VC Intrepid Flexburn vs Woodstock Absolute Steel hybrid

[Dejvan]

Hi everyone, new to the forum and hoping to get some opinions. We live in NE Tennessee. House is 1250 sqf, single floor with open floor plan connecting to 3 bedrooms. The main source of heat (since we bought the house 4 years ago) has been our “wondercoal” stove. We are getting chimney all fixed up with new liner etc. and getting new wood stove that is less “eye sore”. Again the wood stove will be main source of heat when we get to end of October and will be used daily until at least March years to come. We’ve got a great deal at local store on VC Intrepid flexburn that somebody changed their mind on and didn’t pick up. Beautiful stove and really great deal.
At same price we can get the Woodstock Absolute Steel hybrid which we can personalize, great reviews, excellent customer support/service and in my opinion “workhorse” wood stove.
Appreciate all the input, experience on both.

 

[Todd]

Go with the Woodstock, much better stove imo. VC’s tend to be very finicky to run and can be high maintenance. The Intrepid is also a very small stove, larger would be better if this is going to be your primary heat.

 

[John Lehet]

I had a VC Intrepid many years ago. Maybe they are different now, but in 45 years of wood burning, that Intrepid was absolutely the worst stove I ever burned. One of the prettiest for sure, but otherwise not good.

I have a Woodstock Progress on order to replace my Jotul, and I’m quite excited about it. I have a real life friend with an Ideal Steel from them, and he has said, “It’s the best money we’ve ever spent” — he is a friend who has also burned wood in Vermont for 45 years, and in fact we had wood stoves when we were house mates in the early 80s.

And online there is an awful lot of praise for the Woodstock stoves and a lot of grumbling about VC.

 

[Dejvan]

I had a VC Intrepid many years ago. Maybe they are different now, but in 45 years of wood burning, that Intrepid was absolutely the worst stove I ever burned. One of the prettiest for sure, but otherwise not good.

I have a Woodstock Progress on order to replace my Jotul, and I’m quite excited about it. I have a real life friend with an Ideal Steel from them, and he has said, “It’s the best money we’ve ever spent” — he is a friend who has also burned wood in Vermont for 45 years, and in fact we had wood stoves when we were house mates in the early 80s.

And online there is an awful lot of praise for the Woodstock stoves and a lot of grumbling about VC.

we love the look of the ideal, but it’s overkill for our small house.
We canceled the VC intrepid today and going to order Woodstock this evening

 

[Dejvan]

Thanks guys for your responses

 

[Todd]

Congrats! You made a good choice, let us know how it works out.