I recently found a brand new Encore NC 1450 marked down by $400 so I decided to give it a try. I was fully expecting that this would be a lifetime investment. The stove is beautiful and extremely well-crafted. All of the castings are flawless and fit perfectly. I had it for 3 weeks.
My set up:
15’ of 6” Class A chimney straight up through center of house, plus 5 ft of singlewall stove pipe with 2 45 bends…total just under 20ft
This required the optional 6” flue collar.
Rutland magnetic on center of stovetop just behind the griddle.
To make a very long and EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING story as short as possible. This thing, with medium stovetop temps (450-550) would glow in the back. It was the Inner Back where the hot secondary gasses escape. Well, The manual says that “if any part glows it is an overfire….excessive draft can cause an overfire.” So the problem was the chimney. The manual also says that for 6” chimney the MIN height should be 17 to 18 ft. Heck, I was worried that it wouldn’t draft enough. The dealer suggested a damper, so I tried it. With the damper wide open the stove would smoke into the house when I re-loaded and it would still glow even after adjusting the damper. The inner back glowed once even after I CLOSED the damper (effectively closing the chimney) and I had to stuff a glove in the air intake to shut it down. I did get it to work a few times but it was a science project each time I put wood into it and required constant attention to prevent it from glowing and to prevent the secondary burn system from stalling and thus causing smoke. The dealer continued to insist that it is all my fault and that VC are really good stoves (also would not contact VC for me, nor would they give me a contact number for VC). They even suggested that I was overfiring the stove because I was trying to heat too big an area for it. There was also mention of a butterfly damper in combination with a barometric damper. The most frustrating part is that I followed every instruction in the manual from set up to operation diligently and it still had problems. I was very angry and insisted that I trade it in for something else. I’m now getting a completely different brand.
My evaluation:
For this stove my problem was too much draft. If you are getting one of these stoves do not vent into a 6” chimney even though the manual says its ok. I think that for a given amount of air flow that this stove requires, the 6” causes the flue gases to move at a higher velocity relative to an 8” flue. This causes the hot everburn gases to slam against the inner back before they escape into the chimney (causing the glowing). The 8” collar is a very wide oval which is almost open over top of the everburn exit holes. My guess is that the hot everburn gases with a 8” flue go right up the chimney without slamming against the cast iron back first. Once the butterfly damper was installed it was a game between no glow, and stalling the everburn. I couldn't live like that.
I think this stove would work very well with an 8” flue collar vented into a reasonably tall interior masonry chimney. Before I realized that the back was glowing, the everburn seemed to run flawlessly and I was very happy with it. It would go 4 to 5 hours between loading with no smoke at all. The draft requirements are not published for this stove so how can you know if it will overfire….until…..it overfires. Of course Vermont castings has very few warranty claims on these stoves. They have no contact info so you have to go through the dealer which always blames the guy who bought it. I bet the guy at VC corporate who came up with that system gets a fat check each year.
My set up:
15’ of 6” Class A chimney straight up through center of house, plus 5 ft of singlewall stove pipe with 2 45 bends…total just under 20ft
This required the optional 6” flue collar.
Rutland magnetic on center of stovetop just behind the griddle.
To make a very long and EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING story as short as possible. This thing, with medium stovetop temps (450-550) would glow in the back. It was the Inner Back where the hot secondary gasses escape. Well, The manual says that “if any part glows it is an overfire….excessive draft can cause an overfire.” So the problem was the chimney. The manual also says that for 6” chimney the MIN height should be 17 to 18 ft. Heck, I was worried that it wouldn’t draft enough. The dealer suggested a damper, so I tried it. With the damper wide open the stove would smoke into the house when I re-loaded and it would still glow even after adjusting the damper. The inner back glowed once even after I CLOSED the damper (effectively closing the chimney) and I had to stuff a glove in the air intake to shut it down. I did get it to work a few times but it was a science project each time I put wood into it and required constant attention to prevent it from glowing and to prevent the secondary burn system from stalling and thus causing smoke. The dealer continued to insist that it is all my fault and that VC are really good stoves (also would not contact VC for me, nor would they give me a contact number for VC). They even suggested that I was overfiring the stove because I was trying to heat too big an area for it. There was also mention of a butterfly damper in combination with a barometric damper. The most frustrating part is that I followed every instruction in the manual from set up to operation diligently and it still had problems. I was very angry and insisted that I trade it in for something else. I’m now getting a completely different brand.
My evaluation:
For this stove my problem was too much draft. If you are getting one of these stoves do not vent into a 6” chimney even though the manual says its ok. I think that for a given amount of air flow that this stove requires, the 6” causes the flue gases to move at a higher velocity relative to an 8” flue. This causes the hot everburn gases to slam against the inner back before they escape into the chimney (causing the glowing). The 8” collar is a very wide oval which is almost open over top of the everburn exit holes. My guess is that the hot everburn gases with a 8” flue go right up the chimney without slamming against the cast iron back first. Once the butterfly damper was installed it was a game between no glow, and stalling the everburn. I couldn't live like that.
I think this stove would work very well with an 8” flue collar vented into a reasonably tall interior masonry chimney. Before I realized that the back was glowing, the everburn seemed to run flawlessly and I was very happy with it. It would go 4 to 5 hours between loading with no smoke at all. The draft requirements are not published for this stove so how can you know if it will overfire….until…..it overfires. Of course Vermont castings has very few warranty claims on these stoves. They have no contact info so you have to go through the dealer which always blames the guy who bought it. I bet the guy at VC corporate who came up with that system gets a fat check each year.
And that frustrated me...was I the only person/idiot who had to monitor (babysit) the stove for hour or two after realods (especially for overnights). But now after three yrs. of reading other posters experiences & their different stoves & have concluded that there are no such stoves "load & forget"
