Our Vigilant 1977 came with our new house and we've been mucking around with it all Winter trying to get it to burn efficiently, but it just burns too hot for us. My husband replaced the gasket rope around the doors and griddle, which did help quite a bit. The living room thermostat now says 80 degrees instead of 88 after it has been going for a couple/few hours. But we're used to 68 degrees! Our house is 2 stories and just over 1500 sq ft and the whole house gets well over 72 degrees with the stove going; but our living room, kitchen and dining area are unbearably hot.
As I understand it, the Vigilant was designed to be able to load it up with 6 or more logs after you get it going and put it into "sideways" mode, and it should burn slow all night long - or all day, and it should burn mostly at the bottom of the pile. We absolutely can not load it up unless we also open up the door to our 3 season porch - which is what we're doing now, even if we load just a couple of logs in. And it doesn't only burn at the bottom. All of the logs in the stack are flaming at least a bit.
I shut the side vent completely once the fire gets going and the automatic back vent usually shuts itself completely too. It seems to be burning too hot and too fast for the amount of air we're giving it. As I said, we replaced the gasket rope on the doors and the griddle. Are there any more seals that we could replace? Or anything else we can do to slow down the burn? If this is the best we can do, I'm thinking of moving the thing into the basement!
As I understand it, the Vigilant was designed to be able to load it up with 6 or more logs after you get it going and put it into "sideways" mode, and it should burn slow all night long - or all day, and it should burn mostly at the bottom of the pile. We absolutely can not load it up unless we also open up the door to our 3 season porch - which is what we're doing now, even if we load just a couple of logs in. And it doesn't only burn at the bottom. All of the logs in the stack are flaming at least a bit.
I shut the side vent completely once the fire gets going and the automatic back vent usually shuts itself completely too. It seems to be burning too hot and too fast for the amount of air we're giving it. As I said, we replaced the gasket rope on the doors and the griddle. Are there any more seals that we could replace? Or anything else we can do to slow down the burn? If this is the best we can do, I'm thinking of moving the thing into the basement!
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