KaptJaq wrote:dcrane wrote:wow....this Godin Petit looks to be in great condition! Like a work of art by a fine French woman! I'd move that therm. towards the top of the unit as opposed to the bottom of the coal bed (where it becomes ash). The Godin's are notorious for easily seeing an overburn (they are not heavy duty and they have the thinnest gauge metal used on any coal stove I've ever tested), maybe the coal in Europe differs from the quality stuff we are spoiled by from Penn
. You can easily see discoloration at a rapid pace in the upper half of the unit when overfired (you will see the color of the unit turn whitish in the upper half). This unit seems to be in incredible shape (maybe it was merely used as decoration by the previous owner and not as a heat source?)
Hi DCrane,
Yes, that stove is mint. It appears to have been refurbished before he acquired it. It is also top-of-the-line. Every piece is enameled.
The outer skin of the Godin's is sheet metal but it is wrapped around 1.25" refractory brick. I have worked on a number of Godins. Each skin that has been replaced was due poor maintenance and rusting out. The burning coal slowly shifts down to the area behind the door and just above the shaker. The hottest point in the stove is usually just above the door where the air enters the coal bed. The part that fails most often is the door lintel. It is considered sacrificial and almost every hardware store in France carries them . If the stoves are overheated the door frame and its internal cast components are usually the first to go. By the time the skin goes the fire brick are usually shot also.
If you see my avatar, the center of the cylinder is slightly gray. (shows up more with the flash than in person). Each year I put a layer of stove black . By the end of the season the burn area is a little lighter than the rest of the barrel. When the stove is burning this area hovers around 700 degrees. This stove has been in use since 1978, the only part that has been changed is the lintel.
Yes, the various coals available in France do not burn as hot as Pennsylvania Anthracite. I have seen people get their stoves up to a glow anyway. I have also seen 100 year old Godins still burning every day.
KaptJaq
Thanks for the compliments and advice guys, just trying to respond to some comments here:
Yes Jaq, the thimble is 8" round and at least 3 ft long. It empties into an external clay lined chimney 7X7. The chimney is about 20 ft tall.
What you said about the age and refurb makes sense, however the stove was used after the refurb. The bricks were pitted around the center of the barrel and the lintel was warped pretty bad. I replaced the lintel last year (not the bricks) and I can already see it starting to warp again. Maybe next time it's replaced I'll try to keep the temps down a bit, but as you said, I've already suspected that this part is almost expected to fail over time.
QUESTION????? If the bricks are pitted but intact is it time to order new ones?
Changing the location of the thermometer ( upwards in increments) on the stove only gives lower and lower readings.
Having the thermometer on 1/2 way up the vertical 6" has shown different results. Yesterday the stove hadn"t been tended in over 18 hours. Stove was 200, cast lid 700, pipe was 250. Today after 12 hours unattended the stove was 550 and the pipe was 400. yeah it was 80 degrees in the basement
As the coal burns up and catches, it must be breathing more and hotter, perhaps this is where the damper will help. Tonight before I go to sleep I'll damp it maybe 45 degrees or more and see what it's like in the morning. Once shaken down and loaded, everything settles back in with the stove about 650 and the pipe at 100. This is at 1.25 turns out on the knob.
That line didn't bother me much to be honest. Ignorance I'll admit. It has a shutoff that you can see, other than that it's the main shutoff in the other half of the basement. So I can remove that line all the way back to the other half of the basement but that's it. At that point other things are tapping off it like the upstairs cookstove etc. It runs inside the covered Ibeam that runs the width of the house. I CAN take it out.
Now there is another line just like it running in the opposite side of that I Beam that runs to the same wall, but up through the ceiling to feed a Rennai direct vent wall heater that pretty much heats my upstairs. There is not much I can do about that line, but at least it's not heading downwards and alongside the coal stove.
Guess I'm gonna have to shut the stove down and twist that line apart although I can tell you I'm not in a huge hurry to shut it down. But I know you guys are right and if I don't it could be disaterous. I don't even know what it would take for that pipe to get hot enough to explode, but I know it's a lot less than what coal burns at. Wait a minute. I could possible shut the main off and open a bunch of windows, I'll have to ponder this and probably end up listening to you guys telling me that's not such a good idea
Feeling Humble Now
Joe
