Fixing leak by dissasembling my Jotul 3CB

[wahoowad]

Late last season I began to notice some flame along the seams in the lower rear right corner (inside) of my 3CB. It suggested to me that maybe some air was leaking in from that area. My dealer says I should disassemble it and apply stove mortar in that area.

I have never disassembled my stove. My concern is disassembly my cause me to have to re-mortar a lot of my stove since I'm not sure what I will have to take apart to get to that area.

In looking at the exploded diagram I feel I would have to remove at least the Back and Right Burn Plates. Has anybody disassembled this stove and can tell me if those parts will come out on their own or if I have to remove other components to facilitate their removal? I probably need to apply stove mortar to the rear corner of the Back Plate and Side Plate and not necessarily to the Burn plates that shield the Back/Side plates. Anybody know?

Thanks!

PS: Stove is in warranty but dealer so far is encouraging me to do this activity.

 

[elkimmeg]

My advice if the stove is in warranty do not do anything you will instantly void the warranty

My dealer says I should disassemble it and apply stove mortar in that area.

Let me interpret this: I'm too lazy to honor my warranty commitment, so if I can get the owner to do the warranty repair ,I can wash my hands forever on this stove

Are you going to take this sitting down? You bought Jotul quality and part of it is warranty repair, My experiences in rebuilding refractory joint stoves is once one pirce is removed it effects all joints associated and connecting that piece Realistically meaning a complete rebuild of all joints that get shifted in the operations.

Red flags should be going off everywhere here. If a stove is that new still under warranty it should not need rebuilding. I would be looking for a replacement if my dealers instructed me to do the repairs.. I would have serious thoughts of forcing that reluctant dealer to take the time expertise and not cut corners, to ever want him to rebuild my stove./ I would demand a replacement for a flawed stove.

 

[webbie]

The burn plates in many of these stoves are just sitting there - not even bolted. They sit in a channel and are often held in by each other or the baffle.

It is very possible that the leak you mention is repairable from the inside using furnace cement without taking apart the stove. However, this is something your dealer should do if you are not comfortable with it. Some customers love fiddling with things (I had a number of customer who insisted on fixing their own stove - even under warranty).

If the burn plates are removed, it should be easy to see the offending joint by holding a drop light inside the stove in a dark room. You then want to dampen the joint from the inside and squeeze furnace cement (Rutland black is best) in from the inside - your finger often works best.

A chunk of furnace cement falling out is no cause for rebuilding or replacing in most cases. It is closer to replacing gasket in scope. Still, the dealer should fix it if you are unable or unwilling to do so. It should be a 10 minute operation for him.

 

[BrotherBart]

The right side burn plate on the F3 CB is bolted to the baffle at the top front of the firebox. After the bolt is removed you slide the burn plate forward, tilt it into the firebox and pull it out. Easier typed than done, but that is how it works.

All is easier if you take the top casting off first, which is attached by two Allen screws, one on each side under the lip. Don't lose those little metric suckers.

BB - Who had to replace the whole front plate casting last September, which required removing and re-sealing the side castings. Because the dealer dropped the stove and broke it delivering it and then went belly up.

 

[tutu_sue]

Of course you should pursue the warranty route first. Then you will want to replace your door and ash door gaskets and do a test burn before you tackle the cement. Taking apart the F3 isn't complicated, just takes a bit of patience.

Last year I went as far as to remove the entire baffle assembly and sides to clean out fly ash that had gotten behind the side plates. I went through the top. After the baffle assembly is out the side plates are free to lift out. There are pieces of blanket insulation behind the side plates that were a little tricky during reassembly, you have to hold them up until the plate is in. Tricky part was getting the baffle assembly back in because the baffle gasket wasn't 'glued in'. But I put some dots of gasket cement here and there to stick it up. After a couple of days I retightened all bolts as they came slightly loose I guess from the heat. Don't overtighten!

 

[wahoowad]

I was trying to not make this a "my dealer is avoiding his duty" thread although I agree with previous posters. His attitude on the phone was unsupportive. Right now I am thinking applying a little bit of stove mortar myself could be easier than returning the stove for repair/replacement...assuming it is easy to get to.

BroBart - the right plate sounds like a piece of cake. How easy is it to get the back plate out? I would want to seal that back corner, suggesting I need access to both sides of the corner.

Also - it isn't burn season yet so I may want to wait for my first couple of burns to reconfirm the problem, then fix it and be able to compare before/after. Last year I didn't get my first seasonal burn in until mid-October. I also tried holding match to the back area on the stove while burning but I had too much air movement from different things to have a still match flame to observe.

 

[BrotherBart]

With yours sitting with its back to the fireplace, I would just put a bead of furnace cement all the way across the seam at the bottom of the back casting from the outside. Run a finger over it and it will fill the seam and then wash off the excess with a wet rag before it dries.

.

 

[jtp10181]

If you don't get anywhere with the dealer your best bet is to figure out who the local Jotul sales rep is and tell them the issue. If the rep comes down on the dealer I would think they would step up to the plate.

 

[wahoowad]

My dealer's store is operated by his son and son-in-law. I do not know how much experience they have operating a stove but I get some wacky answers from them when discussing stove operation. I told the son that my secondary burn seemed to diminish when this problem appeared. My thinking was that an extra source of combustion air (even if from a crack in mortar) was possibly upsetting the air flow dynamics and pulling less combustion air through my secondary burn chamber. He countered that a drop off in secondary burn would be balanced by the stove running hotter from this leak so I should be OK.

 

[webbie]

Ha, that's a good piece of advice - just about as good as the Magic Eight Ball.

I think the combustion effect of such cracks is very small - but you are correct that it would not be a "positive" or "balanced" effect in any case. Still, they should be capable of smudging some furnace cement in...well, maybe not.

I think you are on the right track with DIY - not that it is the best thing in terms of the dealers performance, but sometimes getting satisfaction from others is harder than simply taking care of things yourself. I do this myself quite often because I have been through the "waiting for joe to show" routine more than once.

 

[begreen]

The F3CB is a tightly balanced stove. It is pretty sensitive to any leaks. You are right on with your observations Wahoowad. They burn poorly if air gets in where it shouldn't.

Seal up the crack. It's kinda pathetic, but likely that you will do a better job than the store from the way you've describe the situation. Rutland stove cement should work fine, but I would prefer the authentic Jotul cement (white and tough stuff). Maybe you can embarrass the dealer into supplying you with some.

 

[webbie]

Speaking of furnace cement - wow, I have a story about everything....

Anyway, the best furnace cement we ever used was from HearthStone, and it was actually made from their soapstone dust mixed with silicate and also had fibers of some sort in it. When I made the Upland Cast Iron stoves in NJ, we used to buy it in a 55 gallon drum and then use a grease pump (air operated) to make the stuff flow.

 

[tutu_sue]

Ya know, I was considering ordering the Hearthstone cement from Lehman's. They have it in a tub and a caulking tube. Now I'm definitely going to get some. Thanks Craig!

 

[webbie]

Glad to help - while we are on the subject of stove cements - when it comes time to replace the stove gaskets, the best cement for this use was made by Heat-Safe and I think was called G2 or something like that. Rutland was really bad....hard to squeeze out of the tube.....this other stuff is much more liquid, and very sticky.

I have enclosed a rough pic of what the heat-safe looks like - it is sold all around the net and at many shops.

 

[seaken]

It pains me to read stuff like this. There are still so many dealers who don't get it. On behalf of your dealer I apologize for his lack of service. It would take me ten minutes to fix the issue and you'd appreciate the effort. Why these guys don't get this I will never understand. Of course, I'm a technician and a lot of other dealers are not. But I think there is no excuse for not servicing your customers. With cemented cast iron stoves that means being able to fix a small leak with cement. It's not hard and you can do it yourself. But the only excuse for the dealer is if he's swamped and can't keep up with demand. But chances are he could stop by after work on the way home and help you out. Heck, I do that and a lot of my customers are over a half-hour away. (I live in the Catskills).

At the very least I would say something like, "I'm backed up four weeks and this is a really simple job you can do yourself. Would you like to give it a try? If you can't get it done then give me a call back and I'll come by after dinner and we'll take care if it together. What do you think?" If things get really busy I'll ask my wife to go over and take care of it. She knows her stoves.

This industry still has a very long way to go.

 

[seaken]

Craig, I agree on your cement recommendations. The Hearthstone stuff is great.

But we prefer the black color and use Rutland most of the time. And we also like the water glass cement for gaskets. But it doesn't work as well as the black Rutland on our enamel models. We end up going back if we don't rub the black cement in with our fingers. It's messy but it assures a good adhesion to the cast iron. We use lots of paper towels!

Sean