Attention VC Vigilant 1977 Owners

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Kenster

Minister of Fire
Jan 10, 2010
1,705
Texas- West of Houston
I have a VC Vigilant 1977 stove and love it. I've been burning going on four winters now and have learned much the past year after discovering this website.
I would like to hear from all of you as to your techniques for lighting, reloading, ash depth, temp control, air adjustments, vertical vs horizontal burn, E/W or N/S, and any hints or tweaks you have discovered for the perfect burns.

My set up: Large house (almost 4000 sq feet). Stove in very large room (about 25 x 60) with full cathedral ceiling. Open lofts upstairs on both sides of the room.
Flue goes straight up about 15 feet through roof, totals about 25 feet to cap. Just had the system professionally cleaned last week. This is the first year I feel I've got top notch wood. Hickory at about 11% MC, and water oak at 18%) I am now using a top down start with two or three splits of hickory on the bottom, topped with several small oak splits, topped with a handful pencil size cedar sticks for kindling and 6-8 newspaper knots. One match, and leaving the doors cracked about an inch will give me a roaring fire in a few minutes. Once the smaller stuff is burned down to good coals and the bottom hickory is well burned and hot I add a few more splits of hickory and oak and keep it on vertical burn with air open, door closed, until it has been cruising for a while and the stove top reaches at least 550. Sometimes it gets hotter than that. When all the wood is roaring ablaze, I switch to horizontal burn, still with the air open all the way and watch for the stove top temp to settle in to about 500 or so. Then I close the thermostat flap down to about a quarter open, and the secondary peephole to about half. At bed time, I will completely fill the box from the top door, then switch to vertical burn for a while to get everything burning.
Then I switch back to horizontal, close the back flap to where it's just barely open and go to bed. If I happen to wake up in the middle of the night I may go in and add two or three splits.

When I get up in the morning Usually everything is burned down though this year, since I started letting the ash bed build up, I'm getting some really great coals in the morning. I can throw on a few of the smaller oak splits to build up a little heat so we can sit nearby with our morning tea and newspapers. If it's going to be cold all day, I will then add some larger splits and let it run in the low 400s during the day. We don't like a really hot house. If it's going to warm up during the day I let fire go out. I typically only burn if the overnight lows are going to be below 40. We've rarely turned on our two heat pumps in the past several years.

So... how am I doing? What should I change?

Tell me your stories.

Thanks!

Ken
 
There are a bunch of VC Vigilant owners on this site. No body home today?
 
Kenster said:
There are a bunch of VC Vigilant owners on this site. No body home today?

Nothing to add here, as I was burning in 'oblivious mode' for ten years (internal damper open), and have now found out I need to reconfigure my chimney. I think that makes me a soon-to-be-ex-owner. If anyone's looking for one in mid-Michigan...
 
What, my non-experience has shut this thread down? Hopefully some active users - would like to see Kenster get some meaningful responses...
 
Sounds like you're doing fine Kenster. Do you leave the small secondary intake flap open?
 
BeGreen said:
Sounds like you're doing fine Kenster. Do you leave the small secondary intake flap open?

BeGreen, I leave the the secondary flap/peephole full open until the fire has been cruising for some time with a stove top temp of 550 to 600. I may close it to about half at that time, along with closing the thermostat flap to about 1/4. At bed time, hopefully the fire is holding around 500 and I close the peephole all the way and close the thermostat flap to where it's just almost closed but not tightly shut. Seems to work well. If I happen to wake up in the night I might add another small split or two through the top door. Maybe not. The temp in the morning is usually around 300 with good coals. Easy to toss another small split on for a bit of flame while reading the paper and having my tea. Then I let it go die down during the day. It's rarely cold enough here in south/central Texas to warrant a fire all day long.

Sure wish I'd get more comments on this thread. Over 100 views and only four replies!
 
Kenster, the Vigilant is the only stove I've used and have only done so for one year, so your experience with it far exceeds mine. I've found the owner's manual to be quite poor. I didn't know about the secondary air port until I read this site. It's labeled nowhere in the Vigilant diagram.

At first, I was spending a great deal of time at the stove trying to start it, and most likely annoying my neighbors with all the smoke. I've experimented with many different methods of lighting, top-down, bottom-up, liquid combustibles, newspaper, fatwood, etc. My favorite method for clean and reliable ignition is using pellets.

I start out with about 2" of sand and ash and move it away from the primary air ports in the rear. Then I take a split (one with two flat sides at 90 degrees is best) and place it about 4" away from the ports, flat side facing them. This creates a trench where I can pour pellets into. I typically pile them as high as the split. Then with the damper open, I put a few balls of newspaper on the shelf below the flue and light them. At the same time I light knots of newspaper or fatwood above the pellets and close the door with the primary air control all the way open. The draft pulls air through the primary ports through the pellets, allowing them to burn cleanly and very hot. Flames will shoot up the rear wall, a foot or two past the collar in a motion resembling a reverse waterfall. As the draft grows more powerful, you'll see a blue jet of flame at every port, not unlike a propane blowtorch. Griddle temps exceed 400 within 20 minutes. At this point you can add another split over the pellets and it will ignite shortly. I like this method because while I'm preparing other things around the house, I don't get that nagging feeling that I might come back to a smoldering heap.

The stove's secondary combustion is a mystery to me. The next one I buy will definitely have a visible secondary system. I can't tell if all the smoke is being burned before it leaves the main chamber, or where it should be burning in the rear passages. If I knew, I'd put a thermometer there. I do see ghost-like bluish/peach colored flames floating around in the main chamber with the damper closed. Is this the smoke being burned immediately?

What is your reasoning for partially closing the secondary? Though the manual says it should be open in most circumstances, it doesn't say under which it should be closed.
 
So ALL V.C. stoves had asbestos gasketing until about 1980 and they worked GREAT but for the premature deaths of a few of my fellow stove techs. Can't make an omelette without breaing eggs... Seriously, if the stove is workin' for ya' then it's all good! No need for too many replies I guess, but a few small things:

-The 2ndary air hole is to remain open all the time when burning wood . They made a coal kit for the Vig and so the hole should be covered if you're a coal burner, or if God forbid you have a chimney fire or something and need the thing to shut down.

-If the ashes build uptoo high they obstuct the primary air holes in the fireback and also in the air tube on the left side of the firebox, leaving too much primary air entering through the END of the airtube at the base of the left door. Ever seen the left door glowing red even though the stove tempis normal? Good well if you keep her shoveled out you won't. Always leave like 2 incvhes in there to protect the bottom from cracking(no longer available).

THe thing to watch for as the years go by (too quickly it seems) is for the internal dampre to start acting up, either not wanting to close when hot , or mmaybe popping open as it heats up or other similar mischief. This means ya' need a fireback replacement which may ormay not be a big deal.


Anything else you wanna know?
 
Thanks a lot for the info, defiant3. I'm concerned about the asbestos issue. Hopefully I didn't inhale too much of it when I switched the door gaskets to fiberglass. Any tips on what to do or not to do when replacing the rest of them? Besides wearing a dust mask...
 
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