Anyone knoe anything about a VISTA 640 wood stove from Stack Mfg??

[charlieb]

Hello all,
I recently got a small cabin in the Sierras and the wood burning stove had been taken out and dumped behind a storage shed.

The condition was knot known until yesterday when I washed it off .

It is a model: VISTA design:640 from Stack Manufacturing.
The company looks like it is/was in New Zealand

The stove is a cast iron box with a porcalin outer shell. with the name on the front STACK VISTA640

Other than a few cosmetic dents ib=n the sheel metal back ( from the dumping) it cleaned up and is in nice shape.

I would like to contact anyone that could help me get this back on line again.

From an engineering/EPA plate from 1985 it liiks like iy puts out 40,000 btu's

Thank you in advance,
Charlie

 

[webbie]

Heck it was the forerunner of the PE - looked somewhat like it.

You'll have a difficult time finding any other info or parts, but you can probably gleam how it works by looking at new stoves. This was one of the first non-cat clean burners, as you can see by the date! Cat stoves, BTW, were introduced about 1981-2

 

[restorer]

Seems they had a great Western sales force. I have seen them for sale over the last few years, quite regularly. Most folks said it was the appearance that forced the sale not the performance. For a cabin you might be very pleasantly surprised. I think they are still making them, but not importing, so parts may be tough to find.

 

[webbie]

Trivia - but Dan Melcon was the importer, and his wife Annie and he ran the company.
Dan was a friend of mine (and most everyone else in this biz) , and we had much in common. He passed away from kidney cancer way too young.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/wiki/Dan_Melcon

There is a product award in our industry called the:
Daniel J. Melcon Award
(broken link removed)

 

[charlieb]

Thanks Craig and Rich for you help.

The front door cleaned up nicely last night.

A concrete driveway was put in and it looks like the stove got a lot of the cement slop on it . I used a a mild acid to clean the porcalin outer shell.

There are two parts that are cast iron - I think one is a cast iron heat shield that goes on the bottom, the other I am not sure where it goes; however I have not gotten in that mode yet.

There is an New Zealand ebay clone that someone had a white vista640 with a very intresting flu pipe that I had never seen before.

It may need some sort of grate in the fire box or it may still be in the bushes.

Outside of a screw missing here and there and a some stovepipe to hook it back up to the ceiling duct work I think it is worth to keep going. The cabin is only 500 sqft and I prefer of wood fire over gas heat.

Rich, if you can think of a company that once sold this style unit could you give me an email - [email protected]

Thank to you all for a quick response,

Charlie

 

[charlieb]

Thanks Craig,
That is sad your friend Dan passed away so young.

Regards,
Charlie

 

[elkimmeg]

Here is the problem in Ca when a home passes hands an inspection is made of existing stoves if the stove is a non listed UL or not Epa certified it has to be removed and taken out of service.
since the EPa act did not get voted it till 1990 all stoves made prior to 1990 were not EPa certified then the EPA passed new regs EPA II Ca may require all stoves to be EPA II certified this occurred in 1992/1994 time frame. It would be illegal to install any stove not EPA phase II in CA. that is why it was probably out back in the first place

 

[thechimneysweep]

We bought Stack stoves from Dan & Annie back in the 80's, and they sold quite well for us, despite their $895.00 price tag.

The Stack Vista 640 was tested to the Oregon DEQ emissions standard in 1985 and scored a 14 grams/hr rating: not great by today's standards, but way toward the front of the field back in those days. I've attached assembly instructions and clearance info (tested to UL standards by OMNI Labs).

 

[charlieb]

Hi Tom,

What can I say other than WOW & THANKS!!

Your info was great!

Thank again

Regards,
Charlie