Like I said 1375, or you might not notice any color change until 1500. Don’t know, a friend had his stove briefly up to 1300 surface temp and didn’t see a color change (plate steel).
Vermont Casting/DutchWest Stoves has thousands of Everburn units in the field with very few warranty issues. It does sound like your stove is burning hot. I would suggest conducting the “dollar bill” test on the door and ash door gaskets. Pinch a dollar bill between the door and the gasket, close the door completely and pull the dollar bill out. The dollar bill should resist being pulled out but come out without tearing. Try this every few inches all the way around each of the doors. If you find lose gasket seals the door should be adjusted. You can do this by adjusting the handle pawl or the hinge pins or both. If you are not comfortable adjusting the doors call your dealer and have him/her adjust the doors. It is very unlikely that the gasketed joint assembly found on Everburn units is leaking. Vermont Castings leak test 100% of their stoves at final assemble. Another place to look would be the primary flap. Open both doors and reach a finger up between the primary air manifold and the inside of the front of the stove. Open and close the primary air lever. You will feel the flap opening and closing. When the flap is closed it should lie flat on the manifold with no gaps. It is possible for a piece of debris to keep it from closing completely. Don’t hesitate to call the customer service number for help. Vermont Castings is very concerned about satisfaction of their customers.
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this is the responce from vermont castings you post about opperations appeared above his the bold letter Vermont casting is telling you you are burning your stove too hot
TG, I’m just concerned about the safety and efficiency of the stove. Not trying to bug or single this install out. It’s up to the individual to chose how to run the stove, but this seems above normal running conditions for the woodstove. Have you asked your dealer what normal flue temps should be for this stove? Are any other folks with the CDW running in this range? Maybe I’m all wrong. I have an email into VC asking what they recommend.
With a 19’, straight up stack, it could be on the borderline of too strong draft. The hotter the stack, the more energy is wasted. That’s why it sounds like a stack damper may really help get even better performance out of the stove. At less than $10 for a single-wall damper, what’s to lose by trying?
PS: Visited your website. Loved the arcade game. You did a nice job. Also perused the blog. We are very much on the same wavelength.
That was posted in response to the guy with the glowing red encore, the guy had an 8 inch flue, 31 feet straight up. If VC thinks I’m overfiring my stove, I would really like to hear this from them. They should also put operating temps in their user manual so people have an idea of what is overfiring in cases where nothing is glowing and no paint is flaking off (or maybe those ARE the only signs of overfiring?)
elkimmeg - 10 March 2007 10:54 AM
Vermont Casting/DutchWest Stoves has thousands of Everburn units in the field with very few warranty issues. It does sound like your stove is burning hot. I would suggest conducting the “dollar bill” test on the door and ash door gaskets. Pinch a dollar bill between the door and the gasket, close the door completely and pull the dollar bill out. The dollar bill should resist being pulled out but come out without tearing. Try this every few inches all the way around each of the doors. If you find lose gasket seals the door should be adjusted. You can do this by adjusting the handle pawl or the hinge pins or both. If you are not comfortable adjusting the doors call your dealer and have him/her adjust the doors. It is very unlikely that the gasketed joint assembly found on Everburn units is leaking. Vermont Castings leak test 100% of their stoves at final assemble. Another place to look would be the primary flap. Open both doors and reach a finger up between the primary air manifold and the inside of the front of the stove. Open and close the primary air lever. You will feel the flap opening and closing. When the flap is closed it should lie flat on the manifold with no gaps. It is possible for a piece of debris to keep it from closing completely. Don’t hesitate to call the customer service number for help. Vermont Castings is very concerned about satisfaction of their customers.
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this is the responce from vermont castings you post about opperations appeared above his the bold letter Vermont casting is telling you you are burning your stove too hot
TG, I’m just concerned about the safety and efficiency of the stove. Not trying to bug or single this install out. It’s up to the individual to chose how to run the stove, but this seems above normal running conditions for the woodstove. Have you asked your dealer what normal flue temps should be for this stove? Are any other folks with the CDW running in this range? Maybe I’m all wrong. I have an email into VC asking what they recommend.
With a 19’, straight up stack, it could be on the borderline of too strong draft. The hotter the stack, the more energy is wasted. That’s why it sounds like a stack damper may really help get even better performance out of the stove. At less than $10 for a single-wall damper, what’s to lose by trying?
PS: Visited your website. Loved the arcade game. You did a nice job. Also perused the blog. We are very much on the same wavelength.
I’ll do some research on the damper (and my need for one).
p.s. The arcade machine was a great little project.
Cool. Seems like a win win situation to me. You get more heat and burn less wood. I totally agree that VC needs to get on the ball and supplement their documentation for the high draft cases. Harman has done it for the Oakwood.
After reading in that overfiring encore thread about how the guy’s problem was an ash pan door gasket (no idea why he didn’t check that first) I decided it was about time I did the dollar bill test on my own stove, especially since you guys were buggin me about overfiring
OK - I’m man enough to admit it - when I did the dollar bill test on my gaskets last night I DID indeed find a small problem - specifically a low spot in one area on the ash pan door (latches also needed slight tightening on the front and side load doors but nothing major). At any rate, I repaired the gasket, and expect the stove to burn a little cooler now. This kind of makes sense in light of the fact that when I built up a huge pile of ash from 3 days of continuous operation with no cleaning the stove was able to “everburn” at 400 degrees on low air setting for the first time ever - this was because the thick layer of ash was blocking the air coming from the ash pan door. I don’t really think this will have a huge impact on how my stove runs, but I hope to achive lower temp efficient burns, and longer burn times.
At any rate, since gasket material is pretty cheap, and once you’ve replaced one its pretty easy to do it again, I’ll probably be replacing them every year to ensure good air tightness. I bet those gasket kits go on clearance real soon at the big boxes…
Like I said 1375, or you might not notice any color change until 1500. Don’t know, a friend had his stove briefly up to 1300 surface temp and didn’t see a color change (plate steel).
The oxide colors will only work on steel that has been cleaned to bare metal before heating, there is no visible light coming from the metal so you need good lighting in the room to see them. The higher temper red heat emission colors are best seen in low light conditions since the light you are looking for is coming from the metal. This is why blacksmiths almost always work in the shadows.
After reading in that overfiring encore thread about how the guy’s problem was an ash pan door gasket (no idea why he didn’t check that first)
Hey tradergordo -
I did check the ash pan gasket first….on the top and bottom…....at the latch end. The gasket was tight, as confirmed by the VC field rep. What I failed to do was continue the gasket test along the length of the ash pan all the way to the hinge end. While the latch end was tight….the hinge end was very loose. It just never dawned on me that the factory installed hinge….BOLTED to the stove body…..on a 8 week old stove….could be loose. But loose it was.
After reading in that overfiring encore thread about how the guy’s problem was an ash pan door gasket (no idea why he didn’t check that first)
Hey tradergordo -
I did check the ash pan gasket first….on the top and bottom…....at the latch end. The gasket was tight, as confirmed by the VC field rep. What I failed to do was continue the gasket test along the length of the ash pan all the way to the hinge end. While the latch end was tight….the hinge end was very loose. It just never dawned on me that the factory installed hinge….BOLTED to the stove body…..on a 8 week old stove….could be loose. But loose it was.
So, live and learn!
That is an interesting design difference between our stoves. On the Dutchwest the hinge is part of the casting, there are no bolts or any way to adjust it. So that problem would only be possible on a Dutchwest with some serious warping in just the right place (not likely, would probably crack before it warped anyway).
At any rate - I can see how you would miss that in your gasket test, testing the verticle parts where the hinge is (and latch on the other side) is a little awkward to say the least.
Where can I buy door handles for my Duchwest woodstove ? My stove came with a fall away wooden one but I would like to buy some more of them so I can screw them into the stove. I want the wooden kind.
Also great thread, i’ve already learned a ton about my stove. I’ll post about how mine works after I use it this winter.
You should be able to get handles through any stove shop that carries VC products, but they will probably all be the “fall away” style - this is a “safety feature” that VC has, I’m not sure whether it comes from the lawyer types playing CYA, or some sort of code requirement…
If you want to get something that screws in, you are probably on your own - however they aren’t hard to make, depending on how fancy you want to get. What you will need is a 1/4-20 thread screw or bolt, length depends on what you want for a handle, and something to make the handle out of. If you have a wood lathe or equivalent turning tool you can make it as fancy as you like… If not, you may just have to deal with a wooden dowel, or possibly some of the pre-made shapes you can get at the arts and crafts type stores…
I would reccomend using a hardwood to make the handle, as opposed to pine. I don’t think the pine would get hot enough to ignite, but you are slightly safer w/ oak or other harder to ignite wood. I turned my handles on a lathe from an oak tree branch and just stained them with Minwax “Golden Oak”
Center-drill the handle to be with a hole that will clear your bolt, and recess the end so that the bolt head will be inside the handle - the bolt head will get hot enough when the stove is running to possibly burn you, so you want to make sure it’s not exposed. Choose a bolt length that gives you about 3/4” of exposed threads and screw it into the socket where the fall-away handle goes.
If you have one of the top-load stoves, you can do a similar deal with the griddle top - get a longer bolt, and put a nut and washer on each side of the handle hole in the top. The inside nut (closest to the stove) has to be flush with the end of the bolt - if you don’t want exposed threads run the top nut up to the end of the threads, put the inside nut on and cut off the excess threaded bit… Put the handle on the bolt, and then carefully bend the bolt to about a 45* angle.
Another option for both types is to cut off the bolt head, only partially drill the wooden (or other material) handle bit and slide it over the end with some sort of epoxy or other adhesive (high temp silicone is good) to hold it in place. This has the advantage of no exposed metal, and possibly lets you get fancier with the end of the handle material.
Nice detail, gooserider.
I pretty much did exactly as he described, w/ the latter method (dremel cut off of the screw head, no exposed metal). Works great. I have two home-made handles made on the lathe, one that I coated and the other I left “raw”, both sanded. The uncoated one that I use to open/close the bypass turned a little bit black on the side facing the stove, no discoloration on the outer side. Not at all concerned though that it would catch fire. The other coated one on the door handle did not discolor, but it also has the inner door shield to provide thermal protection so wouldnt get as warm.
I still use the ‘drop out’ factory provided handle for the front loader & ash pan door to prevent the novice passerby from being tempted to open them (e.g. my niece or inebriated guests, the latter being more likely to play with the stove). Since I also side-load primarily, I dont open the front door very often except when building a new fire.
Could you run the Dutchwest Everburn stove without engaging the Everburn function? Could you just turn it down and let it burn? I don’t ask this with the idea that I’m not going to use the Everburn function but it might be easier for my wife to just use it like a traditional stove if I am not at home.
sure you can, but alot of your heat is up the chimney, and you’ll go thru twice as much wood. Its not that big of deal to operate it. if you show her once im sure she’ll be able to figure it out. As ive said before many times there are three of them in our family, and they are super stoves. The people that have issues with them would probably have issues with any stove. If you have a good draft and good dry hard wood, they will preform with any jotul, or any other stove on the market.
I made my door handles out of Black Walnut, so far no issues with over heating. A suggestion, when drilling the hole through the handle, drill half way on one end of the handle, and half on the other. That helps keep the hole in the center of the handle, if you are using a hand drill. A drill press would work better. Handles on the doors gives the stove that “fully dressed” look.
When the fire is just coals and you are letting it die, do you disengage the everburn or just leave it on???
Also I had my first real fire last night ( had three small fires early-er ) and i set off my smoke detector ( many times). I don’t believe that any smoke came out of the woodstove, my draft was great. Was this maybe just the oil and other stuff burning off of the outside of the stove?? House had a bad smell and there was something in the air but i don’t think it was smoke from the inside of the fire. Like i said i had a great draft and i couldn’t see any smoke coming out of the woodstove. Even when the door was open. i had all the windows and doors in my house open. Maybe my smoke detectors are a little to sensitive? Any ideas?
When the fire is just coals and you are letting it die, do you disengage the everburn or just leave it on???
Also I had my first real fire last night ( had three small fires early-er ) and i set off my smoke detector ( many times). I don’t believe that any smoke came out of the woodstove, my draft was great. Was this maybe just the oil and other stuff burning off of the outside of the stove?? House had a bad smell and there was something in the air but i don’t think it was smoke from the inside of the fire. Like i said i had a great draft and i couldn’t see any smoke coming out of the woodstove. Even when the door was open. i had all the windows and doors in my house open. Maybe my smoke detectors are a little to sensitive? Any ideas?
I leave it on until reload.
The smell will go away after a good hot burn or two.
When the fire is just coals and you are letting it die, do you disengage the everburn or just leave it on???
Also I had my first real fire last night ( had three small fires early-er ) and i set off my smoke detector ( many times). I don’t believe that any smoke came out of the woodstove, my draft was great. Was this maybe just the oil and other stuff burning off of the outside of the stove?? House had a bad smell and there was something in the air but i don’t think it was smoke from the inside of the fire. Like i said i had a great draft and i couldn’t see any smoke coming out of the woodstove. Even when the door was open. i had all the windows and doors in my house open. Maybe my smoke detectors are a little to sensitive? Any ideas?
The paint is curing on your stove, it takes a few burns for that to complete, I’d open all the windows and put fans in them if you can to air the house out, as you fire it up to normal operating temps or higher and complete the cure, otherwise every time you go to a higher stovetemp its going to smell.
There is no need to disengage everburn as the fire dies—there is really no smoke to burn at that point, but keeping it dampered can hold the heat in a little better.
Seems like quite a few new everburner owners have joined the forum over the last couple months, it will be good to get a wider set of feedback.
To the older everburn owners - have you done your annual cleaning yet? I just did mine this weekend. As per instruction manual, you should GENTLY vacuum out the rear chambers by sticking the vac hose down though the flue collar. When I did this I noticed quite a few “chips” of the refractory material down there. They were not created from the cleaning or any blunt force, that stuff is just slowly deteriorating. Mine isn’t real bad, it doesn’t seem to have any holes - but my guess is that at this rate of deterioration (2 years of operation) I’ll have to replace that stuff after 1 or 2 more seasons or risk exposure and damage to the cast iron. I did take some pictures (reached down flue collar with camera and took pic straight down both back corners - I did this last year too so I could compare things and look for damage). Will post the pics later.
I also removed the shoe - this is very easy, just pull up the grate above the ash pan, and then the shoe pulls straight forward. But there is a fabric like gasket on the bottom of this piece that is a pain to get back on if it comes off. The reason I took the shoe out is because there was quite a bit of debris including chips of the refractory material laying on top of the shoe inside the rear chamber and the only easy way to clean it out was by removing the shoe.
I wonder if the refractory stuff could be repaired and/or fortified by just plastering it with furnace cement or something? Not sure. I don’t plan to do anything with it this year, but maybe I should.
I did the same thing, used a reduced vacuum hose to get to the bottom & gently wiggle the hose to get all of the ash. I also found few cement like pieces…paper thin or maybe a bit thicker (size of a quarter).
I did not remove the “shoe” didn’t think there was a need.
Indeed, it will be interesting to hear some of the newcomers experiences with these stoves. Three short burns so far this season & no problem….bring the griddle temp to 500 engage the everburn & off she goes.
