Hi everyone,
This is my first post and I have not read through the forum exhaustively (athough I have tried to read as much as I can!) so please let me know if this is repetitive. I have a bit of a saga here and I want to make sure I am drawing the right conclusions from it. First, the data:
Chimney: Exterior 6" metal insulated +/-27 feet total (incl. interior stovepipe portion), 2 90 degree elbows
Wood: Mix of ash, birch, maple split in late winter and seasoned over spring/summer/fall, 3-6" splits (we don't have a moisture meter but it sounds pretty good on the knock test)
Previous wood stove (worked well): Regency Hampton H300 (1.7 cu. ft., non-cat)
More recent wood stove (disaster): VC Defiant 1975-CAT-C (3.2 cu. ft., cat)
The story:
We had the Hampton stove (it came with the house) for 4 seasons and put about 4 cords/year through it without any issues with the wood described above. We got about 6-8 hour burns with a full load and pretty good heat. If anything we had a little bit too much draft - fire didn't slow all the way down all the time when the primary air was closed. We replaced the Hampton with the Defiant for two reasons. First, we wanted a bit more heat to keep our propane baseboard system from kicking in overnight, as well as longer burns. Second, other folks in our family had great experiences with VC and sold us on the product.
It didn't go well. The Defiant gave us a lot of problems, and we had some scary repetitive catalyst overheats that filled our home with toxic smoke.
My question is: as we look for a replacement, should we avoid a cat stove in this setup with this wood? We don't have space to store wood 2 seasons and I can't stand to go through that process with the overheating and the toxic smoke again. I'm inclined to go back ton non-cat but I don't want to miss out on the efficiency, burn times etc. if I'm scared for no reason.
Really appreciate your thoughts.
This is my first post and I have not read through the forum exhaustively (athough I have tried to read as much as I can!) so please let me know if this is repetitive. I have a bit of a saga here and I want to make sure I am drawing the right conclusions from it. First, the data:
Chimney: Exterior 6" metal insulated +/-27 feet total (incl. interior stovepipe portion), 2 90 degree elbows
Wood: Mix of ash, birch, maple split in late winter and seasoned over spring/summer/fall, 3-6" splits (we don't have a moisture meter but it sounds pretty good on the knock test)
Previous wood stove (worked well): Regency Hampton H300 (1.7 cu. ft., non-cat)
More recent wood stove (disaster): VC Defiant 1975-CAT-C (3.2 cu. ft., cat)
The story:
We had the Hampton stove (it came with the house) for 4 seasons and put about 4 cords/year through it without any issues with the wood described above. We got about 6-8 hour burns with a full load and pretty good heat. If anything we had a little bit too much draft - fire didn't slow all the way down all the time when the primary air was closed. We replaced the Hampton with the Defiant for two reasons. First, we wanted a bit more heat to keep our propane baseboard system from kicking in overnight, as well as longer burns. Second, other folks in our family had great experiences with VC and sold us on the product.
It didn't go well. The Defiant gave us a lot of problems, and we had some scary repetitive catalyst overheats that filled our home with toxic smoke.
My question is: as we look for a replacement, should we avoid a cat stove in this setup with this wood? We don't have space to store wood 2 seasons and I can't stand to go through that process with the overheating and the toxic smoke again. I'm inclined to go back ton non-cat but I don't want to miss out on the efficiency, burn times etc. if I'm scared for no reason.
Really appreciate your thoughts.