Hi, there. First time poster here. Glad to find such an informative site. Looks like plenty to learn here.
I've been heating exclusively with wood for about 25 years. Started out with a huge, leaky wood burning furnace with an enormous air plenum and a gravity flow air return. The place was an old farmhouse that was leakier than the furnace. I burned about 8-10 full cord of hardwood a season, feast or famine as far as heat goes. Once big Mo' got cranking, the hot air would come pouring out of the ductwork and blow my hair back (still had hair back then). Doors and windows went flying open about that time, just to escape the heat. Then it would burn down and we'd get a lull in the heat output for about an hour and it would get downright chilly, then hot again, etc.
Moved out of there about 20 years ago. Thought I was done with wood until I got my first electric bill. Thankfully, there was a tile-lined chimney that extended down to a nipple in the basement, so when my best buddy moved up from his Scandia knock-off to a real Jotul 118, I asked for his old beater stove and he gladly dropped it off at my place.
I took her apart entirely, wire-brushed the joints, put stove caulk in the grooves, bolted it all together again and gave her two or three coats of black stove paint. The inside heat shields were completely warped, so I got some 1/4" steel plate, cut it to the right size and hung them in place.
I used that stove for almost 20 years (had to replace the steel plates every other year), then last year the top baffle burned through. I stuck some steel plate over the hole and limped through the rest of the season, but I knew its days were over. This year I decided to get a new stove. I looked at the new Jotul 118 (Black Bear) and was ready to bring one home (30% tax credit and all) when I found a Vermont Castings Vigilant not 5 minutes from my house. Extremely good condition, and only $300 on Craig's list.
I always wanted a VC stove, but it was hard to pass up free way back then. And my Scandia stove did fine in my tiny home, although when I visited the friend who gave it to me, his "real deal" stove seemed to crank out more heat that mine (better, heavier castings?). I've read on this message board that folks think the Scandias were dangerous, but I never had anything except for user error plague me (plenty of that, I might add).
Anyway, that's my intro. Now I'd love to hear everything and anything folks might want to share about Vermont Castings stoves, the 1977 Vigilant especially. I'm running it through a 7" square tiled flue (that's what I'm stuck with) and it seems to draw fine (25' internal chimney). Even on these warm days it draws fine once it gets hot, even with the front doors open. The wood seems to last and last, and the stove keeps it's heat even when there's very little wood left in it. And I'm getting tons of heat, even though all I'm using right now is green cherry.
One thing I'm concerned about is the thermostat. The guys who helped me move it broke it off right at the stove body. I was able to drill out the stub, so I used a short piece of 3/8" steel rod as a coupler between the old shank and a new piece of threaded rod. The local stove repair shop said that might make the thermostat react sluggishly, and I think they may be right, although it doesn't quite make sense to me why this might be so. Either way, it doesn't seem to open and close the draft the way I thought it should.
Also, I'm in a bit of a quandary as to how hot I can run it. The other day, it got extremely hot very quickly, and with no external damper I found it hard to calm her down. Seems the aforementioned thermostat should keep that from happening. I always used to see these stoves for sale used with "cracked fireback" mentioned in the ad. My local guys said that was mostly a problem with the Defiant. They said the Vigilant was a pretty slow burner by comparison. Any thoughts about this?
Also, how full can I fill it? I know enough after all these years that you can't overfire a stove unless you put too much wood in it and give it too much draft. So how much is too much wood? The old stove was a major PITA to fill with its small front door. I always filled it as full as I could get it but never once overfired the thing. With this new top loader, its very tempting to keep dropping more chunks in, but I want to err on the side of caution.
I've never used a stove thermometer before, but the new stove came with a VC-brand flue pipe thermometer. It seemed off since it read over 100ºF at room temp. I bought two Rutland stove thermometers on sale for $10 at HD, and put all three on the griddle. The package says that they are accurate to within 5% over the entire temperature range. Well, the package lies, because they leap- frogged back and forth past each other all the way to 600ºF. When the stove was at what I thought was a real intense heat, one said 600ºF, the other said 650ºF while the old VC-brand one said 700ºF. For now, I'm going to use the one that read 650ºF since I have less of a chance of overfiring the stove, but how can I tell if any of them are right? I'm going to fire up my wife's glass annealing kiln to test it at different temps. It's an expensive piece of equipment and has a digital readout, but then again... how accurate is that? And does it make that much difference?
Anyway, lots of questions, probably more will come. The way I look at it, it took me 20 years to learn how to use my last stove right (I learn something new every season), so this new stove is like a new bride to me. Pretty as a picture, warm and inviting, and low maintenance right now... but who knows what kind of grief she may give me once I'm living with her full time.
I've been heating exclusively with wood for about 25 years. Started out with a huge, leaky wood burning furnace with an enormous air plenum and a gravity flow air return. The place was an old farmhouse that was leakier than the furnace. I burned about 8-10 full cord of hardwood a season, feast or famine as far as heat goes. Once big Mo' got cranking, the hot air would come pouring out of the ductwork and blow my hair back (still had hair back then). Doors and windows went flying open about that time, just to escape the heat. Then it would burn down and we'd get a lull in the heat output for about an hour and it would get downright chilly, then hot again, etc.
Moved out of there about 20 years ago. Thought I was done with wood until I got my first electric bill. Thankfully, there was a tile-lined chimney that extended down to a nipple in the basement, so when my best buddy moved up from his Scandia knock-off to a real Jotul 118, I asked for his old beater stove and he gladly dropped it off at my place.
I took her apart entirely, wire-brushed the joints, put stove caulk in the grooves, bolted it all together again and gave her two or three coats of black stove paint. The inside heat shields were completely warped, so I got some 1/4" steel plate, cut it to the right size and hung them in place.
I used that stove for almost 20 years (had to replace the steel plates every other year), then last year the top baffle burned through. I stuck some steel plate over the hole and limped through the rest of the season, but I knew its days were over. This year I decided to get a new stove. I looked at the new Jotul 118 (Black Bear) and was ready to bring one home (30% tax credit and all) when I found a Vermont Castings Vigilant not 5 minutes from my house. Extremely good condition, and only $300 on Craig's list.
I always wanted a VC stove, but it was hard to pass up free way back then. And my Scandia stove did fine in my tiny home, although when I visited the friend who gave it to me, his "real deal" stove seemed to crank out more heat that mine (better, heavier castings?). I've read on this message board that folks think the Scandias were dangerous, but I never had anything except for user error plague me (plenty of that, I might add).
Anyway, that's my intro. Now I'd love to hear everything and anything folks might want to share about Vermont Castings stoves, the 1977 Vigilant especially. I'm running it through a 7" square tiled flue (that's what I'm stuck with) and it seems to draw fine (25' internal chimney). Even on these warm days it draws fine once it gets hot, even with the front doors open. The wood seems to last and last, and the stove keeps it's heat even when there's very little wood left in it. And I'm getting tons of heat, even though all I'm using right now is green cherry.
One thing I'm concerned about is the thermostat. The guys who helped me move it broke it off right at the stove body. I was able to drill out the stub, so I used a short piece of 3/8" steel rod as a coupler between the old shank and a new piece of threaded rod. The local stove repair shop said that might make the thermostat react sluggishly, and I think they may be right, although it doesn't quite make sense to me why this might be so. Either way, it doesn't seem to open and close the draft the way I thought it should.
Also, I'm in a bit of a quandary as to how hot I can run it. The other day, it got extremely hot very quickly, and with no external damper I found it hard to calm her down. Seems the aforementioned thermostat should keep that from happening. I always used to see these stoves for sale used with "cracked fireback" mentioned in the ad. My local guys said that was mostly a problem with the Defiant. They said the Vigilant was a pretty slow burner by comparison. Any thoughts about this?
Also, how full can I fill it? I know enough after all these years that you can't overfire a stove unless you put too much wood in it and give it too much draft. So how much is too much wood? The old stove was a major PITA to fill with its small front door. I always filled it as full as I could get it but never once overfired the thing. With this new top loader, its very tempting to keep dropping more chunks in, but I want to err on the side of caution.
I've never used a stove thermometer before, but the new stove came with a VC-brand flue pipe thermometer. It seemed off since it read over 100ºF at room temp. I bought two Rutland stove thermometers on sale for $10 at HD, and put all three on the griddle. The package says that they are accurate to within 5% over the entire temperature range. Well, the package lies, because they leap- frogged back and forth past each other all the way to 600ºF. When the stove was at what I thought was a real intense heat, one said 600ºF, the other said 650ºF while the old VC-brand one said 700ºF. For now, I'm going to use the one that read 650ºF since I have less of a chance of overfiring the stove, but how can I tell if any of them are right? I'm going to fire up my wife's glass annealing kiln to test it at different temps. It's an expensive piece of equipment and has a digital readout, but then again... how accurate is that? And does it make that much difference?
Anyway, lots of questions, probably more will come. The way I look at it, it took me 20 years to learn how to use my last stove right (I learn something new every season), so this new stove is like a new bride to me. Pretty as a picture, warm and inviting, and low maintenance right now... but who knows what kind of grief she may give me once I'm living with her full time.
Thermostat has a two metal type of arrangement that when you have the stove at 500 or so you shut the damper and adjust the thermostat to what you want the stove to cruise at, something I have not understood completely but when it starts to cool the thermo will open the flp and when it gets do hot it will close the flap so the the little handle on thermo needs to be working since that is the way you contrll it and the two metall thingy needs to be working for your thermostat to work correctly.
