Small top-loading stove options, please!

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

After about 30 years, my parents VC Resolute gave in, and the fireback failed. They limped through the end of last season with it. Too dangerous to use it anymore, don't have time or energy to fix it.

I need to find a replacement. Only requirements are small and top loading.

My folks are 86 and 87, and as the cold sets in, they changed their minds and want a stove. The room is small, and the Resolute produced more than enough heat.

I'll be hooking it up, and I supply all their wood.

Help with options, please!

 

[webby3650]

Does VC still make the Intrepid 11?

 

[Ashful]

Any thoughts toward opening up the doors to other rooms, so you’re not locked into small stoves?

Not a lot of top loaders on the market, anymore. I assume they’re demanding this feature, based on experience with their prior stove?

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I don’t know what modern stove options you have. The experts can tell you if they’re out there.

If you’re open to a Classic, you might be able to find a used Lange. My 82 year old mother has used the same one for more than half her life, and it’s still in great shape. She uses it as a front-loader, but there is a top hatch of sorts. It’s round and may have been designed for a kettle or pot, but it can be used to top load if you don’t need to pack it full. My mother opens it up after she sweeps her hearth and dumps the contents of the dustpan in there, and I don’t ever recall it spilling smoke.

The particular model I’m thinking of may be a 6303. That’s the picture I found on eBay when I searched a stove seller in Pennsylvania.

My mother still processes her own wood, though in recent years, she’s gotten help from folks in her church. Her shoulders have problems, and it’s difficult for her even to start her chainsaw. I wonder if she’ll still be loading a stove at 86 or 87.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Any thoughts toward opening up the doors to other rooms, so you’re not locked into small stoves?

Not a lot of top loaders on the market, anymore. I assume they’re demanding this feature, based on experience with their prior stove?

It's a walk out basement, with low ceilings. So, can't do anything about it. I tried for years to get them to put an insert in the upstairs living room with cathedral ceilings, Mom said she didn't want the mess up there. Won't be changing her mind now! So, up and down the stairs they go...

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

I suppose plan b is to take the Resolute I have in the barn, put the new gaskets in, slap a coat of stove paint on it, and get through the winter. I had stripped the paint off (it was rusty) and planned to rebuild it with new cement in the joints, top to bottom.

Now, how to wrestle that 400 lb hunk of iron down the steps without busting anything.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Does VC still make the Intrepid 11?

The Intrepid looks like a good fit, and as a VC would be as seemless a transaction for them as possible (unless I put my old Resolute in).

They even put a price, $2,599, on their website. That's definitely do-able.

Looks a little smaller than the Resolute, but that's just fine, probably better!

Thanks Webby!

 

[peakbagger]

I suppose plan b is to take the Resolute I have in the barn, put the new gaskets in, slap a coat of stove paint on it, and get through the winter. I had stripped the paint off (it was rusty) and planned to rebuild it with new cement in the joints, top to bottom.

Now, how to wrestle that 400 lb hunk of iron down the steps without busting anything.

If you get to Plan B, its a lot easier to bring clean freshly painted pieces down the stairs and do the final assembly on a couple pieces of cardboard on the floor in the basement then lugging the thing down complete. I did that with my Defiant a couple of times. Major Caveat is burning in the paint in the basement is not pleasant. I did in early fall so I could open all the windows.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

If you get to Plan B, its a lot easier to bring clean freshly painted pieces down the stairs and do the final assembly on a couple pieces of cardboard on the floor in the basement then lugging the thing down complete. I did that with my Defiant a couple of times. Major Caveat is burning in the paint in the basement is not pleasant. I did in early fall so I could open all the windows.

Thanks PB. Simple as that seems, I'd have not thought of it.

I think I'm at code red to get them a workable stove this year. I suppose I'm fortunate to have picked up that old Resolute off CL, it's plug and play, and is just taking up space in the barn. It's going down as-is, and then I'll reapply the new gaskets, in-situ.

Hopefully I'll have another crack at getting it rebuilt and repainted next summer.

Funny the way life works out, sometimes.