Art Garland BaseBurner "Double Heater"

I haven't a clue what possesed me to buy this.. I must have been infected by the dreaded BB Virus. I'm gonna blame the forum, and it's enthusiastic
hand fed, antique stove, Base Burner Enthusiasts for infecting me with the BB Virus.. You guys KNOW who you are !!

You see, I don't have a useable chimney in my home.. the only remaining chimney is a fireplace with a very low lintle, so I have no place to even give this stove a 'trial burn'.. unless I disconnect my propane boiler from it's chimney for a few hours or days..

Anyway:
A week ago, I was out making a run through antiques shops, and ran across this stove:



It appeared to be complete, maybe missing a cover over the loading hatch above the magazine, something I can turn on the lathe from steel plate.

I went back this Monday, with a fellow forum buddy, who helped me look it over for cracks, missing parts, welds, bondo, epoxy, etc, etc..
We decided that in general it was in pretty good shape.
It had been taken apart, some repairs to metal parts done, then reassembled with new hardware and sealant.
The Mica in the windows is new, and fairly well done,, I'll have to use some 'Ultra Black' RTV to seal them up.

The stove has ZERO nickel.. the whole stove has either black paint or stove polish on it.. the inside of doors, lids etc seem to be flat black, but the outside seems to be more of a gray-black sort of glossy finish.. more on this later.

The Magazine is intact, and the direct exhaust vent/diverter door/baseburner vent are in the 'normal' position, just like on Piere's 'Bride' and Jim's new find: the 'Quick Time' stove.



The grate is the type in in Jim's Quick Time stove, with the two clamshell pieces geared together, but this looks more like a recipe to dump the fire. I tried the handle on these clamshell pieces. If a person is really carefull, they could be just 'shook' and not dump the fire. The circular grate has a handle with a sliding air 'seal' on the right side of the stove, I don't have this installed right now, the grate is out, because I'm dismantling the stove to get parts nickeled.



The stove has a second internal vent or door, that will pull hot air from around the outside of the firepot, which is a suspended firepot, this heated air is pulled into the back diverter chamber, and it's heat is added to the back of the stove.. this heated air is pulled from around the suspended firepot as well as from the ashpan, so this acts as a draft reducer of combustion air through the fire. There are small flapper doors that would be pulled open by a strong chimney draft, in essence like a non-adjustable baro damper.



The heated base of the stove has an interesting feature, the exhaust/hot air comes down one side of the rear of the stove, into the base, and has to circle around a divider, make a 180* turn then return up the back of the stove to the flue pipe exit. This divider is a hollow tube or wall, The open end of it faces the floor, under the stove, and then the tube goes back into the diverter 'box' on the back of the stove,, where this hollow wall continues to the top of the diverter box, it always separates the downward and upward traveling exhaust gasses,, and of course this tube is then heated like the box and the base. The top of this hollow divider wall exits at the top of the rear box, I'm sure it will pump out lots of hot air, that was previously cold air off the floor. :

The top of the air vent, then the hot air can pick up even more heat off the back of the stove top and exit behind the top dome:



The ashpan door has a nice threaded control for the combustion air:


Since the stove has not been fired since it was 'painted', the paint washes right off, so I'm giving the parts I want to have nickeled a bath with Xylol and Laquer Thinner, to remove the paint, then I'll give them a quick sand-blast in the cabinet blaster, I think I can fit even the long side 'wings' inside my blast cabinet.. I hope.

If the price for the nickel is too steep, I may do only a few parts,, or this may be an all black 'Art Garland'.

The stove is made by the Michigan Stove Company, of Detroit and Chicago.. So it's a little piece of Michigan history..

I think I can sift my pea coal to remove the smaller pieces, and burn the larger 'thumb' sized pieces.. leaving the smaller Buck sized pieces for the Axeman boiler..
But I have no place to hook it up yet.. maybe an internal chimney is in my future.. just what I need, another building project.
I think I should have stayed home last Friday, and Monday..

Greg L

Nice stove!

I have an extra chimney in the basement, some nut coal too. How bad do you want a test burn?

Not 800 road miles bad !!

Greg L

Congratulations. You have an Art Garland. This is one of the most desirable of the Mid Western Base Burners out there. These stoves are supurb designs. You couldn't have bought a better one even if I picked it out for you.
There are very few mid western stoves that I place on an equal footing with the Northeastern Foundrys. Many of the Mid West stoves are heavy on the glitz and less good on the parts quality and overall design. This stove, however; is an exception.
If you have any questions about what parts to nickel, ask me. I will try to find a picture of an Art Garland that is done properly.
Get Colco Furnace Cement, Emery at Antique Stove Hospital uses it exclusively.
Get over the buyers remorse. Find a place in the house to install it and put up a chimney.
The dampers in the back that you have questions about. Those are the check dampers. They send primary air directly into the base heating tube to lower the draft entering into the fire under the grate. These dampers will not cause a draft reversal or any danger of gas getting into the house because they lower the pressure inside the stove rather from outside like a check damper on the exhaust collar.
Go back and look at Nortcan's thread on his Base Burner. We came up with a good way to put a refractory liner in these fire pots with the serrated bottom. I suggested he make a steel ring to fit in the fire pot just over the serrated bottom to use as a support for the cement above. It worked perfectly.
Again, you have an excellent stove with all the superior design options one gets with a top of the line base burner.

Nice find. Definitely looks like an internal chimney is in order. Good spring project.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. Your stove is by definition a,"Double Heater." The name comes from the fact that the stove is a radiant heater as well as a convection heater at the same time. The hole in the bottom of the stove is the air intake for the covective heater portion of the stove. They often ducted this convective heat to the upstairs.

Here are pictures of a Detroit Jewel, which is very similiar to the Art Garland. The trim is a little fancier on the Jewel but the nickeling is very close to what yours should be. The other phot is of an Art Garland with the doors open but you can still see where the nickel goes.

Great find, Greg. It just wouldn't be right if you didn't build a chimney and install that stove somewhere.

The stove will probably be a display stove, once I get a few pieces nickeled. I doubt that I want a stove running in my house.. remember I have the entire main floor as a source of radiant heat.. and my house is very well insulated..

When I have a Euchre party, or a family get-together, I have to open a few windows in 30* weather because the body heat makes the place too warm..

I certainly don't want to turn off the heated radiant floor to replace it with a single point radiant heater.. and, I have a pretty tight house now, so I'm not to comfortable with having a coal fire in the tight house, right now I have NOTHING pulling a vacuum on the house, not even the propane boiler, it has an electric flue damper that is closed unless the boiler runs.

The only possible place to run it would be in the basement, but it's ceiling, which is the underside of the heated main floor is insulated with R13, the foil facing up toward the underside of the floor, to keep the floor warm. The basement walls are insulated,, so I think I could burn the Art Garland for maybe 20 minutes before I chased me out of the basement.

So I'll fix it up if I can afford it, Then find a place to park it.

Maybe if I put in a chimney in a few years, I'll try it ocassionally. Right now, it's just another antique thats a heater instead of a clock, car, weapon, piece of furniture etc. Gotta love antiques.

Greg L

LsFarm wrote:The stove will probably be a display stove, once I get a few pieces nickeled. I doubt that I want a stove running in my house.. remember I have the entire main floor as a source of radiant heat.. and my house is very well insulated..

When I have a Euchre party, or a family get-together, I have to open a few windows in 30* weather because the body heat makes the place too warm..

I certainly don't want to turn off the heated radiant floor to replace it with a single point radiant heater.. and, I have a pretty tight house now, so I'm not to comfortable with having a coal fire in the tight house, right now I have NOTHING pulling a vacuum on the house, not even the propane boiler, it has an electric flue damper that is closed unless the boiler runs.

The only possible place to run it would be in the basement, but it's ceiling, which is the underside of the heated main floor is insulated with R13, the foil facing up toward the underside of the floor, to keep the floor warm. The basement walls are insulated,, so I think I could burn the Art Garland for maybe 20 minutes before I chased me out of the basement.

So I'll fix it up if I can afford it, Then find a place to park it.

Maybe if I put in a chimney in a few years, I'll try it ocassionally. Right now, it's just another antique thats a heater instead of a clock, car, weapon, piece of furniture etc. Gotta love antiques.

Greg L

This one will whisper to you as you walk by it. Some things are like that. You'll see.

Might need to build a special Coal House...
Sort of like a tree fort...
A place to play for a while...

Greg, Great score! Iooks to be in fine nick too! How big is the fire pot on that beauty?
By the looks of the grates I'd say you're right. the clamshell middle is to dump the fire and it shakes like a regular round drawbar grate.

I'm very happy for you Greg. The stove looks in a very good shape and reminds me mine when all in black! On mine I wanted to see the stove with just a partial nickel job at first. Always possible to go on later.
What is the fire pot Diam.? Certainly a serious heater!
You will enjoy that Virus infection Be prepared to fill your house with many of these stoves.

Ls Farm....... Another work of art. She is looking good inside and out. Good luck with her.

Hi Piere, [nortcan].. I think I'm going to do the same amount of Nickel on my stove as you did on your Bride. Like you said, I can always do more.
I'll take the pieces to the plater on Monday, and see how many quarts of blood he wants from me for the job..

The Firepot is 14" across, and 7" deep to the top of the grates. That should hold around 50-60# of nut or pea. The magazine should hold another 25#.


After looking at Piere's photos of the back of his 'Bride', I believe I'm missing a plate that covers the back of the stove from the flat surface where the heated air vent exits, up to the chamber with the ornate top vent. The two bolt holes in the bottom lip of the chamber show where the plate would be mounted.


The area around the outside of the suspended firepot has two flapper air vents, that are normally closed by gravity, they are pretty small, about 1"x 3", when the internal draft bypass is open, these would act like miniature 'barometric' dampers to relieve excess draft from strong gusty winds.. If I ever get this stove running when the weather is that windy, it will be interesting to watch a manometer and these 'mini-baros' to see if they work, and at what chimney draft they open.



Here is a pic of the lower back panel of the stove.


This is the heated base under the ashpan. You can see the divider 'hollow wall' that opens to the underside of the stove, and admits cool air to the internal heating duct.