Vigilant Burner said:
The stove has been installed with 9' of SS class A insulated pipe on the exterior and 5' of single wall black stove pipe. The entire flue has two 90 degree bends.
I have replaced the gaskets in the griddle, flue collar and doors. I have cleaned all the old ash out the stove.
Questions:
1. Should I have to worry about the connection gaskets for the top, side, bottoms?
2. I read somewhere about a 2" layer of sand at the bottom for insulation, should I do this as well?
3. My flue has a total of two 90 degree bends. Is this ok?
4. When is it good to do a horizontal burn versus a vertical burn or vis versa?
You need to put something on the bottom or you risk cracking it, and replacement bottoms for that stove are no longer available. Did you save the old ashes? Ashes are best, otherwise use the sand. I started with sand in mine and saved enough ashes during the first week to be able to spoon out most of the sand and replace it with ashes. I remove some ashes every day, about three shovels worth. I personally think the stove burns best with the ashes level with the stove bottom's ribs. Too deep and you don't get the air coming in with enough velocity because it has to diffuse through all the ashes. High velocity air makes for the hottest, cleanest burns.
Vertical burn every day for about an hour to get the stove up to temp. Small wood (up to wrist size) with plenty of air space around the splits heats this stove the fastest. Start with the thermostat lever straight up. On a dead cold stove, the damper flap should be at a 45º angle to the back in that position. If not, adjust the chain so it is. As the stove heats up, the thermostat will start closing the flap. It's important to keep it open enough to get the stove up to temp, so you may want to tap the lever over to the left a bit. Make sure the secondary air hole on the left side of the stove is open all the way. Add some medium size splits and let the flue temp climb to about 500-600ºF and let it get ripping pretty good at that temps for several minutes, then flip the bypass damper handle down to initiate the horizontal burn.
If the stove is loaded correctly, and is hot enough, and you have a good enough coals bed started, and the wood is good and dry, and ..... well, if all goes like it should, you will hear a sound like an oil burner as the flame gets redirected down to the lower right side of the stove. Flue temps should stabilize to between 300º and 400º (higher is better and cleaner). If you don't hear the horizontal burn kick off, open the bypass damper again and let it get hotter. You may need to add a few more medium splits at that point. Experience will tell you what works best for your combination of circumstances. If you don't have flue temps in the 300º+ rage while in horizontal mode, you are really just smoldering the wood and you will get a mass of creosote in the flue pipe. This stove wants to burn hot. It was designed as a large space/whole house burner. Many folks installed this stove in their small parlors and found it was a creosote factory unless they burned it hot enough to drive them out of the room. It really is a very efficient creosote producing machine if burned incorrectly.
Once you have a good, hot secondary burn going, let the stove go for about an hour. It will get very hot during this time, and the thermostat may have shut down too far. I find I get the best burns with about 1/2" opening at the bottom of the flap. If the stove top is up around 600º and the flue temp is above 300º, I don't even look inside the stove. As soon as the flue temp drops below 250º, it's usually time to fill the stove. Open the air inlet flap all the way, wait about 30 seconds for the smoke to clear, then open the bypass damper. Open the griddle top and drop in two medium splits and close the griddle again. When you hear the air rushing into the stove means the first splits are fully involved with flame. Open the griddle again, load the stove about 1/2 to 3/4 full, close the griddle top, let the flue temps rise up to about 500º then flip the bypass lever down for the next cycle. If you time the refills correctly, you won't get too many coals and the stove temp will never drop below 500º. I find this stove really likes to be reloaded when still quite hot, it really helps to get the secondary burn to kick off properly.
On the flue, give it a try is all I can say. Seems short to me, but it may work out for you. This stove needs a strong draft. There is a 55" serpentine horizontal flame path on the Vigilant. You need plenty of pull to get the air moving through all that. If you can't get a strong secondary going, you might as well burn in updraft (vertical) mode. You'll get more heat that way, but you'll send more of it up the flue as well. To get the most efficincy out of this stove, you need to give it whatever it needs to burn horizontally 90% of the time.