Andes 615

went and looked over the stove.... there's a crack on frame that the doors mount to. Also a stress crack on cover plate to shaker grate access. Lower base barrel(fluted) show's two minor heat stress cracks on outside, but not through, Surface not deep. Grates looked good. not warped, they rocked easily by reaching in ash door and using a finger to move them. I think a clay liner put in lower barrel base would keep hot coals from making direct contact, would be enough for that worry of overheating the base steel. middle barrel steels solid..... surface rust, no cracks. no burn through on lower edges to base. It has a recirculated(?) thing on back... open grate on bottom of recirculate, not sure how it should be used?!?
I bought it, $175.

That's a good stove. The back pipe heats air causing it to draft. You can send that hot air to a room above the stove if you wish. You can buy refractory and mold your own bricks or one piece liner quite easily.

Good deal Bill!!

that stove has a patented Hot Blast style fire pot ( what you called "lower barrel" ) that has those "flutes" specially designed into it to bring air up along the outside of the fire and greatly help burn efficiency.

if you want to use this stove plan on having the pot recast at Tomahawk. putting a liner in it will hinder it's performance.

all the best,
steve

Nice buy.

I wouldn't use clay for the burn pot.

For that price you got a lot of heat

Clay.. wrong term for castable refracotory cement... refractory liner hindering effecincey? Don't see how, coal burns by bottom drafting. Yes some have liners, and a space for boundary air up side of liners. Well that can also be incorporated in lining the "LOWER Barrel"section. which serves 2 purposes I can see, one, fresh coal load, gas off ignition air source, and boundary air over Mica door windows. and maybe to help protect thiner steel upper/mid chamber wall. other than that I see no reason for boundary air around burn pot.

My coal boiler.square burn area, no boundary air, burns right up to refractory fire bricks... just my thoughts on boundary air..... BUT I have already thought about a way to space liner from lower barrel section anyhow. THX for the input.

I have the Andes 517 model with the double heater feature like yours. After I restored the stove, I hooked it up to a chimney for a couple of days for a trial. I was getting over 200° coming out the top vent of the double heater. That was with the stove just idling along. I will look up the link to my posting about it. I think you will like that stove, they were well made.
Randy

Here is the link to my stove restoration thread.
Geneva Andes 517 W/ Double Heater Feature Stove Restoration
Randy