My brother and I installed a VC Intrepid 1 at our hunting camp a few years ago and it has never really burned well. We struggled to keep a good fire and usually had to leave the door cracked to get the fire enough air. When we installed it we used the same 8” insulated chimney that was there from our old stove. We simply used a 6” to 8” adapter right were the single wall stove pipe met the insulated pipe.
So, after searching this forum for posts about similar problems I found out that adapting the pipe was definitley a bad idea. I also discovered that our overall chimney height was too low at 10’ from the top of the stove. We actually did a test to prove that these two issues were causing poor draft. We took the cap off the insulated pipe on the roof and slid 4 sections of single wall stove pipe inside the insulated pipe until it met the adapter inside. We lit a fire and the stove burned better that it ever has. Obiously this was just a test run. We will be replacing the 8" pipe with 6" and increasing the height this spring. I would like to thank all the moderators and contributors to this forum. The information here is invaluable.
![[Hearth.com] Intrepid 1 Draft Issues](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/306/306775-44fb2eda7df8aeb9a6e55505f9eb546a.jpg?hash=j3zwcHfRxl "[Hearth.com] Intrepid 1 Draft Issues")
So, after searching this forum for posts about similar problems I found out that adapting the pipe was definitley a bad idea. I also discovered that our overall chimney height was too low at 10’ from the top of the stove. We actually did a test to prove that these two issues were causing poor draft. We took the cap off the insulated pipe on the roof and slid 4 sections of single wall stove pipe inside the insulated pipe until it met the adapter inside. We lit a fire and the stove burned better that it ever has. Obiously this was just a test run. We will be replacing the 8" pipe with 6" and increasing the height this spring. I would like to thank all the moderators and contributors to this forum. The information here is invaluable.
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