VC Resolute III

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Oct 15, 2012
3
Strafford VT
Hi All,

New to the forum and looking forward to your expertise, My husband and I live in Vermont and bought a used VC Resolute III yesterday for our 27" opening fireplace space. We sold a HearthStone propane stove that came with the house (want to heat with wood) and found it very difficult to find a stove small enough for the fireplace opening but large enough to heat our 1200 square foot home. My question is- on the back of the stove it has an adjustable damper linkage on a chain to control air flow. Can some one explain exactly how that works? We noticed when we returned home the mechanism is very loosey goosey, not tight at all. Do we turn the leaver to adjust air flow?

Thanks for all your help

Kate
 
The air control is not stiff. It controls a thermostatic damper that links via a chain to the actual air intake. It's been decades since I ran a Resolute, but if you look at the back of the stove you can see how the mechanism works. I think it was if the lever was to the left it opened the air shutter down in the back, lower left side of the stove and to the right it closed the air. But visually confirm this because I may have it backward.

I would recommend downloading the manual for the stove and read it through. This covers all the early VC stoves. It's in 3 parts here:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/wiki/Vermont_Castings_Older_Stove_Models/
 
That is your primary air intake. If it it working properly it will open and close as the stove heats an cools. This is the same assembly I had on my old Vigilant.

For start-ups, open the intake fully. Once the wood has charred, close the damper down. As the stove goes through the cycle it should open on it's own. If it is really "loosey goosie" you may hear it tapping while the stove is running.

I second the manual download suggestion. Good luck! Those little stove can throw a lot of heat. Just make absolute certain you are burning dry wood.
 
My BIL & SIL have a Resolute III. Open the air to get the fire going, then once it is established, set the lever to the temp you want the stove to run at. Never have a roaring fire, just a lively fire to get it up to temp. You don't want to stress your stove or chimney pipe. Get a stove top thermometer to tell you how hot the stove is. Be aware that the stove top will lag behind the actual fire box temp when ramping up from a cold start. I think the manual says 700* max on the stove top. You will want to burn the stove in the 500-600 range for the cleanest burn, but you will probably go through a fair bit of wood. I hope you have some good, dry wood (split and stacked in the wind for a year, two years for Oak.) To keep you from roasting yourself out of the stove room and to distribute the heat to other areas of the house, you can use a small fan on the floor in the hall or where ever, moving the denser cool air into the stove room. You will get to know where to set the lever to maintain the temp you want on the stove top. Different woods will burn with varying heat intensities, something you'll also get a feel for with experience. There's also a little air flap on the left side bottom. This is for the "horizontal burn" described in the manual, an early attempt at a cleaner burn. It's supposed to pull the smoke across the flames to re-burn it. I have not played with their stove enough to know what kind of stove loading/air-source blending will give the cleanest burns. It is a cool little stove, though, and the top-loading feature is nice. :)
 
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