Weil-McLain Co. Size No. 108, Series 1

I've recently been revovating my mother-in-law's home in Brooklyn, NY in anticipation of a sale. It was built in 1925 and I have run into lots of asbestos (on heating pipes and under the tile/lino flooring); plaster, cement and wire mesh; and other blasts from the past.

While clearing out a garage, I was delighted to find a small cast iron coal burning stove with a water jacket. I'll post a photo when I can. In the meantime facts as follows:
- Round Firebox 12" diameter X 9" deep.
- Water jacket capacity 108 oz. (.84 gallon)
- Max water pressure 125lbs.

I had to hacksaw off a couple of bolts and drill out a few others but, the stove is now in pieces and being wire-brushed (wish I had a sandblaster). Soon it will be re-assembled with new stove cement and get a new coat of paint. My plan is to set it up in the basement under the kitchen in order to warm up the ice-cold tile floor. I do however, have a concern.

This stove could be as old as the house. There are no gaskets on any of the doors nor channels in which to place them. The stove certainly isn't airtight and I am concerned about both combustion air regulation and carbon monoxide leakage from the firebox. Any suggestions about how to glue gaskets on??

I had a similar situation with the doors on my old stove.What I did was I bought some rope gasket material,carefully cut down one side opened it up and used gacket cement to glue it to the doors where it met the stove. Made a big diffrence in my burn time with that stove,almost double.That stove never had gaskets from day 1,60+ years!

Sounds like a good plan. Thanks for the tip.

I recently contacted the Weil-McLain Company in Michigan City, Indiana for any info about this ancient coal burner and they were very helpful. It appears that the unit I have is actually a boiler for hot water supply. Brochure is attached. Model 110 is the one I have.

The water jacket is so filled with rust that I couldnt use it for that but, perhaps I'll hook it into a radiant heat system for my ice cold tile floor in the kitchen.

JerseyCoal wrote:There are no gaskets on any of the doors nor channels in which to place them.

Those gaskets for the most part are to prevent air from getting into the stove. As an example (and I'm not saying this is safe but just stating facts ) the old coal stoves with stove top ranges only had a cast iron lid going over the top of the fire. In other words if you took the lid off the fire is right below it, it's actually where you load the coal into the stove. Fairly air tight but certainly not 100% airtight.


Various manufacturers such as Pittston Stove made them for decades and numbered in the 10's of thousands if not hundred thousands. I still have a few customers with them.

This thing sounds like a "bucket a day" water heater, something that long pre-dated the "air-tight" concept. There was one in my Grandparents' summer cottage, attached to a 30 gallon galvanized tank. Every Summer it did a great job of providing hot water for showers and doing dishes, on a very small diet of chestnut coal, a diet that it shared with the kitchen cookstove in the winter. I'd love to see some pix, it would bring back memories of spending summer days on the Metedoconk river in NJ, crabbing in a rowboat off Windward beach and White's Cove on the narrows with my grandparents in the early fifties.

We had the Model 115 for heating domestic hot water in the summer months. It was my job feed it coal and remove the ashes as a kid. Having master it I was allowed to move up to the winter "big boiler" a Burnham hand feed. It heated domestic hot water with a cast iron "hand". A four finger looking hand suspended above coal fire and plumbed to a galvanized storage tank. Learning how to bank a fire and not to get puff backs when adding coal was a great accomplishment for a 10 year old kid. All fond memories. My father was a licensed fireman for a huge coal fired boiler at a Portland cement mill kiln.

Yanche

You want pictures?? I have a few.

more pics.

more still.

It was so warm last week that I let the fire go out in my primary stove. Yesterday I cleaned it out, disconnected from the chimney, and moved it away from the front of the fireplace. I hooked up the W-M water boiler in its place and started a fire in it this morning. So far so good.

The new paint job emitted a strong odor when the stove got hot, and also created a bit of a haze. Open windows and doors solved that problem. The side of the water jacket is about 450*F.

I had to run the stove pipe downhill to meet the chimney opening 6" below. The strong draft seems to keep the gasses flowing in the right direction.

I never pressure tested the water jacket so it is not hooked up with fluids. I may get a small fan and circulate air through the water jacket to get more heat out of the stove.

I would be tempted to use that unit for hot water. In 2004 I finally was able to give the electric wtr heater the heave-ho and switch to oil-fired.
By the way, It's 22 outside and I had to cut the draft on the Harmon down to one turn and shut off the fan, it was getting too hot in here (as I listen to the sleet hitting the windows).

Hi Wood:
I was thinking about using the unit to heat water but after many attempts to scrape, vacuum and flush out the interior of the water jacket, it seems that the rust is never-ending. I suppose some kind of liquid-to-water heat exchanger might do the job. I'll give it some thought and maybe try it next heating season.

A mild citric acid wash will make it look like the day it was cast. It is safe to the touch and non toxic.