2014/2015 VC Owners thread.

[Excavator]

I did not take shell apart on my 0028. I removed front doors then the damper, upper and lower fireback and then combuster and refractor. I used new gaskets including on front doors, griddle and ash pan

 

[Reckless]

My parts finally arrived for the 2550. I am debating, the stove at the moment is gutted, all of the inner parts are out. The outer shell is intact as well as the area underneath the refractory (where the throttle line runs).
Should I take apart the outer shell? This would then classify as a total rebuild, or should I bother?

I know some of the fellas here have done both, I need your opinion on how I should proceed. Ripping the outer shell apart would add substantial amount of labor hours.

It is ALOT of work. The only reason I did mine was the rear casting had a crack near the where the flue collar attaches. If you do decide to go ahead make sure you have plenty of grinding bits and most important DRY FIT THE STOVE BACK TOGETHER before you start applying cement. Make sharpie marks on all wall to wall meetings, especially where the rear meets the sides and upper fireback. You might also need a second set of hands when bolting the ufb back on.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

New guy to thread, I must say I love my VC Montpielier, I have had a long learning experience with it but that is mainly due to the the dryness of the wood, this is my third year burning and have all under 19.9% moisture content of firewood, this is my best year burning! room can get up to 80 degrees if I push it, I'm always messing around with it and trying to learn what's best for what time and temp is out there. But NOTHING BEATS DRY WOOD!.........

 

[hydes2004]

I have my winter warm out of the fireplace and am trying to clean it up. Anyone have any tricks to get this creosote off?? (broken image removed)(broken image removed)

 

[begreen]

Hot fire for the top section. Use a torch or don't worry about it in the ash pan but make sure there are no air leaks on the door into that area.

 

[Reckless]

Hot fire for the top section. Use a torch or don't worry about it in the ash pan but make sure there are no air leaks on the door into that area.

+1 and burn dry wood [emoji13]
Don't worry about it.

 

[hydes2004]

Thanks guys, wood is currently all less than 18%. It's CSS for over 2 years now. The door on the winter warn is a pita to seal properly. Once I get it back into the fireplace, I'll do the dollar bill test. So far she has all new gaskets, including the flue adaptor gasket, a nice clean cat, and the addition of a condar digital cat probe.

 

[hydes2004]

R(broken image removed)(broken image removed)


A shot of the cat probe

 

[Diabel]

Thanks for the replies re the rebuild.
Reckless, great tip about the sharpie markings! Thank you.
I am tempted to tear it all apart, so I can say a total rebuild was done. That way I will not have doubts in terms of leaks.
The 0028 is running surprisingly nice, with the makeshift refractory box. I might be pushing it however. The season is still young. I am starting to believe that she will last the season.....

 

[EncoreInMass]

Hello All!
I have to first say how grateful I am to the Hearth community. I have a VC Encore 2550 that was in our house when we moved in in 2003...I think it's a 2000 or 2001 model with Cat. Well all we have is electric baseboard and our first month in the house our electric bill was $635..and that was with all the thermostats at 68F...so we realized we had to get the stove working. All we would do is start a fire and let it burn. I had no idea how the cat worked...but for years whenever I closed the damper the stove would subtly leak smoke (not puff) out of the seams of the top and door...So we just never used the catalyst setting...
Then I was poking around this year with a question about the fiberglass gasket that is around the rear bottom inlet and I found Hearth.com...and it has changed our heating world. It inspired me to take the fireback off and take a look at what was going on with that catalyst..Well to my delight and surprise the catalyst and refractory assembly were in beautiful shape..but I figured out why it wasn't working...the entire thing was filled with ash...all up the sides and through the catalyst! I cleaned the whole thing out and discovered 2 year ago I had thrown out the metal wedges that hold the fireback in...it was being held in by all the ash wedged in the seams..Once I cleaned it all out it would no longer stay in place...I have to order 2 wedges but for now I used to granite stones from my landscaping..
Well since it's been fixed the cat works amazing. I can load up 2 or 3 logs and get a 4 hour burn with some serious heat. With our old method we would be burning 2 to 4 logs an hour to get the fire hot enough to heat the house...Now 2 logs heats the livingroom to 80F It's crazy to think of how much wood we have wasted. I burned 5 cords last winter and the fire went out maybe 4x.
We are going to also use some of the Idaho overnight logs this year...we're picking up a pallet of them to see what we think. We will be burning them at the end of the day to keep the fire overnight and to keep the fire going when we are at work. Already it's been a dream with the catalyst...I use to have to set an alarm for 4am to reload the stove or it would have been dead cold by 6:30 am...Now we are waking up to a 70+F livingroom....instead of 54-62F....
Side note...in 2006 the right hand door hinge gouged it way through the base hole of the stove and the door was no longer staying on...I fixed it using a welders rod cut to fit deeper into the hole than the dangling rod.
We move the heat around the ranch house quite efficiently using small honeywell fans on the floor blowing back to the stove....we can get the 54F Master bedroom to 68+ degrees with just the fans.
Well time to load more wood...we are riding out this crazy snowstorm and it hit 80F in the livingroom...

 

[Excavator]

EncoreinMass Great story. Glad to see you dove in and found the problem. I always say that the problem can be solved. It is just 3 feet in front of you just waiting for some one to look whether it is a stove or a car or anything. This is the positive side of the internet and computers. We can search and find answers with just a little patience.

 

[OK_Bill]

... This is the positive side of the internet and computers. We can search and find answers with just a little patience.

Ain't that the truth! My brand new Encore 2044 seemed to be burning a bit too fast and hot. With the help of the forum here, I was able to diagnose and fix the issue. Turns out there was a problem with the primary air control door not fully closing; the ash pan door latch was out of adjustment - and the damper manifold seal was misplaced.

I was just thinking how difficult it would be to get all this resolved with maybe my Compton's encyclopedia set... NOT! It would have required a service call for sure.

Happy Thanksgiving to y'all from OKC!

 

[OK_Bill]

Much talk about CAT probes in the thread. The other day I received the Condar digital unit with probe. Looked ok and would definitely get the job done but I found something better. Much better - and much less $$.

Its the AGPtek dual display unit. Price is only &17.98

The AGPtek unit is two channel, so can monitor two type-K thermocouples. On both channels, it also can track min/max/avg temps and can be user calibrated. Like the Condar unit, this one runs on a 9v battery. It ships with 2 probes as shown that are rated for only 250C (480F) so I ordered a couple extra probes rated for higher temps:

These probes are perfect for CAT temp application with operating range from -100 to 1250C (2280F max) and are sized just right for placement through the factory located probe hole into the CAT chamber. I'm gonna thread the hole in the back of the stove so this probe will neatly screw in. Price is only $11.39. So with the base unit the total system cost is $40.76 (17.98 + 2x 11.39) This with 2 of the above probes, and we're spending only about 1/3 the cost of the Condar digital system.

The motive to do this is because secondary air on the Encore 2040 is unregulated, and I want to know what its doing. With this setup, it will be possible to see the CAT probe condition directly.

Next project might be to add a secondary air control door and control the stove with a custom programmed micro controller. Use servo actuators on both primary and secondary air with multiple feedback sources such as CAT temp, stove top temp, flue temp, room temp, etc. With this, the stove would be fully controllable and CAT temp could be regulated directly - similar to how BK's run but with much more finesse. I bet burn times could be nearly doubled.

 

[hydes2004]

Wow wish you posted chandelier. The condor is very cheesy and it's expensive

 

[OK_Bill]

Wow wish you posted chandelier. The condor is very cheesy and it's expensive

Chandelier? Not sure what you mean there.... yes agree the Condor probe is $$$. Its being returned for a refund.

 

[hydes2004]

Lol that supposed to say earlier. Didn't take a double look at it as the 5 week old was screaming...... I am wondering what type of probe is on the condom. I wonder if it is a k type... then I could rig up something myself for the display. The condar unit is controlled by a micro. I was hoping it was just a timer I could disable, but that's not the case.

 

[OK_Bill]

I don't know what probe the Condar unit uses, but if I was betting on it I'd guess its a type-K Chromel-Alumel type probe.

 

[Charles1981]

Damn man... where do you find all this stuff (the previous videos ect). You have to let us know how that temp probe works for you. I have hesitated in buying the Condar unit as I felt it was excessively pricey..

But if that setup works for ya I am definitely going to give that a whirl.

 

[OK_Bill]

Charles, the videos were actually linked through this forum somewhat obscurely, so they did require some digging. Yes, the simple single channel and rather coarse Condar system is pretty expensive for what it is. Thermocouples are dirt simple, and should be priced accordingly. The Condar folks are simply taking advantage of what they see as a captive audience.

I'll have a report on the AGPtek system in a couple days.

Anyhow - I have a question for you - since I'm getting a two channel unit, where do you think a good spot would be for the other probe? I could stick it in the flue, or I could use one of the two supplied surface probes somewhere on the outside of the stove. Any ideas?

 

[OK_Bill]

just noticed this:

(snip) I am wondering what type of probe is on the condom ...

Ummm... I'm not gonna tell you.

 

[hydes2004]

Lol, spellcheck gets the best of me on the phone

 

[hydes2004]

So I'm think I'm going to tackle installing the liner and reinstalling the stove today. I'll also add my wood score. I have about 3+ barrels of hardwood floor scraps. My soon to be brother in law owns his own flooring company. He has been dropping these off lately.

 

[hydes2004]

Well, she's in. 8" liner installed. It's 80 in the room, cat is at 1400 currently, just cut the air back. Here are a few pics. Let the burning season commence! (broken image removed)(broken image removed)(broken image removed)(broken image removed)(broken image removed)

 

[Harmonica Papa]

Wood use??
I have a VC large winter warm and I am curious about wood use. I know there are many variables on operation that impact this, but how much wood do you use on a typical day (24 hour burn), if the temperatures are in 20's or 30's (not real cold). There are many ways of quantifying wood use (# of splits, arm loads, wheel barrows, etc) but if you could describe it in wheel barrows or cubic feet, that would be of most help. I use a heaping 3 cubic foot wheel barrow (or a little more) on a typical day. I'm trying to see if my wood use is in line with others.

 

[Reckless]

Wood use??
I have a VC large winter warm and I am curious about wood use. I know there are many variables on operation that impact this, but how much wood do you use on a typical day (24 hour burn), if the temperatures are in 20's or 30's (not real cold). There are many ways of quantifying wood use (# of splits, arm loads, wheel barrows, etc) but if you could describe it in wheel barrows or cubic feet, that would be of most help. I use a heaping 3 cubic foot wheel barrow (or a little more) on a typical day. I'm trying to see if my wood use is in line with others.

I'm running a 2550.
What temp are you reloading your stove? Yesterday was a high of 32 overnight got down to 14 and I probably used a full wheelbarrow. I typically burn in 4 hour sets with 3-4 smaller splits maple, ash, oak then 4-6 large pieces of ash and oak for my 8hr +/- overnight (keep in mind I run my stove HOT 650 GT range and reload around 350ish. Your usage sounds a little high for a mild day imo.