look at a modern replacement that will burn less wood and operate safely. Maybe head over to West Lebanon, New Hampshire and take a tour of the Woodstock Soapstone Company Factory and look at an Ideal Steel stove?

 

[lincolner]

Long term something like that was already on our radar, but won't happen this year. Could I use stove cement, instead of welding?

 

[fbelec]

first time you stress the stove with a hot fire or the logs shift the cement will fall out. and that crack will keep getting bigger over time. it looks like it's ready to burn thru

 

[begreen]

Long term something like that was already on our radar, but won't happen this year. Could I use stove cement, instead of welding?

Yeah, stove cement won't stay there. There's too much risk of failure.

 

[lincolner]

Fair enough. I actually found someone nearby who has the same Alpiner for sale without any heat damage, so I'm going to get that, use that for a couple years and then look at doing something more modern. I'm sure if we drop $4000 we'll get something a lot better that I don't have to shove as much wood in, but this will work for now, and I've got limited time/money to dump on this right now.

Thanks

 

[begreen]

A good modern stove with 3 cu ft capacity can be bought new for under $1000.

 

[lincolner]

A good modern stove with 3 cu ft capacity can be bought new for under $1000.

Do you have some examples of products you think are good in that price range?

 

[begreen]

Englander 30-NC, Englander 50 SSW01, Drolet Baltic II, Century FW3000. The Drolet HT2000 is a little more, but usually under $1200.

All these stoves require fully seasoned wood to perform well.