Why glass doors?

[gorentz]

We've been heating our pre-Civil War house with a Garrison II for 27 years. This year we noticed that a hole has burned through the upper baffle plate inside the stove, which I presume is not going to do anything for efficiency.

I've so far looked at a Jotul 400 Castine, a Dutchwest, and some Vermont Castings stoves. There are things about all of them that make me question whether we'd be happy with them. One question for starters, though, is why do almost all stoves have glass doors? I like those cast iron doors on the Garrison II. We don't expect to get any particular joy out of watching the fire (other than to be more easily reminded that it's time to add more wood before it goes cold on us). Why have something potentially breakable in place of the cast iron? So far I haven't found a stove with cast iron doors that would fit with proper clearances on our 4-foot by 4-foot hearth. Am I missing out on something?

I asked one of the dealers, and he said people like to look at the fire.

All customers like to look at the fire???

 

[babalu87]

That glass is TOUGH, breakable yes but alot tougher than you may think
Most people like to look at the fire , especially the secondary burn.
Look at my stove too.

 

[gorentz]

That glass is TOUGH, breakable yes but alot tougher than you may think

I suppose it is tough, but why use something that isn't as tough as cast iron? I'd hate to think something would slip some cold, clumsy morning in January, and we'd be without heat for a week while waiting for a replacement part. And then if it requires a break-in period for high-temperature cement to cure...

I notice that the Vermont Castings and Dutchwest stoves have andirons to hold wood back from the glass, while the Jotul stoves do not. Is there any significance to that? Are the andirons there to protect the glass from breaking or is it an attempt to hold the wood away so airflow will keep it free of soot?

And that's another thing? Why have something that will get dirty? I saw in the reviews where somebody said they can sometimes get dirty with an overnight, dampered-down fire, but will clean themselves with a hot fire. Is that the way they really work?

 

[gorentz]

Look at my stove too.

Thanks for that suggestion. It looks promising. I see there is a dealer nearby, too.

 

[karl]

I have few weeks of use with my Summit now and the glass stays very clean. If you don't like looking at the fire then don't bother cleaning the glass if it gets dirty.

 

[North of 60]

Some stoves give you the option to have a solid door. Its actually one of the cheapest options. I went without the brass , pewter,gold trims for my door as they cost up to an extra 300 to 500 bucks. I did however go plain black with the glass so i could monitor my fuel levels closer.

 

[begreen]

There are very few stoves made without a view these days. But that is not glass, it's a clear ceramic, much tougher than glass. But if you wanted to have a custom piece of plate steel made up to match the glass dimensions, it should work. If you are going for a Jotul, get the F500. It is a better sized match for the GarrisonII. The Morso 3610 is a nice one too.

The Woodstock classic has a solid, not glass surface. It is a catalytic stove, but well made.

(broken link removed to http://www.woodstove.com/pages/wood_stove_classic.html)

 

[gorentz]

There are very few stoves made without a view these days. But that is not glass, it's a clear ceramic, much tougher than glass. But if you wanted to have a custom piece of plate steel made up to match the glass dimensions, it should work. If you are going for a Jotul, get the F500. It is a better sized match for the GarrisonII. The Morso 3610 is a nice one too.

The Jotul 500 requires at hearth of 54.5" x 50.5". Enlarging our hearth would not be a small undertaking. The Morso 3610 requires a larger one than ours, too. Enlarging it in the sideways direction to accommodate a side door would not be a terrible thing, as far as the room arrangement goes. And I like the idea of a side door. A door on the left would be very convenient for tending the fire.

I'm not eager to have a larger box in the room, though.

One complication in all this is that we are in the (slow) process of putting in a central heating system. In another year or two, we want to be at the point where the woodstove would be used only in the daytime. We've built an addition (large sunroom, garage with office and workshop) in which I've installed pex tubing, just waiting for us to figure out what kind of boiler we're going to use to provide heat to it. And we have a plan for putting pex under the main floor of the old house, and radiant baseboard heat in some rooms upstairs where it would be hard to retrofit with pex. We've liked the heat we get in that part of the house by heating with wood, but would no longer use that as our main, 24x7 heat source. The insurance company will like our new arrangement better, too.

So I'm reluctant to put spend all that money and take up more space to put a larger beast in our dining room.

It looks like this hearth.com place (which I just discovered yesterday) might also have a forum for me to learn about such things as corn-fired boilers. My wife and I have been having, er, discussions about the advisability of that.

 

[KeithO]

John: I second the comment made by Begreen on the woodstock stove. Today, it is very unusual for stoves not to have the ceramic glass, and that is primarily because they are trying to oust wasteful fireplaces, which are still the only solid fuel heaters that developers put in houses.

That said, Woodstock make fabulous stoves and the Classic is one of the best from a functional point of view. No view of the fire won't agree with most people, but there are obviously enough people who value it for what it is, since it has stayed in the lineup for years. Read the review on this site for the woodstock stoves. They have some of the highest ratings of anything on the market. Any of the models that has only side and top loading have minimum front hearth requirements, which sounds like what you need. Rear and side clearances are not likely to be an issue based on your older stove, although, be warned, code has changed considerably in the past 27 years and you may need to check that a new install will meet code today.

 

[11 Bravo]

Unfortunately, the glass is breakable. Tomorrow, I will be getting mine replaced, but it is only due to my own stupidity. It is not cracked all the way through, but I took a small chip out of it, about 1 mm deep on the inside. Both times it has been replaced has been due to human error, not the fire or use.

 

[BrotherBart]

I don't think a stove company would sell three stoves a year these days if they didn't have glass in the door. And one advantage of the glass is much more radiant heat out the front of the stove than with plain cast doors. Of course nothing in the world says that you can't go down to the local fab shop and have a piece of 1/4" steel made up to put in place of the glass on any stove. I can't for the life of me think of why you would want to but if it makes you feel better to have the piece of steel sitting in the garage in case you break the glass, go for it.

 

[JohnnyBravo]

[quote author="BrotherBart" date="1194207068"]I don't think a stove company would sell three stoves a year these days if they didn't have glass in the door. And one advantage of the glass is much more radiant heat out the front of the stove than with plain cast doors.

x2. thats why the hearth on inserts require so much k/r value built into the hearth.

 

[begreen]

JohnG, what are the current hearth dimensions?

You might also want to look at the Quadrafire Isle Royale - top loader. It is not as wide, but has a large firebox. And there is the Pacific Energy Alderlea T5 or T6 - front loader. The PE stoves have very tight clearances and good overnight burn.

 

[elkimmeg]

All glass door stoves have to withstand a 3lb steel ball dropped from waist high. and suffer no damage from impact. If they di when being tested they fail costing the company more than 20k for re testing. As you can imagine, that is quite an impact, only human error usually causes any breakage

 

[hfjeff]

You could always order an extra replacement piece of glass when you order the stove. That way if you did somehow have a mishap and break it you would have a spare on hand. If your stove is in a room where it can be seen, you would probably get used to having the glass and appreciate the extra heat it radiates as well. The secondary burn is cool to watch and it is nice to know when to refill without having to open the door.

 

[wahoowad]

I wish my jotul 3CB had andirons. I've had logs shift during a burn abd roll up against the glass. I have no concern about the glass breaking but they can then be a hazard if I open the door, or they leave carbon deposits on the glass. I don't get to pack the firebox as much as I'd like because I often hold back when putting the last log in that will be close to the front. Some integrated andirons would be nice. it has a real short thing but that mostly keeps ash back.

And I'm another that wouldn't want a stove without 'glass' - really love it.

 

[JohnnyBravo]

yeah nice to know when some burning logs are going to fall out.

 

[gorentz]

I don't think a stove company would sell three stoves a year these days if they didn't have glass in the door. And one advantage of the glass is much more radiant heat out the front of the stove than with plain cast doors.

When we bought our Garrison II back in 1980, the prevailing wisdom was that cast iron radiated heat better than steel. So ceramic glass is better than cast iron? Are there numbers on this?

 

[gorentz]

Unfortunately, the glass is breakable. Tomorrow, I will be getting mine replaced, but it is only due to my own stupidity. It is not cracked all the way through, but I took a small chip out of it, about 1 mm deep on the inside. Both times it has been replaced has been due to human error, not the fire or use.

Human error is mostly what I'm concerned about. But I don't care whose fault it would be. I just don't want my stove out of action due to cracked anything. I wouldn't feel any warmer knowing it was human error that did it.

So may I ask what kind of human error broke yours?

(All the talk about being able to monitor the fire is convincing me of the advantage. I can't tell you how many times we let the fire go out over the years when a visible reminder might have caught it in time. But I'm still curious about how they do break.)

 

[hilly]

I grew up with a pacific energy wood stove that had glass in the front and we never had a problem. My parents till burn with it thirty years later, with the original glass in it and I don't recall taking any safety precautions with it. I currently burn a stove with a glass front and I love the look of the fire, plus, more importantly, I can tell whether or not I'm burning effectively.

 

[begreen]

Unfortunately, the glass is breakable. Tomorrow, I will be getting mine replaced, but it is only due to my own stupidity. It is not cracked all the way through, but I took a small chip out of it, about 1 mm deep on the inside. Both times it has been replaced has been due to human error, not the fire or use.

There are lots of ways to destroy a stove due to human stupidity, regardless of whether it has glass or not. We see overfiring cases posted fairly regularly. Spill a vase or pot of water accidentally on a hot stove to see what I mean. The reason your Garrison did so well is because you took care of it and the flue. The same will be true of a new stove whether it has a ceramic glass front or not.

OTOH, how badly damaged is the Garrison's baffle? Can it be removed and repaired or a new piece found or made?

 

[gorentz]

OTOH, how badly damaged is the Garrison's baffle? Can it be removed and repaired or a new piece found or made?

It has a hole about 1.5 inches in diameter. I didn't think it was removable, but maybe it is. I'm looking online for old manuals. Unfortunately, we're in for a few days of colder weather, so it's in use right now, though only with a fairly small fire.

I had thought of repairs when my wife first pointed it out to me, but I figured we had that stove for a long time and maybe the thing would be to just swap it for another, now that the real heating season is imminent. And putting fewer particulates in the air would be good, too. But now we're looking at $2000 stoves, and people are telling us those aren't even enough, and on top of that it may require some hearth modifications if we need a larger one. So hauling the stove out for repairs is starting to look like a more reasonable thing to do.

Our nextdoor neighbor does some welding (auto body shop), so maybe I should ask him whether he thinks he could weld a plate over the hole to get us through another winter. Then we could take our time next spring to get ourselves a smaller cast iron stove to supplement the corn boiler or whatever we decide to do with radiant floor heat.

 

[BrotherBart]

The human error that breaks most door glass is closing the door on a piece of wood that is too long or packed right up to the glass. My 1985 stove had glass in the doors and neither glass got broken in 21 years of burning. Banging a poker into it is probably number two on the hit parade.

Rest. Ya ain't gonna break the glass.

I replaced the baffle on the old Sierra. I never saw one of the old steel stoves that didn't have a removable baffle. Of course I had to put a floor jack inside the stove to bend it back up enough to get it out of the holders.

Didn't break the glass with the jack handle either.

 

[DavidV]

one of the things you mentioned was dirty glass from damping down the stove. Hope I'm not repeating what someone else said but with conventional stoves you don't damp it down the same way you did with your stove. Theh object isn't to reduuce it to a hot slow burnning/smoldering fire. you want to take the aiir downn a bit but still maintain secondary combustion. And that shouldn't result in too much smoke and soot on the glass.

 

[begreen]

John, if you can safely repair the baffle and get another season out of the stove, that might be a good plan. This can be a lousy time to buy a stove if you're trying to save some $$$.