2022/23 VC Owner thread

[JohnDaileyNH]

The unburnt wood is saying.. yo.. im stalling.. WTF when I was waking up at 5am is what i said back

Mine was doing this after running pretty hard for about 10 days in a row and when I cleaned out the ash it went back to normal. It was loaded. That is what prompted me to ask the primary air flow question. I was curious if having too much ash would restrict the flow and cause the cat to stall. Seems to be the answer is yes, but not for the reason I was thinking

 

[arnermd]

Mine was doing this after running pretty hard for about 10 days in a row and when I cleaned out the ash it went back to normal. It was loaded. That is what prompted me to ask the primary air flow question. I was curious if having too much ash would restrict the flow and cause the cat to stall. Seems to be the answer is yes, but not for the reason I was thinking

I looked mine over real good and I do not see any issues, had a build up of some fly ash under the cat but not a ton..... I did notice a larger than normal gap between the front and rear refractory sections, I considered stuffing it with some insulation but decided to leave it for now. I could use more secondary air anyway to keep the temps down.

I do not see how it is possible to restrict airflow with ash buildup. The only passage that could get plugged are the 8 holes in the front refractory at the bottom, and they always seem to be covered by the ash anyway.....

I suppose if you had a massive pile of ash underneath the cat you could choke the draft there a bit and reduce airflow when in cat mode. Air does not flow up through the ash pan area so if that is full or not shouldn't matter. (mine was emptied 2 days ago)

🤷‍♂️ IDK..... I put some wood in it "and fired that mother up", to quote the late, great Charlie Daniels. I'll let you know in the morning.....

 

[Eman85]

Been too warm but last night they predicted high 30's so I lit the stove even though it was 50 out. Built a good bed of coals , loaded 1/2 box and engaged the cat. it did climb and at 1000 I cut the air back, temp climbed and looked like it was going to cruise around 11-1200. checked a little later and it was in the 900's and dropping. no smoke from chimney I went to bed. I got up about 8 hours later and opened the air, stove had a little heat and a small pile of coals. Threw a couple of thin splits in and opened the door and fire came back for morning coffee, temps in the 70's so I Iet it burn out.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Been too warm but last night they predicted high 30's so I lit the stove even though it was 50 out. Built a good bed of coals , loaded 1/2 box and engaged the cat. it did climb and at 1000 I cut the air back, temp climbed and looked like it was going to cruise around 11-1200. checked a little later and it was in the 900's and dropping. no smoke from chimney I went to bed. I got up about 8 hours later and opened the air, stove had a little heat and a small pile of coals. Threw a couple of thin splits in and opened the door and fire came back for morning coffee, temps in the 70's so I Iet it burn out.

sound like a nice burn

 

[arnermd]

Perfect burn last night.... I do not know how or why. Apparently pigs are now flying and hell has in fact frozen over.....

• Key damper was open for the entire burn
• Stove was cold so I light off a few sticks to get some heat in the stove and the flue got fairly hot.... cat light off with no trouble.
• Let that burn down to coals and then loaded up with a full load of red oak, large and med size splits.
• Immediately engaged the cat, air set to 100% open.
• Nudged the air down slowly a couple times to 50%, cat settled in around 1230.
• Cat temps were very stable and slowly decayed overnight down to 1000 when the cat quit.
• Woke up to a nice 4" bed of hot coals still throwing plenty of heat....

What changed to achieve this result? Nothing....

I have a hunch that I have secondary air leaking through the refractory seam into the smoke stream just above the cat and that is helping to control the cat exit temps by increasing the amount of excess air in the reaction. If this trend continues I may try plugging it just to confirm. (Keywords: If this trend continues....)🙏🤞

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Perfect burn last night.... I do not know how or why. Apparently pigs are now flying and hell has in fact frozen over.....

• Key damper was open for the entire burn
• Stove was cold so I light off a few sticks to get some heat in the stove and the flue got fairly hot.... cat light off with no trouble.
• Let that burn down to coals and then loaded up with a full load of red oak, large and med size splits.
• Immediately engaged the cat, air set to 100% open.
• Nudged the air down slowly a couple times to 50%, cat settled in around 1230.
• Cat temps were very stable and slowly decayed overnight down to 1000 when the cat quit.
• Woke up to a nice 4" bed of hot coals still throwing plenty of heat....

What changed to achieve this result? Nothing....

I have a hunch that I have secondary air leaking through the refractory seam into the smoke stream just above the cat and that is helping to control the cat exit temps by increasing the amount of excess air in the reaction. If this trend continues I may try plugging it just to confirm. (Keywords: If this trend continues....)🙏🤞


View attachment 310724

nice..

 

[Eman85]

One thing with my stove that I know effects it is that much of my wood is split pretty thin. I have had a tendency to split smaller as it's easier to handle and my wife starts the fires and loads the stove and she likes it as it's easier to handle. My wood has been split for quite a few years now and split small so it's very dry. I do have my wood mixed so there's everything from red and white oak, hickory, beech, walnut and everything else. It can make the fires pretty hot and I have to adjust for that. Been splitting quite a bit this year and my splits are larger for the future, also separating some of the wood as I've got a lot of each species. If these weather trends continue I'm probably splitting wood for 5 or more years from now today! We're up to the 80's in March, this ain't right. I'd say this is going to lead to more dead trees in the near future also.

 

[arnermd]

One thing with my stove that I know effects it is that much of my wood is split pretty thin. I have had a tendency to split smaller as it's easier to handle and my wife starts the fires and loads the stove and she likes it as it's easier to handle. My wood has been split for quite a few years now and split small so it's very dry. I do have my wood mixed so there's everything from red and white oak, hickory, beech, walnut and everything else. It can make the fires pretty hot and I have to adjust for that. Been splitting quite a bit this year and my splits are larger for the future, also separating some of the wood as I've got a lot of each species. If these weather trends continue I'm probably splitting wood for 5 or more years from now today! We're up to the 80's in March, this ain't right. I'd say this is going to lead to more dead trees in the near future also.

I agree, certainly smaller splits burner hotter and faster, regardless of moisture content. I always try to make a mix so I have some big "overnighters" sprinkled in. I also started splitting my wood square when I can, much easier to pack in there. Its a lot harder to split em square when you are doing it by hand though, unless you have square trees....

 

[arnermd]

Do not fret....all is right with the world, pigs are grounded and hell has thawed.

Last nights burn, same procedure as previous....

• Key damper open, small splits to start, then a full load of larger oak splits.
• Cat lit off quick, brought the air back in increments to 50% at 1100
• Peaked at 1400 and then came back down all on its own, no adjustments, I thought we were on a good trajectory
• 21:10 the cat rocketed off to 1600.... I have no idea why, I was asleep.
• Smaller but hot bed of coals when I woke up this morning.

 

[gthomas785]

The spike was probably due to a piece of wood falling down as the ones beneath it burned away. I see the same thing happen in my stove. Wood burning is a highly chaotic process so you're never going to repeat the same behavior exactly twice.
Or another possibility is that the moisture in the center of the split finally finished baking off.. a process that can take several hours even for <20% wood.

 

[arnermd]

The spike was probably due to a piece of wood falling down as the ones beneath it burned away. I see the same thing happen in my stove. Wood burning is a highly chaotic process so you're never going to repeat the same behavior exactly twice.
Or another possibility is that the moisture in the center of the split finally finished baking off.. a process that can take several hours even for <20% wood.

Sure that all makes sense and seems like a logical explanation.

What continues to irritate me though is that this is happening at >1400F for sustained periods of time.

 

[Eman85]

Lit the stove last night and loaded about 3/4 box full after the initial cat light off and a few hour burn. cat wanted to be very active and unless I cut the air it was going past 1500, finally settled with the air cut back and burned from 10pm to 8am. Opened the air and let the coals burn for an hour and then reloaded about 1/2. Cat got active and with air at 1/2 went to 1400+. One thing I did notice was at 1300 I still had wispy white smoke from the chimney. Also noticed I could see actual flames at the slot in the back of the stove where the cat is, never noticed actual flames have seen a good glow in the past.

 

[wolfize69]

Just got my dauntless installed, did about 8 fires in it (a few low temp fires + some shorter modest temp fires). Still too warm to run this for very long, although one night I did fill it up fairly full and woke up to a cold stove with very little ash. Oh well. Much to learn still.
I have a slight concern as I noticed smoke coming from the back of the stove. In another thread, someone suggested looking down there a bit with a flashlight with the lights off to see if I could pinpoint where it is at. I dont think it's manufacturing oil or anything. I didnt really want to take a big whiff to tell what it was. We shall see. Hopefully Im not having warranty service done on a brand new stove. That would really set my tone about this brand back a few notches having paid 3.1k for it (plus all the pipes etc)

Be grateful . Our stove is 5 months old. We paid $9g and 3 things have broken on it so far. This Defiant has been a huge disappointment and i am embarassed i bought it. We bought it for the 14 hour burn aspect, we got almost 8 hours one day. We have spent hundreds of hours perfecting and honing our burning skills too. I would never buy this crap in the future.

 

[Lorde]

Be grateful . Our stove is 5 months old. We paid $9g and 3 things have broken on it so far. This Defiant has been a huge disappointment and i am embarassed i bought it. We bought it for the 14 hour burn aspect, we got almost 8 hours one day. We have spent hundreds of hours perfecting and honing our burning skills too. I would never buy this crap in the future.

What are your issues?

 

[wolfize69]

Lit the stove last night and loaded about 3/4 box full after the initial cat light off and a few hour burn. cat wanted to be very active and unless I cut the air it was going past 1500, finally settled with the air cut back and burned from 10pm to 8am. Opened the air and let the coals burn for an hour and then reloaded about 1/2. Cat got active and with air at 1/2 went to 1400+. One thing I did notice was at 1300 I still had wispy white smoke from the chimney. Also noticed I could see actual flames at the slot in the back of the stove where the cat is, never noticed actual flames have seen a good glow in the past.

Please let me know how you have been able to get more that 8 hours burn time on your stove We got almost 8 hours one time. We burn 24/7 for our primary heat source but have to reload every 3-4 hours. We've spent hundreds of hours of research and trial and error but to no avail.

 

[NewGuy132]

Please let me know how you have been able to get more that 8 hours burn time on your stove We got almost 8 hours one time. We burn 24/7 for our primary heat source but have to reload every 3-4 hours. We've spent hundreds of hours of research and trial and error but to no avail.

If you give everyone a step by step of how you get a fire going including temperatures I am sure that someone can chime in and help. What do you typically run for stove top temp? What is the temp of your cat after you close they bypass?

 

[GrumpyDad]

Happy Monday all....

Seeing some very odd stove behavior the last 2 burns. Seems to be taking much longer to get my cat up to temp and then once it does light off when I close down the air it crashes the cat. Very strange.....

Sunday morning I woke to find the stove pretty cold and a lot of unburned coals, I opened the air up at 4:30 and the cat went to 1000. The overnight air setting was ~40% so it was not like I had it choked down.

On the next load at 9:20 cat temps went up as normal and then crashed, I actually plugged the secondary inlet around 9:50 to get the cat to light off. Once it did it seemed fine for a few hours.

I opened up the refractory last night and inspected.... all seemed normal. Pics of the metal cat are below, it looks to be in pretty good shape. The frame is still relatively square and straight. The mesh is clearly more distorted than it was but is still structurally sound.

View attachment 310677View attachment 310678

View attachment 310679

View attachment 310680

Hey there,
Just chiming in on your stall and unburnt wood.

So I had a similar issue recently. I had smoke pouring back into the room from the top griddle and would end up with unburnt wood. Gasket looked fine. It really had me paranoid that I had a monster creosote clog in the chimney that I can't inspect from the inside due to an elbow.

SO I had to finish running the stove with primary open.

There was a monster wind storm in the area. On one side of my chimney there was a small shopping bag stuck to my chimney near the cap. I eventually crawled up there and removed it, thankfully it wasnt burnt on but it was melted a bit.

I tried to burn again and has the same exact issue.

Turns out, while I normally leave coals against the secondary entrance - for whatever reason my recent burning of mostly oak only has created ash that clogs the air flow more than normal. And I probably should have cleaned this out sooner. I took out about 1/2 of a 5 gal bucket of ash/coals, and I've burned a good bit of wood since with no issue.

If you have this issue again, just make a space for near coals to build up in that area, sweeping the old to the sides and forward a bit.

 

[wolfize69]

What are your issues?

The ashpan handle wouldn't open very easy and bent to the the point of breaking so had to get it replaced. Then the wooden knob fell off of it. The ashpan is warped out of shape beyond repair from the heat Really? This is a wood stove. The longest burn time was 8 hours. We have applied every method and followed a lot of research advice. Oh and the first time I looked at the catalyst it was broken into pieces. (They did replace it though)

 

[GrumpyDad]

Please let me know how you have been able to get more that 8 hours burn time on your stove We got almost 8 hours one time. We burn 24/7 for our primary heat source but have to reload every 3-4 hours. We've spent hundreds of hours of research and trial and error but to no avail.

A full reload every 3 to 4 hours isn't normal. You have too much draft even on the lowest setting. If you have the damper closed and air on the lowest setting and are still only getting 3 to 4 hours burn with not overly seasoned hardwood then something is wrong. If you are using very seasoned softwood then that is to be expected.
Consider using larger splits either way and see if that helps. Also do the dollar bill test on all openings and every inch of the openings to ensure you are impacted by poor quality control at build.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

The ashpan handle wouldn't open very easy and bent to the the point of breaking so had to get it replaced. Then the wooden knob fell off of it. The ashpan is warped out of shape beyond repair from the heat Really? This is a wood stove. The longest burn time was 8 hours. We have applied every method and followed a lot of research advice. Oh and the first time I looked at the catalyst it was broken into pieces. (They did replace it though)

View attachment 310766

This is the reply fro. the other thread you posted..

Five cords is a lot.. I sweep mid season every year just to see how things are going. If your having that much of an issue.. Id check your wood for sure. If your wood is in good shap 20% mc and lower you should be fine.. Open a pice of wood check the MC on the freshly split face with the pinsbehind with the grain and split shoud be room temperature.. DO NOT CHECK ON THE OUTSIDE OR END GRAIN.. this is a false reading.. your checking internal moisture of the split. Also you should be burning with the cat installed.. are you? Kinda sounds like a high MC wood..

 

[Woodsplitter67]

The ashpan handle wouldn't open very easy and bent to the the point of breaking so had to get it replaced. Then the wooden knob fell off of it. The ashpan is warped out of shape beyond repair from the heat Really? This is a wood stove. The longest burn time was 8 hours. We have applied every method and followed a lot of research advice. Oh and the first time I looked at the catalyst it was broken into pieces. (They did replace it though)

View attachment 310766

So the crumbled cat and warped ashpan is from you letting the stove get too hot.. Do you have a griddle thermometer did you install the digital cat probe

 

[Woodsplitter67]

A full reload every 3 to 4 hours isn't normal. You have too much draft even on the lowest setting. If you have the damper closed and air on the lowest setting and are still only getting 3 to 4 hours burn with not overly seasoned hardwood then something is wrong. If you are using very seasoned softwood then that is to be expected.
Consider using larger splits either way and see if that helps. Also do the dollar bill test on all openings and every inch of the openings to ensure you are impacted by poor quality control at build.

To say at this point that he has to much draft is extremely premature.. you dont know that.. Iv read the same posts.. nothing pops up as draft issues yet

 

[Woodsplitter67]

The ashpan handle wouldn't open very easy and bent to the the point of breaking so had to get it replaced. Then the wooden knob fell off of it. The ashpan is warped out of shape beyond repair from the heat Really? This is a wood stove. The longest burn time was 8 hours. We have applied every method and followed a lot of research advice. Oh and the first time I looked at the catalyst it was broken into pieces. (They did replace it though)

View attachment 310766

Can you tell us what species of wood your burning.. do you know??

 

[arnermd]

Hey there,
Just chiming in on your stall and unburnt wood.

So I had a similar issue recently. I had smoke pouring back into the room from the top griddle and would end up with unburnt wood. Gasket looked fine. It really had me paranoid that I had a monster creosote clog in the chimney that I can't inspect from the inside due to an elbow.

SO I had to finish running the stove with primary open.

There was a monster wind storm in the area. On one side of my chimney there was a small shopping bag stuck to my chimney near the cap. I eventually crawled up there and removed it, thankfully it wasnt burnt on but it was melted a bit.

I tried to burn again and has the same exact issue.

Turns out, while I normally leave coals against the secondary entrance - for whatever reason my recent burning of mostly oak only has created ash that clogs the air flow more than normal. And I probably should have cleaned this out sooner. I took out about 1/2 of a 5 gal bucket of ash/coals, and I've burned a good bit of wood since with no issue.

If you have this issue again, just make a space for near coals to build up in that area, sweeping the old to the sides and forward a bit.

I am bit confused.... are you saying airflow was restricted because you had ash built up the secondary smoke inlet and that was restricting the smoke from entering the secondary?

Assuming my interpretation is correct:

• I can see how that would cause a problem and result in smoke leakage to the house when in bypass.
• That is way too much ash..... I clean out my ash at least 2-3 times a week. I leave a thin layer in the firebox, ~1" thick on top of the grate.
• Nearly every time reload I stir the ash, some goes down the grate, and I pile hot coals up against the back if there is a small pile and the stove is colder.... If there is a heavy hot coal bed I just spread it evenly around the firebox.

 

[begreen]

wolfize69 and ALL, may I suggest that we use the stove-specific thread for future comments? This will save redundant questions and answers. Right now there are tidbits of info spread over 3 threads. Please add details to that thread only so that we can help.

6 month old VC Defiant disappointment

The ashpan handle wouldn't turn and was very difficult to open and it bent out of shape to the point of breaking. The wooden knob fell off. The heat from the stove has already warped the pan so bad it doesn't want to open or close. The damper seems like it is going to break at any moment. We...

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