# Identify and Troubleshoot Old (?) Stove



## LiteralDean (Nov 27, 2012)

Hi,

My apologies in advance for breaking any newbie rules. I appreciate any help anyone can give. I'm not even positive this is a '69-'88 stove.

I just rented a house in the foothills with a wood stove in the living room, and I'm having trouble both identifying and operating it correctly.

Here's the stove:







The decorative piece at the bottom says "Mountain Fire", but I can't identify it. I've looked everywhere on the thing and can't find any other identifying marks. There's no ash pan and no flue damper. The firebox is lined with bricks, and there's a simple baffle below the flue opening.

The stovepipe goes straight up to the ceiling where it connects with the rest of the chimney system, which, as far as I can tell, goes straight up with no bends. The final exhaust seems to have plenty of clearance from the rest of the roof, and the stove seems to have no problems at all on this end.

The door shuts very tight, but the fire always extinguishes itself when the door is completely shut. The intake lever/valve/handle (?), which is on the rear of the stove seems to be doing nothing (though I certainly may be doing something wrong). Here's a view from the right-hand side at the rear:






You can see it in the "L" position, but even at the "H" position (or anywhere in between), and even when the stovepipe is hot (above 200˚F), the fire always extinguishes itself when shutting the door tight.

I've been leaving the door open a crack (with a fireplace gate around the opening) to allow a fire to burn, but it burns hot and fast with seasoned hard wood—way too fast to be economical, it seems. I have a CO detector that's never gone off, but—though I enjoy the smell of a fire and no smoke is ever visibly coming out of the cracked door, the strong smell of the fire makes me a bit nervous. I haven't left a fire smoldering overnight because of it.

Does anyone have any idea what kind of stove this is and perhaps why the intake isn't helping?


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## Motor7 (Nov 27, 2012)

When you have that primary(during a good burn) intake open can you hear air rushing in? If not something is wrong and you might have blockage of the intake passage(s). It sounds like a thorough cleaning is in order, so let the stove completely cool down, shovel out all the ash, then with a flashlight locate where the intake comes in and vacuum it out. 
Ash gets into both of my primary intake tubes and must be vacuumed out once or twice a season.


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## begreen (Nov 27, 2012)

I know nothing about this stove but what shows in the pictures, but I'm wondering if that control is for a bypass and not air intake. Below this control there appears to be a thermostatic air control. Could be wrong,but thatis what I'd check out. If so, you want to have the bypass open until the stove is warmed up. Does this stove have a catalytic converter at the top of the firebox?

There may be an identifying plate on the back of the stove. That could be a big help.


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## LiteralDean (Nov 28, 2012)

Motor7 said:


> When you have that primary(during a good burn) intake open can you hear air rushing in?


 
I don't hear anything happening on the back.

The landlord (a company) had a professional cleaner come out at the beginning of October or so to clean it. I'm willing to give it a shot (when I get access to a vacuum), but any air intake hasn't worked either before or after the cleaning.

[Update:] In the back of the firebox, there's a vertical opening that looks likely to be for air intake. After digging in there as much as I can, I can tell it's definitely stuffed with ash. I feel stupid for not checking before myself, but thanks for the prompting to check.  Hopefully once I can borrow a vacuum, and if begreen (below) is right about the thermostatic air control, this should solve the mystery of air intake at least.


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## LiteralDean (Nov 28, 2012)

begreen said:


> I know nothing about this stove but what shows in the pictures, but I'm wondering if that control is for a bypass and not air intake. Below this control there appears to be a thermostatic air control. Could be wrong,but thatis what I'd check out. If so, you want to have the bypass open until the stove is warmed up. Does this stove have a catalytic converter at the top of the firebox?


 
Unfortunately, I have no idea if that large thing on the back is a thermostatic air control unit. I'll see how it behaves once I've vacuumed out the air intake.



begreen said:


> There may be an identifying plate on the back of the stove.


 
Ack! I can't believe I never saw this plate before! It appears to be a Mountain-Aire 15 RM (maybe 16 RM or even BM?) manufactured by RMS Manufacturing in BC.






Aside from some people selling their Mountain-Aire stoves on CraigsList and the like, I can't find any info whatsoever on Mountain-Aire stoves. I'm not even sure if it's just a brand or a company. RMS Engineering made it, but its name has changed to RMS Ross Engineering (http://www.rmsross.com/), and it looks like it does only really heavy duty engineering for industry and civil projects. Even the Intertek Warnock Hersey product directory doesn't appear to list this under products with the UL 1482 standard (the only one I can read on this plate).

Assuming the thing on the back is a thermostatic air control unit (that works) and cleaning the air intake out lets air through, I may not need much else, though. We'll see.


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## Motor7 (Nov 30, 2012)

Interesting, made in Chilliwack BC. I don't know anything about that brand, but the classic rock band from that town is one of my(and my wife's) favorites.

Let us know how it runs when it's cleaned and can breath......


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## james123 (May 6, 2013)

deanpence said:


> Unfortunately, I have no idea if that large thing on the back is a thermostatic air control unit. I'll see how it behaves once I've vacuumed out the air intake.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

Dean-

where did you find the metal plate on the stove that has the model number and information.  I have the same stove.

James123


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## wazzu (May 6, 2013)

I can't see the pics?????


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## Jags (May 7, 2013)

Please note that this post if from Nov. of 2012.  Those pics could be in the vacuum of space by now.


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## wazzu (May 10, 2013)

Ha ha, good observation.


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## BrotherBart (May 13, 2013)

The pics.


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