Hello to all. First post. End of my first week of wood heat. Goodbye LP!

[moresnow]

Stumbled across this site trying to identify my used wood stove. What a superb resource for those of us who are new to wood heat. Thanks for all the info I've been gleening from your conversations.
Anyway I am located in NE Iowa in the country, on a small acreage partially surrounded by a very nice timber wind break (north side and west side). Story and a half home that arrived as a package deal on the local railroad in the mid 50's. Complements of Sears!
Appears as if I ended up with a stove everyone disregards as mostly junk. I ended up purchasing a Vogelzang Defender from a retired gent who had one small short lived fire made of a pressed paper type imitation log! Must have been to much for him? $150 later and some grunting and groaning it was loaded in my truck. I have more to share but wanted to cut this short before boring you all. Thanks, Troy

 

[kennyp2339]

I'm very interested in the sears homes, do you mind posting a couple pics of the house? I've seen quite a few pics online and there are a couple groups of the bungalow style about 40 min from my house.

 

[Warm_in_NH]

Welcome. Hey, at least if the stove turns out to be junk, you're only out $150, shouldn't take long for it to pay for itself at that price.

Sears homes are pretty cool. We've worked on a few over the years, none were in their original condition, but neat to think it all showed up on a rail car, pre-cut (I think all the lumber was pre-cut anyway) and assembled on site.

 

[Woody Stover]

Welcome, moresnow. If you still need more snow, feel free to grab any that's headed down here! How many sq.ft. are you trying to heat, or is this strictly supplemental burning? Many a man has jumped in as a recreational burner, and almost as many have gotten hooked on heating with wood and decided to do it all with a stove. At any rate, the Defender will help until you have time to wade through the millions of threads to determine what your final stove will be.

 

[moresnow]

Started the stove on the the 2nd of this month. Left the LP turned on for a few days and it ran one or two mornings until I figured out how to babysit the wood stove a bit closer. The last handful of days the LP has been turned off. I am layed off so I can keep a close eye on things. Only problem has been the severe cold/wind we have been getting. Still has kept up without to much effort. This morning was -16F and I had let the fire go un-attended for 4 hrs. House was at 60F when I woke up at 2 AM. Took a few hrs to get back up to 65f! Not a big deal except I have the stove on the main floor. Basement (where my shower is!) is really cold. This afternoon the house is cooking

 

[moresnow]

Hears a pic or two of my 23 year project house! Pulled the asbetos siding and installed new windows, Aluminum coated 5/8" foam insulation board and vinyl siding. Huge difference. Zero insulation in the entire house. Unreal. Just started the remodeling a year ago. Lots to do. The stove is installed temporarily at this point as I need to pull all the punkboard to insulate/rewire and sheetrock. Yea. Fun.

 

[Simonkenton]

What a beautiful little house. Great story.
That is unreal, zero insulation in 1950. We have certainly come a long way.

 

[brenndatomu]

I have a Defender, I like it. It's a decent little stove for the money, even more so at the price you paid!
Vogelzang has/had a bad name from the junk that they made in the past. The Defender is a big step away from their past IMO
I see you have a key damper in the pipe, I have been thinking I need to do that because the Defender seems to be a pretty easy breather. I blocked some intake holes to slow the burn down, it works really well like this. I think if I had a key damper I could unblock the holes and it would be fine.
That heat reclaimer on the stack may cause you trouble though. They are known to cause creosote issues in the pipe, you'll know when the pipe plugs up (or the unit plugs up itself), the stove will blow smoke in your face whenever you open the door. It would be easy enough to remove if it does prove problematic for you

 

[begreen]

Good deal, but get rid of that stack robber on the pipe. EPA stoves are more efficient and run cooler flues. Cooling them down too much can increase creosote and ruin draft. The stove is for heating, the flue for drafting.

 

[jatoxico]

Welcome moresnow, I knew that heat reclaimer would draw fire .

 

[moresnow]

We shall see on the reclaimer.This stove really likes to run harder than I prefer. Dampers fully closed on the stove and the pipe damper fully closed seems about the only way to keep it slowed up. Lighter wood loads on the real dry wood is plenty. Otherwise it gets sketchy. I will have a look for buildup in the next few days. Supposed to warm up finally.

 

[begreen]

Check the door gasket with the dollar bill test. It may be leaking.

 

[Woody Stover]

Check the door gasket with the dollar bill test. It may be leaking.

If your glass is gunking up even with dry wood, your door seal may need attention. Your stack doesn't appear to be tall enough to cause an overdraft. The flue damper should be plenty, should you need to cut the draft. How big are the splits you're using? Small ones will burn hotter than you want if they all get to burning and smoking at the same time.

 

[brenndatomu]

I checked the door gasket on mine before plugging some of the intake holes, it was tight, stove still wanted to run hard. Like I said before, it seems like a pretty easy breather. The intake holes seem, IMO, to be kinda large for a small stove

 

[moresnow]

Quick question. it seems that I am not producing much visable smoke out the top. I've been fine tuning my fire and am burning fewer pieces at a hotter temp the last couple days. I still have good draft. The stove really pulls air when I open the door to feed it. Am I on the correct path? Just seems odd to have virtually zero visable exhaust?I have my magnetic temp gauge about 18" above the stove on the single wall. Stove seems to be happy about 250F to 300F on the gauge. 300F is the bottom of the green/optimum burn zone on my temp gauge. If I push the stove I can get it to the middle of that green zone at about 425F. Buuuuut. Holy Moly it's waaaay to hot to be within the same room and my upstairs bedroom just gets smokin hot (happy wife/happy life). When running above 300F my reclaimer sometimes picks up a scary resonation until I jump up and squeeze the rear panel? Not sure on that one? Thought I had a fire up the pipe the first time it did that. Probably unlikely I have to much pipe residue built up this soon? Not a good feeling. Maybe not a quick question! Thanks for the info guys.

 

[edyit]

IMO forget what the zones on those thermometers say. they're not 100% accurate i use mine as a general guide. if you're burning and see no smoke coming out the chimney then you're doing it right.

 

[brenndatomu]

IMO forget what the zones on those thermometers say. they're not 100% accurate i use mine as a general guide. if you're burning and see no smoke coming out the chimney then you're doing it right.

I agree, don't count on that gauge being entirely accurate. Just use it as a relative reading once you figure out what works for your set-up. I don't have a gauge on the pipe but I do have one of those gauges stuck on the stove top in the center right before the step up to higher part toward the back. 4-500* is really common once it is in "cruise" mode (up to temp and air shut down) 600* happens pretty often too, I have had it run into the 7s and close to 800* before, talk about crankin out some heat!

 

[moresnow]

Quick update. Finally left the house for some ice fishing. Thought I'd left the stove with enough in it to last untill my wife came home. Nothing but coals when she arrived. No problem if it was me getting it back up and running. However. I returned to find my wife sitting in front of the (fully loaded) stove. She had it loaded back to front and bottom to top! Zoiks! She said it wouldn't go. Gulp. It took off big time by the time I got my coat and boots off. She was soooo proud. I was scared sheeeetless. Sounded like a jet motor taking off. Helluva test of my system! Needless to say I have some work to do on educating the wife and kids on fire management. No harm done. Nothing looked/seemed to overheat or look like it suffered in any way. Just waaaay more fire than I normally run in it. Gawd bless her. She was sooo proud.

 

[begreen]

A full reload will become more commonplace as you get used to the stove. Is there a stove top thermometer on the stove? If so, what temp did it get up to?

 

[moresnow]

I have the thermometer up on the pipe.It got between 400-450. I suppose I should try putting it on the stove top. Seems that others are doing it that way.

 

[edyit]

i have one on the pipe and one on the stove top, but thats just me

 

[moresnow]

Just checking back in. Quick question. I had the stove off for just over a week. I went out of state ice fishing and my wife was not ready to handle the fire herself. First time the stove has been out for a lengthy time since I started it. I had a small dusting of flakey black residue on the floor of the stove when I went to restart it. Anything I need to worry about or is this just normal residue that came down when the pipe finally totally cooled? Also. Ice fished from up near the Canada border (Upper Red Lake,Mn Mille Lacs,Mn Brushy Creek,Ia), down to central Iowa. Any fishermen out there? Glad my freezers are already full. We did not add much for our efforts!

 

[tarzan]

You should go ahead and check the pipe as you are taking the heat reclaimed off.

Seriously, that thing will do more harm than good.

Also, love the history behind the house!

 

[kennyp2339]

Step (1) - remove the heat reclaimer, seriously remove the heat reclaimer, its a creosote factory, it cools the flu gas down to much and creosote forms from the condensate left behind.

 

[moresnow]

Quick update. The stove has been doing a fine job. Only real challenge is the short burn time. Anyway beginning early this AM I started hearing a intermitant popping noise in the black single wall pipe a few feet above the stove top. Reclaimer area. I wasn't really sure if I was hearing it or not until my 2 dogs started barking at the stove and looking strangely up at the pipe! I've since shut it down and have decided to pull it apart and likely remove the reclaimer (as recomended) and have a look. Other than the popping I did not notice anything abnormal comming out the top outside. My temp gauge never indicated high pipe heat. I checked the temp of my stainless double wall upstairs just before it leaves through the roof. Not any hotter than ever before. No other chimney fire indications that I am aware of.
It has been snowing here today and blowing. Any chance there is moisture dropping down from the cap and making this noise when hitting the reclaimer cross tubes? That was my only other thought as a very, very outside chance.