Production Woodstock IS

No about 25% of old ones; maybe less

 

Just a thought but Woodstock's fix is to weld a new plate o the face of the stove. That plate is entirely outside the stove, and could be welded in place anyplace given a welder and a weldor. (the Weldor is the person holding the stinger or gun and the Welder is the machine) I cannot and am not speaking on behalf of Woodstock but they are outstanding regarding service and more than reasonable. So depending on where you stove is in the building, and also depending on how easy or hard it might be to vent that area, the new plate <may> be able to be welded to the stove in place. ??? This stove is heavy, very heavy and so can be a PITA to move and ship, and I think it would be worth a bit of effort to see what could be done regarding a local repair as opposed to sending it back to the factory. I personally would start off asking Woodstock if that could be done and if they would be willing to work with you on such a repair, then of course finding a skilled welding service to do the actual welding. As most residences in the US have only single phase power and a lot of larger welding machines require three- phase, you may have to find someone who has a portable welder. This is actually fairly common with both the welder and the generator for that welder being mounted in a truck, and some welders include a self- powered power supply on- board.

My stove is in my living room and while it <could> be welded in place, it would take a lot of very well placed and sealed shields / barriers, along with a strong evacuation system to do this. Still, even at that it would probably be cheaper and absolutely be easier to do it in place rather than send it back, which is what I did to have my stove repaired. But at that time they were going to replace the firebox, which required a full rebuild of the stove so it had to go back to the factory. The actual repair was conjured up after my stove was already at Woodstock's facility so doing it remotely was not even a consideration.

Again, not offering anything nor really even suggesting, just throwing this out for consideration before you actually move your stove. Either way, the best of luck getting this taken care of, and the fix from Woodstock does seem to be working well for me, one season into it, and I have not heard of any problems from anyone else having had this re-work done on any I.S. stoves.

 

While there are plenty of 3 PH welders out there, that would be something that would generally be used in more of a heavy industrial setting...however the much more common welders run on 120v and/or 240v single phase (240v is super common)...shouldn't be too hard to find a portable welding service to do the repair, if the stove in a location conducive to doing it in place...and WS is game of course...

 

With the plate being welded to the outside, how do they handle the door alignment to the body? Do they cut off the existing hinges and then space new ones farther away so that the door still closes evenly?

 

Yes. They cut off the old hinges, and the new faceplate comes with new hinges. The striker plate (where the handle latches) is also mounted to the new plate. Basically the entire door mount and sealing area is now a steel plate that is welded onto the original face of the stove. So there is no alignment of the door to the stove, the door aligns only to the new plate. Really quite a nice, simple repair IMO.

 

If you are lucky you could find a guy who could gas weld it, no sparks to speak of. Not sure how many welders due much of that any more but I worked with a guy who welded in the service and he could weld sch 80 4 inch pipe like it was nothing.

 

The welding equipment and ventilation are very minor problems. The very expensive and unlikely to solve problem is getting a professional welder to take this job at a price you deem acceptable and who will do a job even remotely as good as what you want this stove to look.

Lots of hacks with stick welders can glue that plate on.

Then you need to paint.

 

Aint that the truth, hell I could even weld a plate on it, gonna look like a Pterodactyl crapped on it though.

 

It’s not getting welded in my home. 100% sure of that. Not worth any chance of anything going wrong. Ill send to them, PITA….,,, YEP. But that’s my plan.

 

Probably the best option. I wouldn’t be surprised if they go over it and address any other issues they may find. It’ll come back as good as new.

 

That’s what I’m hoping.

 

I've had opportunity to use a welder (mig) in the house twice...once on the stove in the LR fireplace (wife wasn't home )
and once on the furnace in the basement...which that same unit also had some attention with the oxy/acetylene torches too.
In all 3 cases the chimney was open and did a good job of evacuating the smoke.
When welding on the LR stove, the repair was inside the stove, and I used a piece of plexiglass to keep the sparks inside the stove.
Git-R-Dun!

 

It will mine came back looking new

 

I highly doubt WS would want to chance someone’s home being burned down by a repairman welding a customers stove trying to fix something that is “their” (WS) responsibility. Warranty or no warranty WS is being gracious enough to do the repairs, which sets a precedence. I’d say they would only allow factory repairs, no matter the inconvenience to themselves or the customers.

 

The offer from Woodstock was of several types. One was of course sending the stove back. Another was to have Woodstock pay a shop to weld the crack as a repair with the customer paying for shipping although of course this would be most attractive to those people who had a shop close by and a truck / trailer to move the stove themselves. The third option was to pay for the stove to be repaired, again via welding, in place. All of this info. is available on this forum, in one of the Ideal Steel threads.

If done correctly there is virtually no risk to welding inside a building, even a dwelling. Properly cordoned off and sealed, with a strong exhaust system, would not expose anything inflammable to any part of the welding process, and given all hard surfaces including floor and ceiling (by either being hard in the first place, my living room floor is ceramic tile, or through coverings) nothing will be exposed to any spatter and the act will not leave even any smell behind. So to those who would not do such a thing, I absolutely understand and can see your point of view. But for some of us, it is a viable and even reasonable option; I have even burned the occasional 7018 wire on my own stove and later sat in the same room watching a movie without any noticeable 'leftovers' or any obvious flames in my living room. In my personal opinion, it is very much like opening an ask pan door to get a stove started or creating a small additional vent in an ash pan door- some see it as a benefit while others see it as a horror worse than any air disaster, even going so far as to kill puppies even thinking about it! (the warnings have a lot of !!! as well as bold type, underline and are often printed in red so you know it is dangerous to an extreme level, probably two clicks past Chernobyl on the disaster scale)

Inflammable- an odd word in English that would seem to mean 'not flammable' while it actually means extremely flammable!!!! and in a very bad way. Just like infamous would seem to me 'not famous'..... well, we know where this goes

 

BDF I consider opening the ash pan door kind of like a turbo. Sometimes a little extra air is good, all the time less so

 

I was in the same position last year, with the crack emerging last winter. I'm 2500 miles from Woodstock and thought the pain moving and shipping the stove would be too great to get it back to them. I spoke with Lorin about my options, one which would be to have a local welder "try" to do the fix, but she said they highly recommend shipping it back (which Woodstock 100% covers everything) as they know exactly what to do in the fix... A local welder not familiar with the process could potentially not do it the way Woodstock has proven to correctly do the repair.

So I brainstormed how I could move this 700 pound beast. I discovered a narrow pallet jack (20.5 inches wide) fits directly under the stove between the legs. I rented one, put 2, 4x4s between the stove bottom making sure it was on the steel body. Jacked it up and strapped it to the jack itself to be more secure.

I rolled it out on a plywood up and out to the car hauler flatbed trailer. Then used a 700 pound lift jack and put it on a pallet on the trailer. Strapped it down, built some protection around it and shipped it back to Woodstock via Sala.

Got the stove back in about 2 months and they did the repair, and put a completely new sled and radiator system in the stove as well as new and painted framing for the fire brick. Definitely worth the little effort to get it shipped in my opinion.

 

Not surprised to hear this but most excellent customer service none the less! Glad to hear it worked out for you

 

Greetings - I've not kept up on the thread - I had my Ideal Steel rebuilt in October 2019 due to the cracks. Sent it back, it was returned in great looking shape - lots of new stuff on the inside and no more cracks. The repair was not one in which there was an added Plate welded on the outside face of the stove. I have to report I just looked and I have a crack.... it's at the lower right, right at the corner. The crack is not yet into the area where the door seal is. Stove heating up now so no pics yet. Has anyone else reported a fixed stove developing cracks again?

 

Unlike some folks here, I did not get any internal updates when my stove was repaired. It came back with the same sled as it went out with. Not complaining, just pointing out that apparently not everyone is getting the same fixes. Mine came back with a new 1/4" plate (along with hinger and door latch) welded onto the face only. Of course it was newly painted and generally 'spiffed up', and I am still a happy customer, but I wanted to let people know that there does not seem to be a standard fix that everyone gets, or at least not as of a couple of years ago when mine was repaired.