So this is a bit of me trying to take notes on my experience, and possibly to help others with their purchasing decision making.
I'm still at the infancy stage with this first post but here are my thoughts so far after having owned this for a couple of months and just now getting to the point of using it to heat an area for the last month or so. *This is only used on weekends at a cabin*. No catalyst installed..yet. 20% or less mix hardwoods w/ a piece or two of white pine showing its way in there.
TLDR: I wish I could easily swap out for a Jotul F45 to see if that stove operates any easier, and keeps the glass cleaner and shows more flame, which it reportedly does. Dont plan on using a cast iron stove to heat a winter cabin, unless you like being cold for 1/4 the time you are there.
In the beginning....
When I was shopping for a stove, I didnt want to break the bank. I started looking at Drolet because it seemed to be a fairly well known brand that was several steps above that of which is sold by the big box stores. After talking with a local dealer though, they didnt talk me out of a Drolet but did suggest that I call around to some of the stove repair guys in the area to ask for their opinions and, if they would work on it in my area if I needed maintenance as well as installation. All of the installers/repair techs said the same thing - they only service what they or the dealers they work for sell. One person said he would work on any stove from any manufacturer from any age, but recommended to me to get a cast iron stove. My mind started researching the differences of cast iron vs a welded or stamped steel stove - and while I wasn't pushed towards or away from anything initially, I eventually landed on the fact that I wanted a cast iron if only for the silly reason (aside from other benefits) because of the way they looked.
.
Which cast iron!?
Online ordering went out of my head at this point. I started visiting dealers and checking out stoves. The Jotul f45 was a nice sized unit for my space but would stick out a bit further than I wanted however it would afford me better side to side clearance. Vermont castings, looked interesting to me and came up during a search, or was recommended by an installer - I cant remember why I looked at VC. I started to research what model would be best for us and the Dauntless came up. The Dauntless was 1k more than the Jotul. The Dauntless was immediately available, the Jotul was 6-8 months out. I really liked the top loading of the VC, the way the VC looked, and for some reason had it in my head that a E/W view would be much better than a N/S view. So I tossed all the info over to the wife and showed her the pictures and features and availability, and we landed on the VC Dauntless.
First buyer remorse...
I stumbled onto these forums, and started to see questions / comments posted about the new dauntless that had me a bit worried such as overheating, but overall there wasnt a ton of info about the stove here at the time. I also watched a video of a guy who did this very in depth analysis and showed/proved that the secondary air chamber system on the newer VC stoves was defective, poorly engineered and he was pretty much set on just selling his newer stove to anyone that would offer a decent amount and would replace it with something else. I also noticed that certain accessories when I would search for them were hard to find (like the grill insert which we thought was cool but I realize now stupid and impossible)
Ok ok, so you bought a VC Dauntless, now what....
Installation. Stove pipe/chimney - etc. Well that took me a month to research, call out for quotes etc. Eventually I decided to do it myself, save $1k in installation costs and then learn as much as I could via here and youtube. Youtube was very helpful for watching someone actually go through the process, however I wouldnt have any idea what they were doing without being on here. Even the stove pipe/chimney pipe was a big mystery to me. So I'm very thankful for hearth.com existing.
I was rather surprised though that for my stove, the way the flue collar is manufactured they basically limit you to using a single wall pipe. If you want double walled, which is what I purchased, you have to start with a single wall stove adapter, add a double wall on top of that, then finish your pipe install. Seems rather crazy to me, and is a source of concern that my entire double wall, much heavier than single wall pipe, rests and relies on a tiny thin single wall adapter. This alone would have been a deal breaker , to me, on getting the VC, had I know this. The idea is that double wall lasts much longer, and reduces clearances/risk to combustibles. While the single wall is almost entirely hidden by the stove/double wall adapter, it still wont last nearly as long. And I would suggest that the way the single/double wall adapters fit together reduce the overall size of the opening. That took me a week to figure out, as there was nothing posted about this online, the seller couldnt tell me what to do other than their installers are basically making something, and then eventually VC gave the layup instructions which worked.
SO how is it so far? Early to tell, by spring Ill know more and update...
My oil furnace gets to keep it's day job. Clearly a wood stove takes a very long time to output any heat worth mentioning, then even longer to heat an area. It's meant for a marathon, not a weekend camp sprint. I had a 'race' with my fireplace vs stove and while they both burned the same amount of wood and brought up about the same sq ft'g, in 3 hours the fireplace won. 5 hours in I had about the same amount of wood loaded through the stove to heat it up as I did the fireplace to heat the room up and keep a nice steady warm coal bed and flame going. The furnace wins overall because it will heat up much quicker, but with oil prices where they are at..geesh wood looks better but I burn ALOT more wood than I thought I would in the stove.
The expected heat flowing from warm to colder areas is somewhat of a myth. I dont know what people mean by "heats my whole house" other than 73 in stove room, intolerable but technically heated above outside temps... 50' across two rooms over.
On one weekend, I blew through much more wood than I expected, with actual cold nights in the high 30s and mid day temps in low 60s. Packed tightly 3 times, one overheat that I cant explain, the rest were smaller loads to try and get the stove to burn hotter. All told I dumped 36 splits into this thing. Again, daytime temps in low 60's.
This weekend I had an interesting thing happen to me. I opened the damper to check the wood status (because you cant see through the glass well enough), and while I had my hand on the top loading door about 3/4 open, which I opened slowly, the sizable almost fully loaded stove suddenly ignited into a giant ball of flames and shot outside of my stove over my hand and arm. It was sudden, quick, and redirected just as fast through the outside open damper. I think it was just that wood igniting suddenly because it was so hot in the stove, and there were no flames in there when I opened it. Lesson learned, and absolutely something to consider for this top loading stove. Im now hairless from my hand up a bit on my right arm.
I have a few areas where creosote has penetrated into the door gaskets making them rock hard. Im hoping that some cleaning off then refiring the stove helped - I will check next weekend.
Id never trust a STT until about hour 1.5. If you put a STT on the top door/griddle and then on the back of the stove, you will get two different readings. You will also notice that you can put your hand 2" from the sides and not feel much heat. Later on, say after a few hours that's when you can rely on the STT. I've had the stove blazing early on, STT shows 570 yet almost no warmth is radiating. That's because flames are blasting the plate under the STT but the stove itself has quite aways to go to warm up.
The glass on this is the bane of my existence. The first 'test burn' I had, it turned completely black. A few burns after clears the glass up, some. Most will say a nice hot burn will clear it all up. It doesnt. Ive had this stove up there for quite some hours, close to a dozen times and pretty much the only thing that clears up is the center area and sometimes the bottom left/right doors as well, never top left/right of the doors, they are completely glazed over in a thick black soot.
This is not a stove for dancing flames. Especially if you pack it tight, unless you crank it up but then it will overheat quickly and run away on you. So what I've learned is to load it about half way, crank up the air and let it sit like that for awhile then bring it back to about 1/3 open with damper closed and sometimes you will see just a few wicks of flame here and there sometimes you will see one side (mostly the right side) wick with some flame, and if you are really lucky you will see flames dancing all through without them flying fully ablaze. This is where the art comes in, and I suspect the canvas will change a bit based on temps/wind speeds outside. If you plan on running this stove at low long temps for long overnight burns, there will be no flames present.
Overnight burns, are too darn cold. I basically load it up to the top and tight after brushing some coals toward the back (covering the secondary combustion holes because they are way too low to the floor). It let it run on high for about 10 minutes then I close the damper and turn the stove down to about 3 for a full overnight burn. I then go to bed, watch some tv or browse, get up again and check the stove, then fall asleep and have trained myself to wake up in the middle of the night to check the stove, grab some water, hit the bathroom then back to bed. When I do my last check before morning, the stove is riding under 400, and even after closing the damper and opening the top door I do not see flames or very little. If I leave it like this I will wakeup to a couple pieces of wood still needing to be burned, or more but the room will be cold. If I flip it to 4 notches, it burns faster but unless we wake up early and load it up, it will be cold. 5 notches will really help things keep up to temps but then I wont have anything to relight in the morning. This is absolutely, not an overnight stove that can put out enough heat and last overnight. Technically, yes you can burn through the night and it will help keep things heated through most of the night, but there is a point and it's probably 3/4 of the night when the stove is no longer keeping up. And this is in a very well sealed 620 sq ft expansion, that is however connected to the main cabin with a 5'x8' wide opening which is poorly sealer. And this is testing with outside temps from the high 40's to maybe mid 30's so far. Wonder what it's going to do when it's actually cold outside.
Im considering adding the catalyst, but at this point I dont know that I want to put any more money into what is proving to be more novelty than necessity.
Air control on this seems hit or miss. I'm playing with it constantly in hour or longer intervals to see what my outcomes will be with the type of wood im using and the current outside temps. This past weekend it was windy out, it was warm outside and inside. I reloaded a few splits in the morning to help take the edge off of the morning chill as we have no furnace oil this weekend. Eventually it started to get so warm, so I turn air control all the way down. I left and came back an hour later to a stove fully ablaze, riding near the 700 degree mark. Eventually it calmed down, and upon inspection had only the chunks of charcoal left from the few pieces I added earlier.
All in all though I have gotten adjusted to air control on this somewhat. I kinda know what to expect based on what I set it at and how much wood I put in. I can usually keep it riding just above the creosote level based on how much I have loaded. Fully loaded though, you will need to turn up the air control to get marginal heat out of it, then once that wood starts to fire out a bit, then you will need to back off. However this is not a very long steady state. This stove requires constant constant attention. Sure you could just leave it alone once you get the hang of some things, but for the most part you will find yourself either too hot or too cold FAR more often than that sweetspot somewhere in the middle.
Final thoughts so far:
All in all, to be completely honest if Im tired from skiing or whatever, I'll likely just continue to use the oil furnace to get us up to temp and the fireplace to keep our living area warm during the day, then at night just let the furnace kick on. I can see myself continuing to use the stove for awhile, but eventually what appears to me as a novelty...will wear off. Relegated for when we have guests over and show it working or not.
Im mostly negative about this stove for now. I wish I would have spent the 5.7k+ that Ive spend on this stove, stove pipe etc toward a mini split system. I hope that changes as I was once so excited to operate this.
I'm still at the infancy stage with this first post but here are my thoughts so far after having owned this for a couple of months and just now getting to the point of using it to heat an area for the last month or so. *This is only used on weekends at a cabin*. No catalyst installed..yet. 20% or less mix hardwoods w/ a piece or two of white pine showing its way in there.
TLDR: I wish I could easily swap out for a Jotul F45 to see if that stove operates any easier, and keeps the glass cleaner and shows more flame, which it reportedly does. Dont plan on using a cast iron stove to heat a winter cabin, unless you like being cold for 1/4 the time you are there.
In the beginning....
When I was shopping for a stove, I didnt want to break the bank. I started looking at Drolet because it seemed to be a fairly well known brand that was several steps above that of which is sold by the big box stores. After talking with a local dealer though, they didnt talk me out of a Drolet but did suggest that I call around to some of the stove repair guys in the area to ask for their opinions and, if they would work on it in my area if I needed maintenance as well as installation. All of the installers/repair techs said the same thing - they only service what they or the dealers they work for sell. One person said he would work on any stove from any manufacturer from any age, but recommended to me to get a cast iron stove. My mind started researching the differences of cast iron vs a welded or stamped steel stove - and while I wasn't pushed towards or away from anything initially, I eventually landed on the fact that I wanted a cast iron if only for the silly reason (aside from other benefits) because of the way they looked.
.Which cast iron!?
Online ordering went out of my head at this point. I started visiting dealers and checking out stoves. The Jotul f45 was a nice sized unit for my space but would stick out a bit further than I wanted however it would afford me better side to side clearance. Vermont castings, looked interesting to me and came up during a search, or was recommended by an installer - I cant remember why I looked at VC. I started to research what model would be best for us and the Dauntless came up. The Dauntless was 1k more than the Jotul. The Dauntless was immediately available, the Jotul was 6-8 months out. I really liked the top loading of the VC, the way the VC looked, and for some reason had it in my head that a E/W view would be much better than a N/S view. So I tossed all the info over to the wife and showed her the pictures and features and availability, and we landed on the VC Dauntless.
First buyer remorse...
I stumbled onto these forums, and started to see questions / comments posted about the new dauntless that had me a bit worried such as overheating, but overall there wasnt a ton of info about the stove here at the time. I also watched a video of a guy who did this very in depth analysis and showed/proved that the secondary air chamber system on the newer VC stoves was defective, poorly engineered and he was pretty much set on just selling his newer stove to anyone that would offer a decent amount and would replace it with something else. I also noticed that certain accessories when I would search for them were hard to find (like the grill insert which we thought was cool but I realize now stupid and impossible)
Ok ok, so you bought a VC Dauntless, now what....
Installation. Stove pipe/chimney - etc. Well that took me a month to research, call out for quotes etc. Eventually I decided to do it myself, save $1k in installation costs and then learn as much as I could via here and youtube. Youtube was very helpful for watching someone actually go through the process, however I wouldnt have any idea what they were doing without being on here. Even the stove pipe/chimney pipe was a big mystery to me. So I'm very thankful for hearth.com existing.
I was rather surprised though that for my stove, the way the flue collar is manufactured they basically limit you to using a single wall pipe. If you want double walled, which is what I purchased, you have to start with a single wall stove adapter, add a double wall on top of that, then finish your pipe install. Seems rather crazy to me, and is a source of concern that my entire double wall, much heavier than single wall pipe, rests and relies on a tiny thin single wall adapter. This alone would have been a deal breaker , to me, on getting the VC, had I know this. The idea is that double wall lasts much longer, and reduces clearances/risk to combustibles. While the single wall is almost entirely hidden by the stove/double wall adapter, it still wont last nearly as long. And I would suggest that the way the single/double wall adapters fit together reduce the overall size of the opening. That took me a week to figure out, as there was nothing posted about this online, the seller couldnt tell me what to do other than their installers are basically making something, and then eventually VC gave the layup instructions which worked.
SO how is it so far? Early to tell, by spring Ill know more and update...
My oil furnace gets to keep it's day job. Clearly a wood stove takes a very long time to output any heat worth mentioning, then even longer to heat an area. It's meant for a marathon, not a weekend camp sprint. I had a 'race' with my fireplace vs stove and while they both burned the same amount of wood and brought up about the same sq ft'g, in 3 hours the fireplace won. 5 hours in I had about the same amount of wood loaded through the stove to heat it up as I did the fireplace to heat the room up and keep a nice steady warm coal bed and flame going. The furnace wins overall because it will heat up much quicker, but with oil prices where they are at..geesh wood looks better but I burn ALOT more wood than I thought I would in the stove.
The expected heat flowing from warm to colder areas is somewhat of a myth. I dont know what people mean by "heats my whole house" other than 73 in stove room, intolerable but technically heated above outside temps... 50' across two rooms over.
On one weekend, I blew through much more wood than I expected, with actual cold nights in the high 30s and mid day temps in low 60s. Packed tightly 3 times, one overheat that I cant explain, the rest were smaller loads to try and get the stove to burn hotter. All told I dumped 36 splits into this thing. Again, daytime temps in low 60's.
This weekend I had an interesting thing happen to me. I opened the damper to check the wood status (because you cant see through the glass well enough), and while I had my hand on the top loading door about 3/4 open, which I opened slowly, the sizable almost fully loaded stove suddenly ignited into a giant ball of flames and shot outside of my stove over my hand and arm. It was sudden, quick, and redirected just as fast through the outside open damper. I think it was just that wood igniting suddenly because it was so hot in the stove, and there were no flames in there when I opened it. Lesson learned, and absolutely something to consider for this top loading stove. Im now hairless from my hand up a bit on my right arm.
I have a few areas where creosote has penetrated into the door gaskets making them rock hard. Im hoping that some cleaning off then refiring the stove helped - I will check next weekend.
Id never trust a STT until about hour 1.5. If you put a STT on the top door/griddle and then on the back of the stove, you will get two different readings. You will also notice that you can put your hand 2" from the sides and not feel much heat. Later on, say after a few hours that's when you can rely on the STT. I've had the stove blazing early on, STT shows 570 yet almost no warmth is radiating. That's because flames are blasting the plate under the STT but the stove itself has quite aways to go to warm up.
The glass on this is the bane of my existence. The first 'test burn' I had, it turned completely black. A few burns after clears the glass up, some. Most will say a nice hot burn will clear it all up. It doesnt. Ive had this stove up there for quite some hours, close to a dozen times and pretty much the only thing that clears up is the center area and sometimes the bottom left/right doors as well, never top left/right of the doors, they are completely glazed over in a thick black soot.
This is not a stove for dancing flames. Especially if you pack it tight, unless you crank it up but then it will overheat quickly and run away on you. So what I've learned is to load it about half way, crank up the air and let it sit like that for awhile then bring it back to about 1/3 open with damper closed and sometimes you will see just a few wicks of flame here and there sometimes you will see one side (mostly the right side) wick with some flame, and if you are really lucky you will see flames dancing all through without them flying fully ablaze. This is where the art comes in, and I suspect the canvas will change a bit based on temps/wind speeds outside. If you plan on running this stove at low long temps for long overnight burns, there will be no flames present.
Overnight burns, are too darn cold. I basically load it up to the top and tight after brushing some coals toward the back (covering the secondary combustion holes because they are way too low to the floor). It let it run on high for about 10 minutes then I close the damper and turn the stove down to about 3 for a full overnight burn. I then go to bed, watch some tv or browse, get up again and check the stove, then fall asleep and have trained myself to wake up in the middle of the night to check the stove, grab some water, hit the bathroom then back to bed. When I do my last check before morning, the stove is riding under 400, and even after closing the damper and opening the top door I do not see flames or very little. If I leave it like this I will wakeup to a couple pieces of wood still needing to be burned, or more but the room will be cold. If I flip it to 4 notches, it burns faster but unless we wake up early and load it up, it will be cold. 5 notches will really help things keep up to temps but then I wont have anything to relight in the morning. This is absolutely, not an overnight stove that can put out enough heat and last overnight. Technically, yes you can burn through the night and it will help keep things heated through most of the night, but there is a point and it's probably 3/4 of the night when the stove is no longer keeping up. And this is in a very well sealed 620 sq ft expansion, that is however connected to the main cabin with a 5'x8' wide opening which is poorly sealer. And this is testing with outside temps from the high 40's to maybe mid 30's so far. Wonder what it's going to do when it's actually cold outside.
Im considering adding the catalyst, but at this point I dont know that I want to put any more money into what is proving to be more novelty than necessity.
Air control on this seems hit or miss. I'm playing with it constantly in hour or longer intervals to see what my outcomes will be with the type of wood im using and the current outside temps. This past weekend it was windy out, it was warm outside and inside. I reloaded a few splits in the morning to help take the edge off of the morning chill as we have no furnace oil this weekend. Eventually it started to get so warm, so I turn air control all the way down. I left and came back an hour later to a stove fully ablaze, riding near the 700 degree mark. Eventually it calmed down, and upon inspection had only the chunks of charcoal left from the few pieces I added earlier.
All in all though I have gotten adjusted to air control on this somewhat. I kinda know what to expect based on what I set it at and how much wood I put in. I can usually keep it riding just above the creosote level based on how much I have loaded. Fully loaded though, you will need to turn up the air control to get marginal heat out of it, then once that wood starts to fire out a bit, then you will need to back off. However this is not a very long steady state. This stove requires constant constant attention. Sure you could just leave it alone once you get the hang of some things, but for the most part you will find yourself either too hot or too cold FAR more often than that sweetspot somewhere in the middle.
Final thoughts so far:
All in all, to be completely honest if Im tired from skiing or whatever, I'll likely just continue to use the oil furnace to get us up to temp and the fireplace to keep our living area warm during the day, then at night just let the furnace kick on. I can see myself continuing to use the stove for awhile, but eventually what appears to me as a novelty...will wear off. Relegated for when we have guests over and show it working or not.
Im mostly negative about this stove for now. I wish I would have spent the 5.7k+ that Ive spend on this stove, stove pipe etc toward a mini split system. I hope that changes as I was once so excited to operate this.
![[Hearth.com] How do I like my Vermont Castings Dauntless? An early on review.](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/309/309343-0664575015a52dfa560ee608e6a281e9.jpg?hash=62hssBkP_d "[Hearth.com] How do I like my Vermont Castings Dauntless? An early on review.")
