I couple months ago I realized my VC Defiant Encore was not working any more – burns were too hot and too short. After looking at some options I realized none worked well but the existing flue height. All of the other good stove options were a couple inches too tall, expensive, and I still liked our stove.
So after realizing I had nothing to loose I took the whole thing apart – I did have a copy of the full service manual to use as a guide. The legs were still attached to the base but everything else was pulled apart. I found out it was seemingly in good shape except lots of the old stove cement was falling apart. Many of the pieces that the manual said would have to cold chiseled apart just pulled apart.
To make a very long story short – 2 months, about 60 man-hours of work, $800 in parts (about $300 were needed, $300 seemed to be a good idea while it was apart and $200 for the warming shelves), re-tapping several holes, one extra partial take it apart and do it again, and some searching for air leaks, it is done.
On the first attempt I did not get the upper fire back in correctly. It had been a long day of working on the stove and, with hindsight, it wasn’t fitting correctly. But I kept going. End result, stove was still to hot and fast. I tried to work around the non-tight fire back, but it would not work. So I did a second partial rebuilt – back and fireback off. This time it fit – there is a channel in the top that the fireback fits into. The first time the fireback was in front of the channel not in it, so the damper door wound not close right and it would leak too much air.
After the second rebuild it seemed to work. I spend a lot of time on the damper door – it works great now. Nice hard locking, smooth operation, no binding or rubbing when closing or opening. But still running a little too hot and fast, but better, but even with the primary air door closed I couldn’t get an overnight burn. With some more investigating with an incense stick I found a couple small air leaks and one large one at the ash door. I had done the adjustments to the ash door – and tried the papers in the door. That worked fine, but there was a gap right at the handle where I didn’t try putting a piece of paper for the pull test.
Now that it is fixed, I am getting 8-10 hour burns and lots of heat - it was 78 in the house yesterday – with stove temps comfortably below 700 on the top. In the 5 years we have been using the stove it has not worked this good. It feels good to have it working, but it was a pain and a lot of trial and error, worry about burning too hot, etc.
Now that it is working it seems to be worth the effort. But there were several times I was wondering if I was just throwing good time and money after bad.
Also, remember the andirons go in before starting a fire.
So after realizing I had nothing to loose I took the whole thing apart – I did have a copy of the full service manual to use as a guide. The legs were still attached to the base but everything else was pulled apart. I found out it was seemingly in good shape except lots of the old stove cement was falling apart. Many of the pieces that the manual said would have to cold chiseled apart just pulled apart.
To make a very long story short – 2 months, about 60 man-hours of work, $800 in parts (about $300 were needed, $300 seemed to be a good idea while it was apart and $200 for the warming shelves), re-tapping several holes, one extra partial take it apart and do it again, and some searching for air leaks, it is done.
On the first attempt I did not get the upper fire back in correctly. It had been a long day of working on the stove and, with hindsight, it wasn’t fitting correctly. But I kept going. End result, stove was still to hot and fast. I tried to work around the non-tight fire back, but it would not work. So I did a second partial rebuilt – back and fireback off. This time it fit – there is a channel in the top that the fireback fits into. The first time the fireback was in front of the channel not in it, so the damper door wound not close right and it would leak too much air.
After the second rebuild it seemed to work. I spend a lot of time on the damper door – it works great now. Nice hard locking, smooth operation, no binding or rubbing when closing or opening. But still running a little too hot and fast, but better, but even with the primary air door closed I couldn’t get an overnight burn. With some more investigating with an incense stick I found a couple small air leaks and one large one at the ash door. I had done the adjustments to the ash door – and tried the papers in the door. That worked fine, but there was a gap right at the handle where I didn’t try putting a piece of paper for the pull test.
Now that it is fixed, I am getting 8-10 hour burns and lots of heat - it was 78 in the house yesterday – with stove temps comfortably below 700 on the top. In the 5 years we have been using the stove it has not worked this good. It feels good to have it working, but it was a pain and a lot of trial and error, worry about burning too hot, etc.
Now that it is working it seems to be worth the effort. But there were several times I was wondering if I was just throwing good time and money after bad.
Also, remember the andirons go in before starting a fire.
