White fog on glass wont clean off VC Encore - 1 week old

How dirty was the glass before this appeared after cleaning? I've heard of gunk etching the glass. I've got a small spot middle top of my glass where the secondary flame always laps when it's cooking. Kinda annoys me when at the coaling stage and I notice it more

eventually, that 'fog' will happen to the glass, especially where the glass is exposed to the full force heat of glowing coals. I'm gonna go out on a wire here and say that the natural minerals in firewood is what helps cause that fog. I have the same 'fog' on the glass of my Napoleon 1900p. Last summer I had intentions of trying some of that CLR cleaner (calcium, lime, and rust cleaner) that you use in the bathroom....but forgot all about doing it. You have to remember that the glass on these stoves is not normal glass......it is a ceramic material. Normal glass would never hold up to the severe heat that the woodstove puts it through. At any rate, your fogging is more or less normal, I'm betting that most of us have the same thing.

Did you try a mixture of vinegar and water? That works for my white fog.

My first year I had "issues" with dirty glass. A lot of that was probably related to suboptimal wood. I kept reading on here about cleaning your glass with the ash of the stove and tried it in year two and it works great. When your stove is cold, say in the morning before you refill, I take a wet paper towel, dip it in the ashes and wipe the inside of the door. Follow with a dry paper towel to wipe of any residue. It is a mild abrasive that does not scratch the glass and should take your haze of. I was skeptical as you may be reading this but I have not used a commercial stove glass cleaner in two years.

HollowHill said:

Did you try a mixture of vinegar and water? That works for my white fog.

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hmmmm, I'll have to try that too.....

coffeeman said:

It was crystal clear. It's a new stove. If it's etched, can it be cleaned? It's really disappointing that it looks this way.

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If it's etched I doubt it (but I also doubt it's etched after a week no matter how bad it got). Do you clean it daily or did you let get really black in the corners for a week? I know my glass was difficult to keep clean for the first few weeks, but not I simple wipe down with a wet paper towel in the morning is all it needs, save some of the darker stuff below the ash lip.

Scotty....I've got some the CLR sitting under the sink. Not sure I want to be the guinea pig on trying in the glass though!

MarkinNC said:

My first year I had "issues" with dirty glass. A lot of that was probably related to suboptimal wood. I kept reading on here about cleaning your glass with the ash of the stove and tried it in year two and it works great. When your stove is cold, say in the morning before you refill, I take a wet paper towel, dip it in the ashes and wipe the inside of the door. Follow with a dry paper towel to wipe of any residue. It is a mild abrasive that does not scratch the glass and should take your haze of. I was skeptical as you may be reading this but I have not used a commercial stove glass cleaner in two years.

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I've done that to clean off the black glass in the NZ3000 a couple times and it works wonders, but the white hazy stuff I have yet to try it on. I like to use those magic erasers for cleaning the glass on the stove. I rarely have to do that now, as all my wood is seasoned 3 or more years. What a difference that makes!

I am in no way affiliated with this Co., but this works well.
Have you tried dipping a damp paper towel in some ash, then scrubbing the window?

MarkinNC said:

My first year I had "issues" with dirty glass. A lot of that was probably related to suboptimal wood. I kept reading on here about cleaning your glass with the ash of the stove and tried it in year two and it works great. When your stove is cold, say in the morning before you refill, I take a wet paper towel, dip it in the ashes and wipe the inside of the door. Follow with a dry paper towel to wipe of any residue. It is a mild abrasive that does not scratch the glass and should take your haze of. I was skeptical as you may be reading this but I have not used a commercial stove glass cleaner in two years.

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This is what I did initially as well, though I used wet newspaper. Now I don't need the ash. Some times I get a small fire going to warm up the glass a bit more if it's colder than usual.

jdp1152 said:

If it's etched I doubt it (but I also doubt it's etched after a week no matter how bad it got). Do you clean it daily or did you let get really black in the corners for a week? I know my glass was difficult to keep clean for the first few weeks, but not I simple wipe down with a wet paper towel in the morning is all it needs, save some of the darker stuff below the ash lip.

Scotty....I've got some the CLR sitting under the sink. Not sure I want to be the guinea pig on trying in the glass though!

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It shouldn't hurt the glass.....but I'm not putting you in the 'guinea pig' wheel, either. That stuff is a mild chemical made to get calcium and lime depostits off of ceramic, etc.......so it SHOULDN'T hurt the glass.....

But again, don't try it on just my theory...

Scotty Overkill said:

It shouldn't hurt the glass.....but I'm not putting you in the 'guinea pig' wheel, either. That stuff is a mild chemical made to get calcium and lime depostits off of ceramic, etc.......so it SHOULDN'T hurt the glass.....

But again, don't try it on just my theory...

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I looked it up on the MSDS. Just mix some water, milk, honey and oxyclean and you've got it!

Have you been burning it with the ash door open? White fogging is usually caused by etching caused by ash particles being blasted against the glass, and this is greatly accelerated if the ash door is regularly left open to help start a fire. Etching is pretty much non-reversible and treated by replacing the glass. Only thing is, this usually doesn't so quickly, even if you do leave the ash door open occasionally. So there is some hope it may be something more easily fixed.

However, it may be VC has found another way to cheapen the stove, and is using a softer grade of glass. I'd try the cleaning methods others have suggested already in this thread, and if none of them work, file a warranty claim with the dealer (and if you have been leaving the ash door open, don't volunteer the fact).

I get the white fog sometimes, but the ol' wet newspaper dipped in ashes and rubbed on glass does the trick. If you can't get it off with a razor and/or any of the above tips, it sounds like this may really be a glass issue. IMHO, anything you burn within any range of temps which don't reduce the stove to a puddle of liquid iron should not really hurt the glass. I've had logs fall forward against my glass, stove top temps of 900º+ and dozens of cords of hedge wood through my stove and the glass is fine.

A few years ago, someone mentioned their stove came with a warning to the effect of installing the glass with the metalized side out, but they couldn't tell which side that was. It seems the factory was applying a (nearly transparent) metal coating to the glass to keep heat in the firebox for a more complete burn. If this coating was installed on the 'fire' side, it would quickly oxidize, so it needed to be out on the 'room' side. The solution - which reportedly worked - was to take a volt/ohm/amp meter, set to read resistance, or ohms, and put the probes close together, but not touching on each side of the glass. The pure glass side was an insulator and read infinite/high resistance, while the metalized side of the glass was conductive and read some low ohm / conductive reading.

So, the bottom line to all this jabber - sometimes glass has a 'right side' and a 'wrong side' to be installed to the fire, this can be detected with a meter capable of reading ohms. If your stove has this type of glass, and the low ohm / conductive side is on the fire side, that may show the glass was installed wrong and the metalized coating has burnt off leaving a white oxide residue.

If the glass is etched, none of these cleaning tips will do a thing. I would say that leaving the ash pan open for 10 minutes could have done it. That could have done a lot more damage than that. That's why it's such a bad habit to start. If you forget bad things will happen.

In the future, try an old damp washrag instead of the newspaper. It works way better.

coffeeman said:

I do leave the ash door open occasionally but only for 5 min or so and only to get the wood going again. I hope that wasn't it. I know one time I did and forgot about it for about 10 or 12 min and the stove was really hot (just above 700). Had I known that I wouldn't have done it. It's just a lazy way of getting the thing up to temp again for me.

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I'll let someone else with experience with ash doors comment but from what I understand its a major no no and can void your warranty. As far as the glass. As others have pointed out it is a clear ceramic like Neoceram. Easy off oven cleaner has worked very well for me over time and had no adverse effect that I can tell. Don't need it much since my wood is better seasoned and I've improved my burning habits (nod to the boys and girls here ).

Hello, I have the same Encore stove with the same white fogged glass. The powder ash in the upper parts of the glass clean off easily with water and paper towel however, I can't seem to remove the white fog on the lower part either. I have not tried any special glass cleaners but would be also interested if anyone has a fix. Our stove was purchased in Feb of 2012 and like you we want to use it to heat the home and not ready to give it a break long enough to let it cool. We plan to do a mid year chimney swee later this week on a forecasted warm day so perhaps I can clean it then? Very good question!

You can destroy a VC stove pretty quickly by opening the ash door "just to get it started" then getting stuck on the phone or otherwise distracted. VC won't tell you this, other than saying not to burn the stove with door open, at least, not until you make a warranty claim and they reject it on the grounds you overfired it. So the glass can be the least of your problems if you leave the ash door open. BTW, the need to leave the ash door open is often an hint that your wood may not be dry enough, or you may not be using enough kindling and splits to get it started right.

coffeeman said:

I do leave the ash door open occasionally but only for 5 min or so and only to get the wood going again. I hope that wasn't it. I know one time I did and forgot about it for about 10 or 12 min and the stove was really hot (just above 700). Had I known that I wouldn't have done it. It's just a lazy way of getting the thing up to temp again for me.

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I have a similar spot on my own glass towards the top and exactly at the point the secondary tubes seem to shoot the flames the furthest. I too have come to the conclusion that it is minerals within the wood that have essentially been blasted onto the glass. I have tried everything to clean this including the Rutland product posted above.

Maybe I should list what "everything" is ... I started with damp cotton cloth, then went to the same cotton cloth but with ash, then went to a Rutland cleaner that isn't abrasive at all (forgot the name but it is completely liquid), then went to the Rutland "conditioning cleaner" product posted above which has some silicate or something somewhat abrasive, then I tried using pure beeswax based on a suggestion from someone at Regency. They all do a wonderful job with the ash, soot and stuff on the glass (I still think the best method is small scrap of cotton cloth damp with water and ash) but none of them touched the "fog spot".

The one thing perhaps making a minor difference that I just really recently tried is some 3M Fine Cut Cleaner. I'm just manually massaging it into the glass evenly to include the fog spot and it seeeeeems like it might be making a bit of difference. I'm tempted to pull out my buffer and buff the whole thing with the machine but I don't want to overdo this and harm anything so I'm sort of taking my time. Any thoughts on that? If it is something only on the surface then I think something has got to get it off. However if it is really etched into the glass I don't think anything can get it off but then I wonder why it is still so smooth to a razor if it is etched?

Anyway, the last thing I've noticed is that I don't notice the fog spot when stove is running! It just isn't apparent at all until I stop the stove and start cleaning. So, as much as possible I try not to worry about it especially because a factory replacement for my glass is going for over $200! Crazy. So unless I can basically buff off my fog spot i think it is there pretty permanently and I'm going to continue to try ignoring it.