Best steel for pellet stove burn box?

The cast iron firebox grate in my kitchen cookstove burned up and disintegrated over the last few years. Small woodstove with a small hot fire. I cut a replacement out of 3/8" A36 plate that still looks new after one season. Steel of reasonable thickness ought to be more durable than cast iron. Iron surely is used because it is so much cheaper to work with.

Bob

Any grade of SS will out last carbon steel, but the ultimate lifetime fix is to make the new part out of a nickel alloy like Inconel 625. It is available on-line in small quantities in rod and sheet, but it VERY expensive.

Randy

Assuming you're doing some welding, 304 stainleess steel is your best bet.

Karl

My solution on a wood stove was to put in a grate that is sacrificial. I used 1" channel and rebar for the grate. After a year, there appears to be no erosion of the grate itself although the welding steel is eroding. One of the things is to keep the iron from getting too hot and thus start burning as all of the welds that are weakening are the thinner ones.

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works every time it is tried!

Cast iron grates (correctly designed) will outlast mild steel or rerod grates many times. I tried several types of welded up grates for our maple syrup evaporator (except for stainless or inconel) and they seldom made it through one season. I finally broke down and bought commercially made cast iron grates and they have lasted 7 or 8 years with no signs of stress so far. The fire is about 250,000 btu's and runs for 8 to 36 hours, full blast, about 15 times each season. The whole firebox, inside, is glowing most of the time. The secret to a long life for cast iron grates is to NEVER let the ashes pile up high enough to touch the bottom of the grates while they are hot. If the ashes DO touch, the grates will sag in short order.

Pete Stanaitis

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Bob Powell wrote:

Thanks all!!

George