Can I Save This Vigilant?

[GuinnessSteve]

This is our family's 1977 Vigilant. It served us well for most of my life. Recently, I've moved back to my parents' because they've moved in with my grandmother to take care of her. Basically it's a great way to save on rent while taking care of my parents' home.

The problem is, our trusty Vigilant doesn't work the way it did when I moved out 10 years ago. My father is notorious for not doing proper maintenance on things, and I worry he might have done irreparable damage. I've also been told by the local wood stove store that we are far beyond the design service life of this stove. I have had it running almost continuously for 3 days. I cannot get a consistent good burn with well-seasoned wood, and I feel like I'm going through way more than I used to. Outdoor temps have ranged from 20° to 45° depending on the day, and this house should be a sauna the way I've been feeding it. Most significantly, I rarely get that characteristic "roar" or "rumble" of the secondary burn that I was used to when I ran this stove as a kid. For some reason, sustaining a burn over the past few days seems to have increased its efficiency. I think I may have burned out some built up material somewhere. I still think the chamber in the back is severely clogged, but do not know how to approach this. In the past, we have only vacuumed out the interior with a shop vac.

As for issues that are known to me, the hinges on the lid are long gone. The metal plate behind the door cracked and has been removed, the back of the interior where 1977 is written is cracked.

So, after that lengthy explanation, how should I approach cleaning / restoring this stove or should I simply throw in the towel and look into a new one? Also, please forgive my ignorance in terminology. I could run this stove like a champ when I lived here, but I never knew any technical terms.

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[peakbagger]

I am sorry to give you the bad news but its most likely past any economic justification to repair. Even if parts are still available they will cost more than the value of the stove. They pop up on craigslist every so often in my area and they are at best a $350 stove if in good shape. Rebuilt and painted they may go for more but whoever did it was working for free. It still may be of value for an emergency stove but getting secondary burn to work is going to require a new back panel and I expect other parts to be determined once you tear the stove down. There are many of these stoves still running so its not a matter of being beyond the design life its just that this one was beat up hard and not worth the rebuild.

You could clean it up and give it can of paint and turn it into a outdoor fireplace or planter if you want to keep it around out of sentimentality.

 

[GuinnessSteve]

That's what I was afraid of. Thanks for the info, though.

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[GuinnessSteve]

They pop up on craigslist every so often in my area and they are at best a $350 stove if in good shape.

Glad you mentioned this part regarding price. Just found the exact same one on CL, restored and fully functional for $700. Almost pulled the trigger on it, as it would have been easy to swap out with the existing setup. I don't really know anything about used stoves, but it looks like it might be easier to buy a brand new Encore and be done with it.

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[peakbagger]

The original VCs were great stoves at the time and tended to be on the "cadillac end of the market", I have a rebuilt Defiant in my basement " in reserve". It does not require power and has heated the entire house during a power outage long ago. That said, there are "chevy" grade EPA stoves on the market that will use less wood and burn cleaner. Ten years down the road, I am not sure the "chevy" will be running but if the VC is cleaned every year including the back of the fireback and not beat on it will still be cranking out heat. A vigilant with new parts, resealed and painted is worth $750 and there is probably some wiggle room with cash in hand. My $350 price was one in good usable condition (no warps or cracks) but no new parts, probably needs paint and resealing. The other plus is an old VC will put up with marginaly dry wood better than a new EPA stove. EPA stoves have reputation of they only run with 20% of less moisture. SInce you just moved in your wood may be marginal.

Lot to be said for a plug and play replacement.

 

[GuinnessSteve]

I can fairly reliably source seasoned wood, luckily and have a modest supply still. I'm actually quite taken with the newer models for their supposed 12-hour burn time, as my wife and I keep odd schedules. Even at its best, the vigilant was only going 3-4 hours tops for us.

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[AElliott]

The early Vigilant ( I, IA ) model, which has a single fireback piece, was a very good woodburner for the time. But they were notoriously bad for the single piece firebacks cracking if they ever got over 750-800F for any length of time. VC fixed this issue by redesigning the fireback to a two-piece. However, the two side walls had to be redesigned with new channels to accept the new fireback.

You CAN get a kit with a two-piece fireback, new intake shelf and channel, new damper, new Left and Right stove side panels, four new tie rods and nuts - essentially a rebuild kit for this stove that will resurrect your Vigilant I, IA and convert it into a IC. The kit will run anywhere from $450 to $490 depending on who you purchase it from (and that's before any shipping charges)

With a cracked fireback, you can't run the stove in the closed-damper state (which, for this stove and the way it's designed, is how it was meant to be run for optimum efficiency) Having the damper open means you're tossing out most of your heat through the flue and out the chimney and you'll be feeding that thing every 30-60 minutes to keep a constant burn.

From the pic, I believe I see light through the cracks of the joints on the doors - at the very least, new door gaskets will prolong the burn a little bit. But I imagine it's not just new gaskets, but an overall teardown and rebuild that you'll need.

 

[GuinnessSteve]

The early Vigilant ( I, IA ) model, which has a single fireback piece, was a very good woodburner for the time. But they were notoriously bad for the single piece firebacks cracking if they ever got over 750-800F for any length of time. VC fixed this issue by redesigning the fireback to a two-piece. However, the two side walls had to be redesigned with new channels to accept the new fireback.

You CAN get a kit with a two-piece fireback, new intake shelf and channel, new damper, new Left and Right stove side panels, four new tie rods and nuts - essentially a rebuild kit for this stove that will resurrect your Vigilant I, IA and convert it into a IC. The kit will run anywhere from $450 to $490 depending on who you purchase it from (and that's before any shipping charges)

With a cracked fireback, you can't run the stove in the closed-damper state (which, for this stove and the way it's designed, is how it was meant to be run for optimum efficiency) Having the damper open means you're tossing out most of your heat through the flue and out the chimney and you'll be feeding that thing every 30-60 minutes to keep a constant burn.

From the pic, I believe I see light through the cracks of the joints on the doors - at the very least, new door gaskets will prolong the burn a little bit. But I imagine it's not just new gaskets, but an overall teardown and rebuild that you'll need.

Sorry, I don't know how I missed this reply. We ended up getting a Jotul F45 since they'd marked it down (not 2020 compliant). Now, I'm facing all sorts of new issues. However, I may very well look into that kit as a restoration project. Thanks for the info!

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[AElliott]

No worries! I do think the early Vigilant models are worth restoring. I admit though that I am biased. My grandparents bought our Vigilant I in 1981 - I was but 2 years old, and through my childhood would remember helping them tend the fire in the evenings when my family would travel up to Des Moines to visit them. Christmases were very special for us.

My grandfather would run that stove hot. I don't know if he didn't understand the long term effects of running it as hot as he did for as long as he did, but eventually the firewall cracked down the middle and bowed out far enough that you could not install the coal hopper through the top! (the top of the fireback has a nice reddish-orange color to the metal. I can't imagine how hot he had to have had it to discolor the cast-iron like that!)

My Grandma remarked to me that he would get the stovepipe cherry hot to keep the house warm, and the house is an 1800 sq foot home - they used that stove to heat the whole house through some of the coldest months in Iowa.

My grandfather passed away in 1991, and I moved up to be with my grandma in 2000. She passed away 2 years ago from cancer (she was 84, lived a good life), and now I have the house and the stove! So if for nothing more than sentimental reasons, I've still got her going after all these years. I've taken that stove apart several times, repainted and recaulked it twice since moving in, I practically know the model like the back of my hand, and I'm looking at getting the same kit to fix my own next fall. They are good stoves, and ours has served us very well over the cold Iowa winters for almost 40 years! It certainly was a good investment on my grandparents' part, and probably paid for itself a hundred times over in savings to the heating costs.