Repairing Petit Godin

I have a Petit Godin that I used successfully for three heating seasons, actually moving it in and out each year from a seasonal rental. Then I put it in storage for two years, and eventually bought a house of my own. I wasn't sure what I was going to do for heat in my new house, which has oil-fired HWBB, and which had a crappy wood stove installed when I bought it. The house has an appropriate flue in the living room, but with an 8" thimble; the Godin has a 5" flue outlet, and in the previous installation I had an adapter to 6" running straight back, inline with the stove's outlet. That arrangement creates too long of a straight pipe run out the back of the stove to allow it to fit in the present hearth setting, setting the stove too far out into the room. I do also have the pipe adapter to step up to the 8" thimble.

I figured out how I could save enough inches in setback by switching to a 5" elbow straight out of the stove. It may actually have turned out to be a false idea, but my fix added a new problem: In trying to pull off the 5" to 6" adapter from the stove's flue, I got frustrated and cracked loose the stove's flue itself. It seems to me to be akin to an exhaust manifold, for whatever that term is worth. So now I have a stove that I think I could install in the location, but I have torn the cast iron flue clean out of the body of the stove. All else seems reasonably good about the stove: some surface rust in the sheet metal cylinder, but I have in the past patched these by using furnace cement like bondo; the firebricks are in good shape, as is the grate, door, etc.

How to re-attach the flue? It look like it was bolted through to the rim, and I can drill out that bolt and re-attach the flue, mechanically. Can I just pack all of that area between the flue pipe and the firebrick and body of the stove with a foundry cement type of material? The fire bricks at the joint all appear quite sound. I can post a picture if that will help. Thanks for any assistance!

As long as you have re attached the flue casting in the original manner you can use furnace cement to fill in or act as a gasket. The original bolts must have been rusted.

Is this the round or oval? Small or large? Do you know the model number? If it is a 5" outlet it is probably an export model 3730 (small round) or 3731 (large round). The french domestic models had 110 mm outlets (about 4.3 inch) and needed a custom adapter to connect to 5" or 6" flue pipe.

Does your stove have the single round outlet or the dual outlet manifold? Some manifolds were riveted, others bolted to an internal bracket depending on the age of the stove. The single outlets were riveted to the outer metal skin of the stove. Most often the point of failure was rusting on the skin and the rivet popping out. If the skin of your stove has deteriorated you may have to fabricate a reinforcement to put between the brick and the skin and use that to attach the outlet.

If you have the time and want to put the effort into it the entire skin can be replaced. If I intended to keep it for a while and the casting & brick were in good shape I would disassemble the stove. Bring the old barrel to a sheet metal shop and have them
create a replacement.

Some pictures would be nice...

KaptJaq

Thank you both for your quick and helpful replies. I can respond partially right now, and will post more when I can make some daylight for some photos. It still has the legible tag, so I'll see if I can include that in the photos.

It is a round stove; I do not know large or small, but will reply soon with model number; it is a single, round manifold, and I'm confident that it is 5" because I put a readily available adapter on it for its earlier install; I will be sure to measure. But I'm not sure it was riveted to the outer metal skin, as the casting itself has only one apparent point of attachment, straight through the top. Wouldn't rivets show through-points at several places around the collar?

The skin has deteriorated some, but I'd rather put this stove back into service right now, as I have no back-up heat source in a power outage, the HWBB system is under-built, and I like burning coal! I may consider an overhaul come spring, as I have another for parts and could pick and choose.

KaptJaq: Thx so much, but could you describe your thinking on this a little more? "If the skin of your stove has deteriorated you may have to fabricate a reinforcement to put between the brick and the skin and use that to attach the outlet."

Photos and further thoughts to come . . .

I am not familiar with the outlet you have. Post the model number and pictures of the outlet and barrel near the exhaust port and I will try to offer suggestions.

KaptJaq