Saturday is not my normal town day. Its usually crowded and hard to find parking spots. I like a mid week town day when everything is open, getting in and out early before the school buses are running.
For some reason, I felt to go in yesterday. I had a package to mail before they closed at noon, and decided to see how the flea market was doing.
You may remember a post a couple weeks back where I was wanting a wood stove, and considering a "packer" style which is created for tents and hunting trips.
Much research showed me I didn't really want such light weight galvanized steal in my studio.
Anyways, I pull into the flea market parking lot, which sadly was pretty empty. The first booth I walk to had a cast iron wood stove. It was love at first sight. Sure, my darling had some flaws, but love is blind. I asked the price without slobbering Too much. I called my man at home and asked advice, considering some important pieces were missing.
After consultation, and some bargaining, the man gave me a discount, took the legs off and helped me loaded it in the trunk of my Geo.
Back home, I proudly put it back together, created the missing pieces from and old licence plate, and got the sliding door unjammed through hammer and oil persuasion.
The legs had biblical issues: they'd been laid up where moth and rust do decay. An extra nut on the end of each bolt and it is standing pretty sturdy.
Next town trip I'll pick up some stove caulking and decorative bricks to serve as a protective floor padding. There was an extra top lid for the stove laying inside it, I just set it below the stove on the floor to show it to you. It needs sanding and stove paint.
Now, just between us friends, the trail gods knew I would be second guessing my new love. I knew that like new cars and pregnancy, buying this little stove was just the beginning of my installation adventures.
On the way home, I stopped in an indoor flea market for fun. It too was sadly under whelmed with clientele. There, in one of the booths was the same stove I'd just bought, only the missing piece was there, and the bottom door slid perfectly. Asking price, $275.
Thank you trail gods. I can stop second guessing.
If I spotted a stove for $250 I'd be calling a couple of my friends chop chop to see if they know how to properly put a hole through my downstairs wall for the stove pipe. I so need a wood stove and so don't want to pay what it costs to have a new one put in.
ReplyDeleteThat is a cool looking little stove. Did it come with any stove pipe? It should heat up a room really well. Crank it up, and you could even do some cooking on it. Besides wood, you could burn coal in it also.
ReplyDeleteNo, Flier, it didn't come with any pipes. I'm pricing them out, the shops around here look like I'm nuts when I ask for wood burning stove stuff. Its been in the 90s! But, you know us preppers....why on earth would a person WAIT until winter to prepare for the season?
ReplyDeleteSo, I'm figuring on two 90 degree elbows, and 6 feet of pipe, one damper, one spark arrester, and a rain cap. I can do all this myself, having helped build a chimney up the center of a house back in Illinois (from the basement, all the way through two floors and an attic)
I have cooked and canned on a wood stove, so it shouldn't be too hard getting this one going.
So, I did get a good deal, then?