1977 Vermont Casting Vigilant (New to Me)

I'm not saying we keep every corner of the house in the toasty 80s. I'm saying that my wife and I are kept very comfortable with just this wood stove. We have a very tight house with high efficiency Anderson windows. That helps a lot. Several ceiling fans keep the pull the warm air down and keep it circulating. Works well for us.
I think the stove should do very well for you at about 1000 sq feet.

Ummm...Too Late. I noticed (I believe it was already there) a small hairline crack toward the bottom of the front of the stove....The piece that looks like crown molding...When I first vacumed it out and put a fire it it...it got really hot and that is when i noticed it. The crack is about an inch long. After the first burn while there was still ash in it and it had cooled down..I set another fire. (that just sounds odd)..The stove got really hot but the crack did not appear anymore.

So...what do you do if you have a crack on the bottom....leave it? Is it not save to install?

After the first three fires is when I cam accross the PDF of the stove that said NEVER START A FIRE IN THE STOVE WITHOUT ASH OR ONE INCH OF SAND AT THE BOTTOM...

Great timing on my part.

looks like I will need to crack a window or two.

My house was built in 57 and my windows are not as nice as Andersons...

Maybe it will balance out if I have the central fan on. Most of my air intakes are pretty high up...which have to go down into the basement where it wont be as warm, then travel through the system again.

A crack in a stove should not be taken lightly. You may want to post a picture of the crack.

Thats just it...I only saw it once. I've never seen it again. The stove was so stuffed the firs time I loaded it there was no space. Remember when I said I started the fire outside. I had it in updraft mode. I wanted to see how hot the heat was comming out of the stove so I put piece of 2x4 across the flue...within 10 min, it was chared 1/8th of an inch into the wood....so it was VERY hot. Prob borderline hades hot.

It also takes about 5 or 6 18" logs

i heated our house with 1977 for 20 yrs and have it now in the horsebarn if you can
find a set of warming trays it really makes it.just bought a heritage and i like it
but a smaller box.vigilant is a great vermont casting stove.good luck.

what are warming trays?

trays that mount on the top lip on the right and left side for warming soup bread etc.iam not at home so i
cant post a photo of my stove.the have a dragon or serpant on the front and diamods patern
to sit things on.

Sounds nice...I will try and find some

Well, I thought this weekend was going to be productive.

I was going to start putting tile on the floor and then I read the directions again.

Floor: calls for two sheets of (1/4 inch) non-combustable "Mineral" board. Well Durarock does not count as mineral board. Also I have this screwed into the wood floor...so if I put tile on top of that and the heat transfers from the tile to the screws to the wood floor and plywood, this could turn out bad ...i.e fire under the wood floor.

The heat shield around the stove to reduce clearance.
I was going to use aluminum beams which would have given me a two inch air gap instead of one inch. I was going to put cement board on top of that and tile it...again...heat going from tile to cement board, to screws to aluminum frame or from cement board to aluminum frame and end up not being much of a heat barier.

I ran accross a USSC APS1100 wood stove for 350 bucks. supposed to heat up to 1100 sqft.

The fire box on this thing looks really small

The only upside that I can see is I go from a 8" pipe to a 6" pipe and I can place it 13" from the wall in the rear and not have to worry about heatshields on the back or sides.
Also the Class A pipe in 6" is alot cheaper than the class A in 8"

So I have stopped for now....what are your thoughts.

I heat a 3000 sf home in VT with one stove. I am pretty well insulated and have new windows in most of the house. Home Depot had r30 for 10 bucks a roll so you cant go wrong. Lots of overlaying. I have most of the house @70 to 72 degrees and I am happy with that.

My main room with the stove is about 800sf. I have a 13x13 opening leading upstairs that does a good job of getting the heat up. A large ceiling fan goes into action when I need it.

Nice old stove... grew up with a Vigilant as well.

One question, was "1977" a particular model or did you all just happen to buy em the same year? My folks moved into thier current house in 82 or 83 and put in a Vigilant and just replaced it a couple years ago with an Isle Royale.

+1. Really good point - I have one of these, have used it for ten years, and didn't know this.

Cheers,

John

Magus -

Let me know if you find warming trays - these sound awesome.

$30 a shelf at Black Swan.
http://www.blackswanhome.com/product/warming-shelf-vigilant

Still a little confused on what that means, so thats the year it was cast then? And just a coincidence that many folks have Vigilants that were made in 77?

VC liked to stamp the date of when the stove was designed in the fireback casting. His stove may be newer than that but probably not by much. My VC Defiant has a placard on the primary air lever box that states it was tested in June of 1980 I think, but its fireback does say "1975" on it. The Defiant probably was originally designed in 1975 although my particular model (dubbed the Defiant II in technician lingo) has some minor tweaks to it over the original 1975 design (like a 2-piece fireback instead of 1-piece, etc).