Out of the blue, it's glowing red!

[Northern NH Mike]

Well, I can now join the club. Out of the blue I found the back of my VC Encore NC glowing red yesterday. I've been burning this new stove since Oct w/o any problem and then yesterday, running at about 400* I smelled that overheating smell and sure enough, just above the back heat shield, where the flue collar sits, it was glowing.

Now, I will say that I did not clean out the ash drawer and it was full. I had at least 4 inches of HOT coals under a loosely packed, full box. Primary air was shut down, bypass, closed and flue damper open. With the exception of the full ash drawer and thick bed of coals, nothing different from the rest of the winter.

Today, I inspected the rear. After taking the heat shield off, I found no cracks. I did notice that the gasket under the flue collar was not aligned and the there is air infiltration at the holes for the flue collar bolts (no washers inside). I'm wondering if the combination of the loose gasket, and unsealed bolt holes gave enough extra air to superheat the everburn chamber.

My plan is to replace the flue collar gasket (looks like it was never cemented when installed), be sure that the flue collar is tightly fastened and holes are sealed via a washer under the nut, and watch the depth of the coal/ashbed.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

 

[Sidekick]

My Napoleon went out of control on a windy day once. I couldn't shut it down at all with the damper and had to open it up and throw the wood out the front door. Turns out that when I cleaned the ashes out earlier the ash dump door was stuck slightly open. Not much but it doesn't take much. I don't use it anymore, it's quicker to shovel it anyways. You're on the right track looking for airleaks.

 

[Corey]

Wow - that must have been quite a site. Glad you were able to keep everything under control. I think if a stove ever went out of control so bad that I had to carry burning logs through the house and throw them out the front door, the stove would be following those logs out the door just as soon as it cooled down!

 

[Slow1]

I have only seen the glow on my VC twice now - once with too large of a compressed sawdust brick load on a cold windy night. I consider this one to be my mistake and I simply won't do that again.

The second time was when I started burning some nice new 3 year aged oak that I picked up and it really took me by surprise as I had never seen excessive heat from 'real' wood before. The surface temps in this case didn't get all that high (only around 400) but the flue was right up there around 650 or so for quite a while when I noticed the soft glow. Applying what I had learned from my first glow experience, I partially covered my OAK intake with foil and that brought temps down pretty quick (I still had the same piece of foil on standby from before) and the load burned for a nice LONG time.

My theory is that I have excessive draft in my setup and that I had been spared the glow with real wood due to the marginal quality of my splits basically keeping the temps down (and the marginal wood was burning ok due to the high draft sucking so much air through). Thus once I started filling with really good dry wood, well - you get the rest. My fix was to keep the OAK intake covered 50% with foil. I have not had the glow since - and generally I have seen higher surface and lower flue temps.

My experience may not have a lot to do with your situation, but I do wonder if perhaps being late March perhaps you have hit some wood in your pile that is much drier than what you were burning before and that might have contributed to your issue? If your search for an air leak comes up empty and you continue to have this issue, you may want to consider this thought more.

 

[Diabel]

Well, I can now join the club. Out of the blue I found the back of my VC Encore NC glowing red yesterday. I've been burning this new stove since Oct w/o any problem and then yesterday, running at about 400* I smelled that overheating smell and sure enough, just above the back heat shield, where the flue collar sits, it was glowing.

Now, I will say that I did not clean out the ash drawer and it was full. I had at least 4 inches of HOT coals under a loosely packed, full box. Primary air was shut down, bypass, closed and flue damper open. With the exception of the full ash drawer and thick bed of coals, nothing different from the rest of the winter.

Today, I inspected the rear. After taking the heat shield off, I found no cracks. I did notice that the gasket under the flue collar was not aligned and the there is air infiltration at the holes for the flue collar bolts (no washers inside). I'm wondering if the combination of the loose gasket, and unsealed bolt holes gave enough extra air to superheat the everburn chamber.

My plan is to replace the flue collar gasket (looks like it was never cemented when installed), be sure that the flue collar is tightly fastened and holes are sealed via a washer under the nut, and watch the depth of the coal/ashbed.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

I was about to start a new thread...noting how quiet VC (Everburn) owners have been lately!!

 

[Slow1]

I was about to start a new thread...noting how quiet VC (Everburn) owners have been lately!!

Perhaps that's because all us new VC owners finally think we figured our stoves out?

 

[Diabel]

I was about to start a new thread...noting how quiet VC (Everburn) owners have been lately!!

Perhaps that's because all us new VC owners finally think we figured our stoves out?

AHHH, just when you begin to think that you have it figured out....this stove will throw you a curve ball........ :lol:

 

[Northern NH Mike]

Perhaps that's because all us new VC owners finally think we figured our stoves out?

Man, that's where I was over the weekend. This issue really burned me up (no pun intended).

I cemented in a new gasket last night and sealed spaces where the collar bolts don't seem to seal well.

Over this winter I burned two cords of wood w/o incident; one of those cords was kiln dried while the other was naturally dried. This incident occurred with small pieces of naturally dried, half of which was softwood.

I'm going to run it tonight to cure the cement and we'll see what happens next. The reactionary in me is trying to think of a way to unload the stove this summer and research an new one (likely at a financial loss), but the stove ran soooo well this winter.