Kuuma VF 100

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B

bropp

New Member
Jan 18, 2020
17
Northern Michigan
Last year I had a VF 100 and was unhappy with the amount of heat it produced. It was not heating my house. I got a Fire Chief 1700 instead. The FC did produce a little more heat, but that was when I feed it 4x as much wood. Not only that, even though I would feed it a ton right before bed the house would be very cold in the morning. With the Kuuma it didn't cool off at all.
I greatly regret getting rid of the Kumma. It was in my insulated garage and I think that was the problem.
I would encourage anyone thinking about a VF to get one. I just talked cousin into getting one.
Firechief is garage. Immediately warped just like every one else said. The company didn't care.
Kuuma tried everything possible to make me happy.
A great company!
Plus that stove had hardly any ashes and no smoke.
Man I miss it!
 
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Hoo boy! Talk about insult to injury...started out with the best and traded down to the worst...man 2020 has not been kind to you! !!!
 
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Boy, that was a DUMB decision! WTF you thinkin' boy! ;lol

Didn't you do any kind of research on here before you decided to pull the trigger?

Yes, Lamppa is a TERRIFIC company........they are a small enough company where you are a person and not just a number to them.
 
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Speaking of last winters PO'd new Kuuma owners...I wonder what @gary38532 did with his?
 
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A wood furance in my opinion has one purpose to heat the house. If it cant do that everything else doesn't matter. I'm on my second winter with the VF100 I still think its a poor heater and always will. The best thing I did last year was buy a Harmon P68. Its make unbelievable heat. Currently its 5 outside here in PA we just got two feet of snow on top of that. My living room is 78 where the P68 is the rest of the house is 75. I didnt even bother loading the VF100 this morning. For what? It doesn't change the house temp anyway. I got the P68 on constant burn setting 2 it goes to 10! Point is it has alot more power and is still overheating the house. You want a heater? Get yourself a P68. Or keep playing with your VF100 and be cold. Im going to catch hell for posting this but whatever that's my opinion. I wont let people intimidate me out of saying what I think. I hope you find a solution to your heating problem... whatever that may be!
 
gary38532 said:
A wood furance in my opinion has one purpose to heat the house. If it cant do that everything else doesn't matter. I'm on my second winter with the VF100 I still think its a poor heater and always will. The best thing I did last year was buy a Harmon P68. Its make unbelievable heat. Currently its 5 outside here in PA we just got two feet of snow on top of that. My living room is 78 where the P68 is the rest of the house is 75. I didnt even bother loading the VF100 this morning. For what? It doesn't change the house temp anyway. I got the P68 on constant burn setting 2 it goes to 10! Point is it has alot more power and is still overheating the house. You want a heater? Get yourself a P68. Or keep playing with your VF100 and be cold. Im going to catch hell for posting this but whatever that's my opinion. I wont let people intimidate me out of saying what I think. I hope you find a solution to your heating problem... whatever that may be!
Click to expand...

How much pellets are you burning per day? Something seems off in that scenario/comparison, either the VF somehow operating handicapped or the P68 overachieving.
 
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gary38532 said:
A wood furance in my opinion has one purpose to heat the house. If it cant do that everything else doesn't matter. I'm on my second winter with the VF100 I still think its a poor heater and always will. The best thing I did last year was buy a Harmon P68. Its make unbelievable heat. Currently its 5 outside here in PA we just got two feet of snow on top of that. My living room is 78 where the P68 is the rest of the house is 75. I didnt even bother loading the VF100 this morning. For what? It doesn't change the house temp anyway. I got the P68 on constant burn setting 2 it goes to 10! Point is it has alot more power and is still overheating the house. You want a heater? Get yourself a P68. Or keep playing with your VF100 and be cold. Im going to catch hell for posting this but whatever that's my opinion. I wont let people intimidate me out of saying what I think. I hope you find a solution to your heating problem... whatever that may be!
Click to expand...
Who is intimidating you? Report any such activity.

The Harmon P68 is 16k to 71k BTU/hr and the Kuuma VF100 is set up for 30-40k btu/hr. Either your ducting has issues or the wood was wet if the VF100 can't do the job when the P68 can do the job at less than 30kbtu output. Perhaps yourVF100 was damaged in shipping and that's why it isn't working right?
 
SpaceBus said:
Either your ducting has issues or the wood was wet if the VF100 can't do the job when the P68 can do the job at less than 30kbtu output. Perhaps yourVF100 was damaged in shipping and that's why it isn't working right?
Click to expand...
This horse has been ridden hard and beat to death...we may never know exactly why this setup is not working well...here, grab a hot drink and enjoy...::-) (for anybody that cares, personally, my gut feeling is that it is a combination of ducting issues and overall heat load too high...but in the end that is obviously just an internet guess...for what those are worth)

new Vapor Fire 100 with very poor heat

I heated my 2800 sqft home with a old Clayton 1800 for the last 6 year here in northern PA. It always did a very good job keeping the house 75 even on the coldest January nights. The only problem was it went through about 9 cords of wood and dirty the chimney all the time. After reading all the...
www.hearth.com www.hearth.com
 
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brenndatomu said:
This horse has been ridden hard and beat to death...we may never know exactly why this setup is not working well...here, grab a hot drink and enjoy...::-) (for anybody that cares, personally, my gut feeling is that it is a combination of ducting issues and overall heat load too high...but in the end that is obviously just an internet guess...for what those are worth)

new Vapor Fire 100 with very poor heat

I heated my 2800 sqft home with a old Clayton 1800 for the last 6 year here in northern PA. It always did a very good job keeping the house 75 even on the coldest January nights. The only problem was it went through about 9 cords of wood and dirty the chimney all the time. After reading all the...
www.hearth.com www.hearth.com
Click to expand...
I posted several comments in that thread trying to help, I still remember it well!
 
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No $hit. The p68 is a monster heater, double the output and constant output, with no duct losses and is sitting right in his living room! The P68 can be expected to put the vf to shame. It’s like having two vf furnaces.

Sure, it burns the fuel and has all of the other drawbacks of a pellet stove but the p68 will deliver like a fossil fuel furnace.
 
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Highbeam said:
No $hit. The p68 is a monster heater, double the output and constant output, with no duct losses and is sitting right in his living room! The P68 can be expected to put the vf to shame. It’s like having two vf furnaces.

Sure, it burns the fuel and has all of the other drawbacks of a pellet stove but the p68 will deliver like a fossil fuel furnace.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry double the output?
 
What is the actual output of the vf100? Ive heard so many different numbers. 36k according to the owners manual.
 
Also the VF100 manual rates the output at 30-40k btu/hr.
 
Also, you can’t forget that a pellet burner makes constant output at that level. All cordwood burners are batch burners and have a cycle. Don’t make the mistake of comparing peak output from a cycle to constant output from a pellet burner.
 
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gary38532 said:
I'm sorry double the output?
Click to expand...

Really, it’s capable of more than double since the cordwood burner has an output cycle with a peak and a trough. Average output is much lower than peak. Pellet burners just sit there and crank it out.
 
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That's where it would have been good to have some historical fossil fuel heating data from @gary38532 's house...gas bills, electric bills, heating oil bills, something...would have told the story...1500 gallons of heating oil a year (for example) and the house was still only 60-65*...yeah, the VF100 ain't gonna keep up with that heat load...
 
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brenndatomu said:
That's where it would have been good to have some historical fossil fuel heating data from @gary38532 's house...gas bills, electric bills, heating oil bills, something...would have told the story...1500 gallons of heating oil a year (for example) and the house was still only 60-65*...yeah, the VF100 ain't gonna keep up with that heat load...
Click to expand...
lol that was talked about it in the old thread too...
 
maple1 said:
How much pellets are you burning per day? Something seems off in that scenario/comparison, either the VF somehow operating handicapped or the P68 overachieving.
Click to expand...
its hard to say how many pellets its using per day because the vf100 is going with it. Plus when no ones home for the day I keep the p68 off and just let the vf100 do whatever its going to do. Then toward the end of my work day I turn it on with my phone about 2 hours or so before I get home. I bought a pallet of fuel for it in when it started getting cold so far I used about half of it. On warmer days 30+ I don't even run the p68. Thats why im saying its hard to say. When its gets colder and its on all time I could say better.
 
Not a bad deal having the vf100 for the base load and the pellet roaster on WiFi to pick up the slack.
 
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