Vermont Castings Defiant 1975

[asosorio]

Hi everyone!

New to this site and wood stoves... I recently bought a home that has a Vermont Castings Defiant from 1975 I believe (inside says 1975)

I have looked up a few how-to videos but most are of newer versions that have handles/dampers/air controls that mine does not have.

We have been using it but have been going through A LOT of wood and it seems to only heat up one room in the house - it is a 1,400 sq/ft 2 family house and I am looking to heat up at least my first floor (about 700-800 sq feet), I have read of people using this solely stove to heat up 2,500 sq/ft + homes, so I assume I am doing something wrong!

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated! it is currently 7 degrees here in MA!

 

[peakbagger]

Have you read the manuals ?https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/vermont-castings-older-stove-models/.

Your stove should have the important part, which is the bypass damper which shifts the heat from going straight up and out the stack to being diverted to a secondary chamber on the right side of the stove which the flows behind the fireback and then out the stack. If you open the right front door you should see a horizontal slot starting at the front wall of the stove running back to the fireback. Note if the stove is full of ashes and this slot if blocked the bypass will not work. The damper is controlled by the lever just above the side loading door. Its normally horizontal to start the stove and then is rotated down to vertical once the stove is hot. It blocks the door from being opened when in bypass mode to remind you that when loading wood you need to open it up to cut back on smoke coming back out the door.

In theory, there is small port on the lower left side near the back that can be opened to allow secondary air to flow into the secondary chamber. Note that fly ash can be carried out of the secondary chamber behind the fireback and eventually can plug the exhaust flow through the bypass. This area is supposed to be cleaned yearly. In order to get to it the damper and a cast iron plate needs to be removed and its not obvious but is in the manual. My guess is the bypass could be plugged. The other reason to clean this is it can cause the fireback to crack prematurely.

You do need to check the plate on the back of the stove to make sure what year it is. The date cast in the fireback is when the company was founded.

You are correct that a defiant should heat a large area. The usual problem with a Defiant is its too big and they take some playing around to make it burn at low rate.

If when you get fire going that you can hear the wood hissing, it means that your wood is wet. No matter what the stove design if you have wet wood its not going to put out a lot of heat.

 

[asosorio]

Have you read the manuals ?https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/vermont-castings-older-stove-models/.

Your stove should have the important part, which is the bypass damper which shifts the heat from going straight up and out the stack to being diverted to a secondary chamber on the right side of the stove which the flows behind the fireback and then out the stack. If you open the right front door you should see a horizontal slot starting at the front wall of the stove running back to the fireback. Note if the stove is full of ashes and this slot if blocked the bypass will not work. The damper is controlled by the lever just above the side loading door. Its normally horizontal to start the stove and then is rotated down to vertical once the stove is hot. It blocks the door from being opened when in bypass mode to remind you that when loading wood you need to open it up to cut back on smoke coming back out the door.

In theory, there is small port on the lower left side near the back that can be opened to allow secondary air to flow into the secondary chamber. Note that fly ash can be carried out of the secondary chamber behind the fireback and eventually can plug the exhaust flow through the bypass. This area is supposed to be cleaned yearly. In order to get to it the damper and a cast iron plate needs to be removed and its not obvious but is in the manual. My guess is the bypass could be plugged. The other reason to clean this is it can cause the fireback to crack prematurely.

You do need to check the plate on the back of the stove to make sure what year it is. The date cast in the fireback is when the company was founded.

You are correct that a defiant should heat a large area. The usual problem with a Defiant is its too big and they take some playing around to make it burn at low rate.

If when you get fire going that you can hear the wood hissing, it means that your wood is wet. No matter what the stove design if you have wet wood its not going to put out a lot of heat.

Thank you! After reading some of the forums and the manual turns out we were running it in 'fireplace' mode- damper open and doors open to see the fire- today we have doors and damper closed and house went from 56 degrees this mornign to 72 degrees currently (all on 4 logs of wood, before we were using 8-10 a day with not this much heat coming off!)

Thank you for the help!

 

[peakbagger]

You will be walking around in T shirts before you know it . Running in fireplace mode will pull a lot of air into the house and actually cool it down.

Definitely get a thorough cleaning and chimney inspection on the schedule ASAP. One FYI with a Defiant is that you have to be careful not to get it up to temperature, then load it up with logs and close the thermostatic damper to try to stretch out the time between loads. If you do, it may backpuff. A backpuff is when there isnt enough air in the stove to burn the gases being produced by the hot wood in the stove. You will hear a "whuff" and possibly a rattle from the air flap in the back of the stove or if its an extreme one, the oval cooling plate will lift up from the top of the stove. Definitely not recommended.

 

[asosorio]

Makes sense! We had a chimney company come out and do a cleaning in October, do you think it is needed again?

Also do you know if it is possible at all to put glass doors on this model? The date on the back says it was safety tested 6/27/1979

 

[peakbagger]

No need to check the chimney as long unless you are burning real wet wood. Running with the bypass off probably kept your chimney quite hot so low chance of creosote ,A chimney cleaning and inspection is my standard warning to folks who sound like they are new to burning wood. If you have a chimney with a clean out, just use a mirror at an angle in the clean out on a sunny day to look up the chimney (if its straight). I am quite surprised how well I can the condition of the flue.

There is someone real good with Defiants on hearth, "Defiant 3" that normally replies to Defiant questions, he may be familiar with glass doors but expect it wouldn't be an easy swap over as the air inlet system would need to be changed to get air wash across the glass, otherwise I would guess that the glass would soot up real quick. Mine came with a metal grille that sits over the opening with the doors open. I dont think I have ever used it.