Saved an Althoff stove from the scrap yard

I was helping folks move in with in-laws who had an old closed up storefront downstairs. We were moving their kitchen stove in there for storage and I spotted a small coal stove sitting next to the wall. I asked what they were going to do with the old stove and they said "Carry it to the dump for scrap." I asked if I could have it and they said I could have it if I moved it because they didn't want to mess it. "No problem." I said. Got my son and an appliance dolly and we loaded it into my pickup. Estimated weight is around 250-300 lbs. It has a white enamel on a steel shell on the sides and a white enamel door on the front. I did a search and found one on Ebay that looks almost exactly like mine. The only difference appears to be at the rear where there appear to be two types of air feed linkage on my stove and my stove appears to be equipped with a DHW coil or chamber in the rear of the stove and my stove is equipped with coal shaker grates. There are three different air feed louvers at different points on this stove depending on if your burning wood, hard or soft coal.

The stove was manufactured by L A Althoff from Dekalb Illinois. It had been moved from a basement in Shamokin Pa to the storefront in Coal Township Pa when the storefront was a church a few years back. It has two burner plates on top and can burn wood or coal. The shaker handle, and usual tools such as small shovels and tool to lift the top round burner plates were found on the floor next to it. They even gave me the small galvanized bucket they to put the ashes in. Other than some deterioration at the flue outlet it appears to be in good shape. They told me they used it to heat the 20x40 church up till about two years ago when the church closed. The church had used both hard bagged coal and 40 lb bags of wood pellets. To burn the wood pellets they had bent a hot air floor register to a basket shape so it would fit into the stove and then started a small wood fire and put a mix of wood pellets and nut coal in. They said the stove fired up hot and heated the church all day.

I found the following description on the ebay stove: A. ALTHOFF CORPORATION OF CHICAGO STOVE WOOD COAL OVEN AS CAN BE SEEN IN THE PICTURES. WHITE ENAMEL FINISH ALL AROUND. TWO BURNERS ON TOP WHICH CAN EITHER BE USED AS A STOVE OR REMOVED FOR FIREPLACE USAGE. FEW CHIPS AS CAN BE SEEN IN THE PICTURES.

PROBABLY MADE IN THE 1920's.

The specification discloses as a stove, oven or heater taking combustion air and operable selectively as a stove and a fireplace and being double walled in its back sides and bottom. In operation as a stove, combustion air flows into a bottom passage covering the bottom of the fire chamber, up a back passage covering the back of the fire chamber and down a preheating passage in the back passage and into the lower portion of the fire chamber, secondary air also flowing from the back passage into the upper portion of the fire chamber. It can also be used for fireplace operation. A door can be opened to supply air through the door opening.

We plan on cleaning it up, regasketing and sealing it up and then putting it in my sons 1/2 double home. If it can put out around 50K BTU's it will cut his oil bill in about 1/2. Not bad for free huh?

I'll be taking some pictures of it later today for posting on here. I know everyone loves pictures.

I enjoyed your story. What is especially nice is that you have kept a piece of americana exactly where it belongs,because we all know that our scrap goes on an ocean voyage and then we get to pay to get it back!! Thanks for doing your part. Mike

Sounds like an outstanding project--looking foward to pix

blrman07 wrote:The stove was manufactured by L A Althoff from Dekalb Illinois.

DeKalb? Seriously? That's cool because I had dinner in DeKalb just a few weeks ago - it's only 45 minutes away. I wonder if there is any sign of the company yet? It seems like quite a few of the small towns in this area had iron foundries for whatever reason. Marengo (where I work) has a small foundry but I think they may have recently closed or are closing. Not even sure what materials they cast with, but Arnold Magnetics has their Alnico magnet operation in town and anybody that knows guitar or audio will know that Alnico magnets in guitar pickups or speakers have that special "mojo" that ceramic do not....

Chris

Moved the stove over to my son's house and got it set up in the walk-in basement kitchen. I disconnected the flue from the oil boiler (no oil) and pulled the fuse from the power supply so it can't inadvertently start up. I showed my son how to line the grate with newspaper balls, cover that with a layer of charcoal, and then lit it off. When the charcoal was going then you could start adding shovel fulls of ant coal. When we started, their living room one floor above was 48. After two hours it was 55. After 4 hours it was a comfortable (to them) 60. They were really scared of the stove never having burned a stove of any type before. They were used to turning the thermostat up and watching TV and 10 minutes later it was warm and they were broke.

He lost fire a few times by :

1. coal bed was too shallow.
2. was not aggressive enough with the shakedown
3. waited too long to put more coal on.
Each time he lost fire he would call and try and explain what he thought he did wrong and was pretty much correct each time.

Today I went over and he told me that they slept past the time to tend the stove and it was on it's way out. He said he learned now that when it's going, to let it go and don't try and fight it back. He just let it burn out, restarted it and the temp in the kitchen when I got there was 80 and the dining room/living room was 70.

He said that he's not going to say he's got it now but he is well on his way to understanding how this particular stove works. I congratulated him and welcomed him as a fellow burner.
Larry

A real success story. Thanks for sharing and saving a nice stove.

Great story!!...I bet your Son will be glad you guys got that stove come January!

Good save it is areal shame things.built to last a hundred years not getting to liveout is time. Wonder if its the chicago stove works that made my homie ?

Found an L.A. Althoff (DeKalb IL) exactly matching the description of the stove in this post, saved from the scrap heap. We are cleaning out my mother’s home to sell it and found the stove way back in the corner of the back porch. It seems to be in very good condition, even better than the functional stove of the same model recently listed on eBay. What was sitting by the stove was an antique iron and wooden detachable handle as well. I want to eventually use the stove/furnace in a three season porch I will be building on to my own home where now is an existing concrete patio. I have two questions before putting my plan into action. The first is, not knowing the specifics of how this stove/furnace works, is it possible to find any kind of archived manual? The second question relates to the chimney that will attach when put into operation. Do state laws vary on chimney height with relation to the angle of the roof? I have done some searching as it might relate to the State of Minnesota and have thus far not been too successful.

I am very much looking forward to enjoying this gem utilizing the thousands of acres of oak trees that surround my home so any information conveyed is very much appreciated!

So birman, still waiting for those pix