Broken VC Defiant Fireback etc.

[charlespetersen]

It must be the winter of the original Defiant — I've noticed a few other people have recently moved into places with these stoves.

My situation:

I'm renting an old cabin in a small town in Western Montana, about an hour east of Missoula. Since I don't own the place and won't be here for much more than a winter, it's not really an option to get a new low-emission stove, which is what I certainly would do if I owned the place. The stove seems to have a number of problems, and I could see rebuilding it, but again I don't own it and it's probably not my place to take the whole thing apart. Of course, if the stove has some serious problems, then I may well be able to convince the person I'm renting from that it needs to be replaced or repaired. But generally I'm looking to figure out how to make do for the winter with what I've got.

Here's a couple pictures. It looks to me like the fireback is cracked:

Am I right, is that a few cracks through the fireback? How serious a problem is this? Once I get it up to about 550 degrees I've tried turning down the damper, but it doesn't seem to be able to hold the heat, and while I don't see smoke the house seems to smell a whole lot, to an unpleasant degree.

This may simply be because it's not cold enough out yet and there's not enough draft. Or it might be that the secondary system is plugged up. I have also had some trouble getting hot fires going — I have to leave the doors open to get enough air in there and even then the stove seems to stall out at around 350. Is this just normal with these old stoves, or should I try to clean out the main air intakes? I can get it up to about 700 eventually, but this takes a fair amount of fussing. I'm using seasoned softwoods from around here.

As for the secondary system, maybe i should just wait and see if it'll work once it actually gets pretty cold out (been in the twenties at night lately). If I do try to clean it, what's the easiest way to go about it? Just take the stovepipe? Sorry if this is ignorant, but how would I go about that? Should I have some furnace cement before doing it, so I can put it back on? Would it also be worthwhile to take the top off? Or should I just give up on the secondary system, since the fireback's cracked and a complete rebuild is unlikely, and plan to run it in updraft mode through the winter? Maybe that's not realisitic — I really don't know.

Sorry for all the questions. Obviously new to wood stoves. But really enjoying it. Any advice would be extra helpful — and thanks so much for this site!

 

[peakbagger]

Yes the fireback is definitely cracked and the right combustion chamber wall appears to have been bashed in. With the cracks in the fireback, the secondary burn is not going to work correctly if at all as the flames will go out through the cracks rather than to the right under the baffle and into the secondary burn chamber. Even if the cracks were temporarilly sealed, the secondary air tube which is part of the fire back is most likely non functional and will be leaking into the area behind the fireback rather than supplying the secondary burn chamber. The net result is that the stove wont run very efficiently. As the secondary air manifold is tied into the primary air, the bottom down burning feature is probably not going to work well. I would guess that it may be worth taking a good look at an exploded parts breakdown and trying to figure out how to plug the secondary air tube on the left side which may increase the amount of primary air coming in from the left side and back side manifold. Of course if the back is warped badly enough, then the back side supply to the air ports is also leaking in the back of the fireback and therefore most of the combustion will be occuring in the back of the stove as thats where most of the air will end up.

Dependent upon the chimney height, location and temp differential, the stove may run better in the cold weather.

In order to do a repair, I believe the sum of the parts is going to exceed the value of the stove unless you get real creative with steel plate and make your own parts. The official VC repair would require replacing the left side door casing, the right side baffle wall, and installation of a two piece fireback, plus who knows how many other broken internal parts. The "good" news IMHO is that even in this condition, If you can get the priamry air ports to work, it will burn just about as well as 80 % of the stoves sold back in that era. The typical stove usually consisted of a brick lined lower firebox with a stationary steel baffle welded in place so the smoke didnt go directly straight up the chimney. At least your stove has a moving damper and some sort of air distribution. Granted its going to go through more wood, but I dont think its inherent dangerous to run as is, if you can get the primary air to function well enough to close the doors,unless some of the outside castings are damaged. Otherwise, you have a fireplace !

Good luck and hope you have a big dry woodpile.