2025/26 VC performance discussion thread

[skb31]

My stove was running a little sluggish this past Saturday so after running it non stop for close to a week I let it cool all the way down from yesterday morning into today so I could do the first maintenance in about a month.

I cleaned out most of the ashes from in the stove (left the ash pan full) and pulled the cat chamber apart to clean stuff. Vacuumed out the cat chamber a bit, vacuumed the secondary air inlets, blew some air through the cat, checked the damper tension, and doors. Chimney cap and flue pipe look good.

I’m not exactly sure what the issue was but I moved the remaining wood I’d been burning out and moved to a new stack. Built up a nice base of coals over a couple hours and as we speak I’m cruising at 1207 cat temp and 425 STT. I’ll try sweet talking my stove a bit more if that’s what it takes.

 

[Turbo89]

My stove was running a little sluggish this past Saturday so after running it non stop for close to a week I let it cool all the way down from yesterday morning into today so I could do the first maintenance in about a month.

I cleaned out most of the ashes from in the stove (left the ash pan full) and pulled the cat chamber apart to clean stuff. Vacuumed out the cat chamber a bit, vacuumed the secondary air inlets, blew some air through the cat, checked the damper tension, and doors. Chimney cap and flue pipe look good.

I’m not exactly sure what the issue was but I moved the remaining wood I’d been burning out and moved to a new stack. Built up a nice base of coals over a couple hours and as we speak I’m cruising at 1207 cat temp and 425 STT. I’ll try sweet talking my stove a bit more if that’s what it takes.

My stove is a slug (encore) with a full flash tray and firebox. Once the secondary inlet holes are blocked with ash, it’s hard to get the CAT above 900. I’ve fallen in the trend of emptying the ash pan, then raking the firebox ash back and forth till it falls through the cracks.

I burn a lot of ash in the encore, and never have an issue with CAT temp (even some 6-8 month seasoned stuff). The only runaway CAT temp I have had is with 22% moisture oak, when i had a door gasket leak. May be worth looking for air leaks if you have runaway CAT temps?