I had a nice Defiant CAT stove and thought, upgrade to the latest product, so I got a Defiant NC. My old CAT stove purred along for years with no creosote at all. I cleaned the flue prior to installing the NC version and it had no build up in it. I've burned the NC version for about two weeks and today I went up to take a look, CREOSOTE is forming at the top of the chimney, nice sticky black just like you don't want. I'm able to get the temp on the stove pipe three feet up the pipe up to 600 even more if I wanted to, but it seems like when I close the damper to get the everburn to fire off, FORGET IT! Pretty upset, yes. All this money for the latest VC product and there's a problem. I know there are a few of you with this same stove and wonder what you've run into. I read that thread about blocking coals in front of the rear chute, etc. I'm pretty much doing all that but no magic "rumble". I don't really seem to be getting the secondary burn at all, when I engage the fire dwindles, I start getting smoke out the stack, etc. Has anyone had this problem or know of a solution. Is it possible that there is a problem with the secondary air supply? From what I can see the secondary air is supposed to come in through the holes in the ceramic foot. Who has some insight here? I'm ready to place this thing in the trash pile. Steve.