A beautiful looking midnight blue Vermont Castings 1450 Encore NC stove came with the house I bought this spring. Bought/installed in 2007 from the paperwork the prior owners left us.
We tried it out for the first time last week - we are completely (!) newbie wood stove owners and I want to make sure we are safe/efficient.
Stove looks in pretty good nick from the outside/inside even for being 15 years old, prior owners seem to have taken good care of it - at least the parts I can see. I am not sure what the expected life expectancy for a stove if that kind would be…
Reading on this forum the 1450 model is absolutely hated for expensive and frequent maintenance issues…
I have no idea/record if the stove has had any rebuilds (the famous breaking fountain?) in those years. Stove has been used consistently for supplemental heat from Oct-Mar as I understand.
Can anyone recommend what I should check to make sure the stove is usable/safe/efficient?
Superficially everything looks good, but at this point I just don’t know what I don’t know…
For example, it seems pretty obvious I will need to change at least some gaskets - the one in the top loader looks ready to be changed, so I’ll do that - we had some small issues reigning in our first fire for a stable temperature output, suggesting some air leaks. No issues with drafting or smoke escape.
The inside of the glass doors was pretty caked over with ash and creosote from the prior users, but it was easy to clean off, so not baked on - but does that mean the stove was not burning efficiently? The manual suggests something called “air wash” keeping it clean - we haven’t used it enough yet to see if generate the same residue…
Also, one of the screws holding the stove to the chimney pipe (flue collar?) is missing; so we’ll get that back in - that seems pretty obvious.
There are two hairline cracks in the inside back wall - the one with the sun shaped carving on it (is the technical term for that fireback?), but I don’t know if that would be an issue.
I’ve been through the manual and cleaned as they instructed, but for example I have no idea how to figure out if the famous fountain assembly in my stove is intact - as I don’t know how to access that part.
Appreciate anyone who has a similar stove and experience and could share what they look for.
We tried it out for the first time last week - we are completely (!) newbie wood stove owners and I want to make sure we are safe/efficient.
Stove looks in pretty good nick from the outside/inside even for being 15 years old, prior owners seem to have taken good care of it - at least the parts I can see. I am not sure what the expected life expectancy for a stove if that kind would be…
Reading on this forum the 1450 model is absolutely hated for expensive and frequent maintenance issues…
I have no idea/record if the stove has had any rebuilds (the famous breaking fountain?) in those years. Stove has been used consistently for supplemental heat from Oct-Mar as I understand.
Can anyone recommend what I should check to make sure the stove is usable/safe/efficient?
Superficially everything looks good, but at this point I just don’t know what I don’t know…
For example, it seems pretty obvious I will need to change at least some gaskets - the one in the top loader looks ready to be changed, so I’ll do that - we had some small issues reigning in our first fire for a stable temperature output, suggesting some air leaks. No issues with drafting or smoke escape.
The inside of the glass doors was pretty caked over with ash and creosote from the prior users, but it was easy to clean off, so not baked on - but does that mean the stove was not burning efficiently? The manual suggests something called “air wash” keeping it clean - we haven’t used it enough yet to see if generate the same residue…
Also, one of the screws holding the stove to the chimney pipe (flue collar?) is missing; so we’ll get that back in - that seems pretty obvious.
There are two hairline cracks in the inside back wall - the one with the sun shaped carving on it (is the technical term for that fireback?), but I don’t know if that would be an issue.
I’ve been through the manual and cleaned as they instructed, but for example I have no idea how to figure out if the famous fountain assembly in my stove is intact - as I don’t know how to access that part.
Appreciate anyone who has a similar stove and experience and could share what they look for.
