Vermont Castings Stardance Termination Cap: Message for DAKSY & Heatsource

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stripedbass

Member
Apr 29, 2010
77
Boston
Hi folks,

Some years back I was new here and educating myself on the Vermont Castings Stardance, how to clean it, how it vents and so on.

I love the Stardance! I think it's a beautiful stove.

The model I have is SDV30RF. It's made for propane but has a conversion kit for natural gas.

I also have a funky termination cap which had been "modified" by a plumber because my stove was producing some soot which was hitting the soffit of my condo building. I'm on the third floor which is the top floor. (I'll discuss the soot problem separately.)

If you remember me, I first want to thank you all for the education you gave me. Being a newbie, I made some posting mistakes here which did not amuse the moderators. My main thread got closed:

Suggestion for diverting vent soot from vinyl siding
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/suggestions-for-diverting-vent-soot-from-vinyl-siding.107881/

But as an eager law-abiding immigrant to America, I continued to slowly educate myself.

I just want to mention to you that by consulting with Vermont Castings and DuraVent, we came up with a termination cap that they felt can work with my situation.

This is how it would work:

I can use a High-Wind Termination Cap (46DVA-VCH).

in addition to the cap, I will need:

1) Wall Thimble (46DVA-WT).

2) One 12" pipe (46DVA-12) or 18" pipe (46DVA-18) or 24" pipe (46DVA-24) going horizontally. The length will depend on the distance needed from the wall to clear the soffit.

3) Elbow (46DVA-E90).

4) After elbow, another pipe is needed going vertically to go above the roof line. This can be either an 18" pipe (46DVA-18) or 24" pipe (46DVA-24).

5) Maybe an Elbow strap (46DVA-ES) or Short Wall Strap (46DVA-WS), depending on what works best.

It would be great to hear what you think of the termination cap that has been proposed to me by Vermont Castings and DuraVent. I like this proposed solution because it gives me the peace of mind of knowing that even if my stove malfunctions in the future and produces soot, the soot will not go onto the soffit/vinyl siding.

I'm attaching photos in this order:

1) My Stardance stove
2) My vent cap before it got "modified"
3) My vent cap after "modification"
4) The High-Wind termination cap that has been proposed for me (as it appears in a fireplace store)
5) Proposed vent cap as it appears on a fireplace store's roof (there are actually two caps in the photo. The one I intend to use is the vertical one. Notice that it's painted black which I think makes it more attractive). Also, the cap in the photo is simply vertical but mine will have a horizontal pipe, an elbow and a vertical pipe, then the cap.
6) Thimble
 

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Is there no way to edit a thread's title here?

I accidentally left out a word in the title but have not seen a way to correct it.

The title to my thread is:

Vermont Stardance Termination Cap: Message for DAKSY & Heatsource

However, the title was supposed to be:

Vermont Castings Stardance Termination Cap: Message for DAKSY & Heatsource
 
One of the interesting things I discovered, after I started my own research outside of hearth.com, is that at least two well-known fireplace stores in Massachusetts use the DuraVent High-Wind Termination Cap (46DVA-VCH) for a variety of their stoves, including the Vermont Castings Stardance.

In fact, for one of the stores I checked out, the DuraVent High-Wind Termination Cap was the only cap visible on its roof. And with the other store, I did not have a view of its caps (because it was in a strip mall) but the store owner confided to me that he uses the DuraVent High Wind for all his stoves which include different models if not different manufacturing companies. Please see photo below.

All this was very reassuring for me.

Also, I found the above to be very interesting information for it never came up in my earlier discussion on this forum. I can't help but wonder why.

One of the things that I'm very curious about is what people think of a venting setup that has a horizontal pipe then an elbow, then a vertical pipe before it gets to the termination cap. In other words does ventilation that involves such a setup work well? I'm hoping that an HVAC expert can enlighten me.

For those of you who have gas heaters to repair, before the cold weather kicks in and all the technicians are busy, maybe you can understand my anxiety at the moment.
 

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Last edited:
Is there no way to edit a thread's title here?

I accidentally left out a word in the title but have not seen a way to correct it.

The title to my thread is:

Vermont Stardance Termination Cap: Message for DAKSY & Heatsource

However, the title was supposed to be:

Vermont Castings Stardance Termination Cap: Message for DAKSY & Heatsource


Corrected the title...