Need help - What kind of stove do I have? (with photos)

[NewToWoodHeat]

Hi Hearth.com, this is my first winter in my new home AND my first winter heating with wood. 😊 My wood stove was here (uninstalled) when I moved in, so I put a chimney up and put new firebrick in. Now I am running into some problems that would be easier to handle if I knew what kind of stove it is, so I'm hoping you all can help! There are no identifying markers anywhere on the stove. Can anyone here identify it?

Here are my problems/questions about this stove and burning wood in general:
1) I want to buy a squirrel fan for the rear of the stove where it has an approximately 8.25" long by 4" high opening with another small round opening (possibly for a thermostat). There are four screw holes outside of the opening. The hole looks like it may have been cut in after manufacture. Without a manufacturer or a model, finding an appropriate fan has been a wild goose chase!
2) The door doesn't seal well and, so far, I haven't been able to get a gasket to fit. There is some old furnace cement in the groove of the door where it looks like there may have been a gasket, but it didn't have a gasket when I got it and the triangular bar around the opening of the stove makes me think it may not have been designed to have a gasket. After trying several different round gasket sizes (3/8", 1/2", 5/8"), the gasket only makes the seal of the door worse and prevents the door from fully closing (see photo). Right now, I am burning it with a piece of 3/8" gasket where the doors meet, but none on the outside portions of the groove. That has created the best seal I've had so far, but even with all the air openings closed there is still quite a bit of air flow into the stove. Is this stove meant to have a gasket? How do I fix the seal?
3) I have little experience with wood stoves, but for a reasonably sized stove, it seems to burn through a load of wood fairly fast without making as much heat as I expected. I would make a very rough guess of 4-6 hours from loaded to just coals. The wood is a mixed bag - live ailanthus cut this spring, standing dead locust cut this fall (some of it is punky), dry maple and walnut, and others. When starting the fire, I open the flue, get flames going for 5-10 minutes with air openings open, add more wood with flue open to about 45 degrees above horizontal and air openings also open, and then once it is burning hot, crank down the flue to about 15 degrees above horizontal and close all the air openings. Is this the right way to go about it? Am I expecting too much from this wood stove? With being allowed to die out completely once or more a day (if I feed it at 10PM and check it at 5PM, the fire is out), the stove has been heating my poorly insulated (almost uninsulated), 1500 sq ft block house to about 60-65F when outside temps are 30F at night and 50F during the day, but it will get a lot colder soon so I'm a little worried.

Thanks for your help!

 

[NewToWoodHeat]

Bumping this up in hopes someone will see it and be able to help! 😊

 

[clancey]

I hope someone comes on to help you and my suspicion about this stove hit a new high when it was uninstalled to begin with...You sound like a very handy person with know how but I am not sure about your safety concerns...I would not burn that stove until you get some further information here about that stove from some of the posters here...I know nothing about stoves and lite my wood stove for the very first time in Oct but you be patient and someone will come on and take a look at the posting and see what you are up against..What kind of chimney is it ? old mrs clancey

 

[bholler]

Bumping this up in hopes someone will see it and be able to help! 😊

It looks like it was probably just a locally made stove. There most likely is no info available on it.

 

[john26]

Are the doors Cast? Looks similar to A Batcave but they typically had 2 handles and round adjuster knobs. A lot of those 1970's plate stoves did not have door gaskets.

 

[coaly]

It appears to use the steel that projects from stove face as the door seal. It probably touches the bottom of the groove on the back of door, and the door also makes contact on the stove face. A dab of grease on each point of contact will show if it makes contact in more than one place all the way around. Grease the edge lightly, close door to see if grease transfers to the other part. It must transfer evenly. If not, this space is called gasket clearance, so the portion that doesn’t make contact requires the clearance measured to be the gasket thickness when crushed. Measure closing door on shims or cardboard. Any stove that does not use gasket material needs to be wire wheeled clean so all contact points make perfect contact. As hinge ears or hinge pins wear from lack of regular greasing, some that were tight, may require a thin gasket to fill the void.

If you feel you need gasket material, cut a thin strip of cardboard and put in the space you think requires gasket. If the doors close, flat gasket normally works. It is more expensive than round rope gasket, and flat is normally used for the installation of glass.

 

[begreen]

You're doing ok. The stove will never be an efficient heater. It's going to eat a lot of wood for the heat produced.

 

[rwhite]

That stove has always been a mystery to me. My parents had the same one in their house in AZ. I've seen 5-6 others in houses for sale in the same area so I always thought it was locally made as I'd never seen one similar other than in that area. But your in PA so they must have made them on a larger scale than I thought. It was a decent stove, heated well and was well made but it burned A LOT of wood. I was always told it was a Schrader but I don't think that is correct.

 

[WoodGirl]

I would start thinking about a replacement for the future; if you are buying wood then you want an efficient wood stove to heat your house. You can use the stove this winter to help save on heating costs and apply the savings to a new stove.