new here but lurking and learning for a couple years. Really enjoy the site.
Here's the background:
2000 Sqft house, we shut off the upstairs in the winter, so we are heating say 1500-1600. We had a VC Resolute III and learned how to use it when we moved here. It was a very pretty and very hot stove. We found it was not enough to keep the place warm when we got into below 20F temps and the heater would have to kick in to support it. We also thought it was using a lot of wood. We keep our heater at 63F and normally with the VC we would have 68F temps in most of the house with the kitchen (where the stove is) frying hot and the bedroom at a nice 70.
Having had this wonderful experience, we decided that we could improve on it. We thought that we are heating the house with this little tiny stove and if we got a bigger stove, we could heat the house better, get longer burns and be able to withstand lower outside temps without needing the heater to kick in.
We researched quite a bit before making our decision and visited several dealers. I must have spent 20 or more hours here reading as well as looking at specs from various vendor sites and etc. Our local dealer that we trusted the most was pushing the Napoleon line and convinced us that with our heating needs the 1400 line would be perfect and would almost double what the Resolute was putting out.
We measured and compared and decided we would go with the 1400C as the larger burners would be too large for our hearth setup. With the wife in mind we went with the 1400C which looks like a cast iron stove. It is almost exactly twice as large as the Resolute and claims 70-75k btu versus the Resolute which in old literature says 40-45k (just from memory).
We got the stove and installed it. We have broken it in with several small hot fires and have been burning pretty much non-stop for a week now. The stove does not heat as well as the one we replaced. I am besides myself with buyers remorse over this stove. It does not put out nearly the heat of the VC that was half it's size and furthermore, it's a lot more difficult to use.
Can someone with 1400 experience help us get this thing to make heat?
We have our old stove top thermometer and the new thermo they gave us with the unit. I get exhaust temps in the "burn zone" on the exhaust thermometer at anywhere 325 to 500 depending on how I load and start it. I get temps from my old thermo on the stove surface (lid up, actual firebox surface) of up to 600 if it's really catching on fire early into a burn and mostly idles around 500 or so, then burns down. I cannot get 600 burns to last more than like 45 minutes and if you stand around the stove it's hot, but not that hot.
I have looked into the 1400c being a cast iron sleeve design and that's just a huge heat sink. I did not get a blower as my dealer told me I would not need one. I have since put a desk fan blowing directly under the stove and still it's not much help. I can't keep my house tonight past 65f with this damn stove cranking. I am so pissed off that I spent money to upgrade a stove and have instead got a stove that heats hot for a short while then just builds up huge piles of embers that burn cool and take forever to burn off. I have half a stove of embers constantly and can only put in three med. splits in a load because there are so many embers.
Help? I am ready to pull this thing out and sell it to some other sucker and get my old VC back. I am really frustrated.
I am running white and red oak that was fallen for several years, bucked last year and split this summer. It's all pretty aged and lots of cracks in the wood, light weight and pings when you knock it. It's not the best but there are very few sizzlers that we encounter. It's good wood.
Any suggestions would be great. I am thinking a blow will be next, but that might not do it. I am feeling like I got ripped off big time here and there must be some angle that I am missing.
Here's the background:
2000 Sqft house, we shut off the upstairs in the winter, so we are heating say 1500-1600. We had a VC Resolute III and learned how to use it when we moved here. It was a very pretty and very hot stove. We found it was not enough to keep the place warm when we got into below 20F temps and the heater would have to kick in to support it. We also thought it was using a lot of wood. We keep our heater at 63F and normally with the VC we would have 68F temps in most of the house with the kitchen (where the stove is) frying hot and the bedroom at a nice 70.
Having had this wonderful experience, we decided that we could improve on it. We thought that we are heating the house with this little tiny stove and if we got a bigger stove, we could heat the house better, get longer burns and be able to withstand lower outside temps without needing the heater to kick in.
We researched quite a bit before making our decision and visited several dealers. I must have spent 20 or more hours here reading as well as looking at specs from various vendor sites and etc. Our local dealer that we trusted the most was pushing the Napoleon line and convinced us that with our heating needs the 1400 line would be perfect and would almost double what the Resolute was putting out.
We measured and compared and decided we would go with the 1400C as the larger burners would be too large for our hearth setup. With the wife in mind we went with the 1400C which looks like a cast iron stove. It is almost exactly twice as large as the Resolute and claims 70-75k btu versus the Resolute which in old literature says 40-45k (just from memory).
We got the stove and installed it. We have broken it in with several small hot fires and have been burning pretty much non-stop for a week now. The stove does not heat as well as the one we replaced. I am besides myself with buyers remorse over this stove. It does not put out nearly the heat of the VC that was half it's size and furthermore, it's a lot more difficult to use.
Can someone with 1400 experience help us get this thing to make heat?
We have our old stove top thermometer and the new thermo they gave us with the unit. I get exhaust temps in the "burn zone" on the exhaust thermometer at anywhere 325 to 500 depending on how I load and start it. I get temps from my old thermo on the stove surface (lid up, actual firebox surface) of up to 600 if it's really catching on fire early into a burn and mostly idles around 500 or so, then burns down. I cannot get 600 burns to last more than like 45 minutes and if you stand around the stove it's hot, but not that hot.
I have looked into the 1400c being a cast iron sleeve design and that's just a huge heat sink. I did not get a blower as my dealer told me I would not need one. I have since put a desk fan blowing directly under the stove and still it's not much help. I can't keep my house tonight past 65f with this damn stove cranking. I am so pissed off that I spent money to upgrade a stove and have instead got a stove that heats hot for a short while then just builds up huge piles of embers that burn cool and take forever to burn off. I have half a stove of embers constantly and can only put in three med. splits in a load because there are so many embers.
Help? I am ready to pull this thing out and sell it to some other sucker and get my old VC back. I am really frustrated.
I am running white and red oak that was fallen for several years, bucked last year and split this summer. It's all pretty aged and lots of cracks in the wood, light weight and pings when you knock it. It's not the best but there are very few sizzlers that we encounter. It's good wood.
Any suggestions would be great. I am thinking a blow will be next, but that might not do it. I am feeling like I got ripped off big time here and there must be some angle that I am missing.