Help with Vermont casting resolute

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gva482

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Feb 7, 2007
3
I recently purchased a home which has a Vermont Casting Resolute in our family room. The room is on a slab (no basement underneath). The room is about 15' x 21'. As it gets colder, it is getting increasingly difficult to maintain a warmer temporature. As far as I can tell from the Vermont Casting web site the stove is rated at 40,000 BTU's which should be enough to heat the room. According to the thermostat on the stove, I can get the tempature as high as 525 degrees. Even still it doesn't seem to through the heat as it should. I've tried everything i should. Flue open, flue closed, front doors opened, front doors closed, rear vent open, rear vent closed, and every combination. Unless you stand a few feet from the stove, you can barely feel the heat. Any help anyone can provide would be GREATLY appreciated. We have a wonderful resource, but apparently don't have enough knowledge to use it or recognise if it is somehow defective.
 
I assume an older model Resolute? One door, two doors? - drop down doors?
There is a manual for the older Resolute at our Wiki - search for vermont castings and the article says something about older stoves.

The stove should heat best in downdraft position once it is going. You should easily be able to get it above 600 or even 700 degrees on the griddle - or even higher. If you cannot, it is usually due to draft (many possible causes) or wood.
 
The room is well insulated. The west wall has double sliding door, east wall open double door arch way leading to the main section of the house, south wall solid, and the north wall has two small windows (about 3' by 4' each). The slab is over bare earth and carpeted. The floor is not so cold that walking in bare feet is uncomfortable. I've check for any possible draft in the room and all doors and windows seem pretty tight.
 
Yes the Resolute has two front doors which swing open left and right. Once it gets going, I do burn it in down draft, and have already downloaded the users manual from Vermont casting web site. Could the wood really be a possible cause?

On a side note: This forum is incredible. I've been on many forums, for many different areas, and never have i received such quick responses. Thank you for all the help.
 
Hey welcome to the forum, it's hard to believe that theres 481 gva's between us :cheese: just kidding..... Elk and he other VC'ers will be here soon.....
 
"kick-em wile there down"!!

EVERYBODY DOG PILE ON VERMONT CASTING STOVES !!

j/k

I owned a 1500 sf slab ranch style house and i can tell ya once the cold settles in and stays a wile dem-dare slabs can get cold. brrrrrr .

We actually installed a higher quality thicker pad under the carper and it helped a lot. Also i noticed everywhere the concrete came up to the house it made the house colder in that part of the home. ( ie: driveway / front porch / back porch )

Nothing to add on the stove but I'd like to add to make sure your wood is well seasoned to get the best / max BTUs out of your stove wile burning.
 
Dog pile of PE summit that would not heat in Somers NY. I wonder what ever happened to that guy. I faxed his town's inspector the codes he needed to get it installed correctly
and never heard a word since??? Dogpile Hod's PE door gasket problem

The problem here is the room and concrete slab. Also the stove can be run hotter. the differnces froma surface temp of 450 to 600 produces 100% more heat.

When its cold , 500 degrees will not cut it anymore. He mentions sliders notorious for leakage plus he does not mention any insulated curtains covering those winsows they are huge in heat
loss.

The poster does not mention his venting situation how so we know if the heat is going up t an exterior masonry chimney? If he can only get that stove to 500 degrees then either draft is poor or wood is less than seasoned he should be trying to hold it back from 650 -700 degrees Hell My familly room is bigger with cathredal ceilings and My Intrepid II is baking me out 74 degrees in here and bearly pushing the stove at 450. But I'm not on concrete slab
 
elkimmeg said:
Dog pile of PE summit that would not heat in Somers NY. I wonder what ever happened to that guy. I faxed his town's inspector the codes he needed to get it installed correctly
and never heard a word since??? Dogpile Hod's PE door gasket problem

Hahaha , Ole' Elker , yer a silly boy. LOL

I also wonder what happened to our ole stove insert fire place friend , we had the ball rolling perty good there.

elkimmeg said:
The problem here is the room and concrete slab. Also the stove can be run hotter. the differnces froma surface temp of 450 to 600 produces 100% more heat.

When its cold , 500 degrees will not cut it anymore. He mentions sliders notorious for leakage plus he does not mention any insulated curtains covering those winsows they are huge in heat
loss.

The poster does not mention his venting situation how so we know if the heat is going up t an exterior masonry chimney? If he can only get that stove to 500 degrees then either draft is poor or wood is less than seasoned he should be trying to hold it back from 650 -700 degrees Hell My familly room is bigger with cathredal ceilings and My Intrepid II is baking me out 74 degrees in here and bearly pushing the stove at 450. But I'm not on concrete slab

The slab can make the house cooler but is not going to be the main factor. I leaning at maybe a seasoned wood issue and home insulation is always a big factor too.
 
Can you supply some more data on the installation? For one, I'm wondering how much of the heat from the stove is heading into the rest of the house via the double-arch doorway. How big is the house? Where are you located? What are the outside temperatures? What are the chimney specifications - height, flue size, and is it an inside or outdoor stack?
 
I'm with Elk. I think the wood is not seasoned. That stove should be cooking him out of the room.
 
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