GUS57 said:
First time on this forum. I have been burning a VC defiant encore for 20 years. Done the yearly maintenance (gaskets, clean-up), have replaced complete fire back kits twice (with refractory) and a half dozen catalitic converters. Last year when the stove was running with the damper on and the stove in the 400-500 degree range I would get the occasional smell of wood smoke, though I saw no smoke. I am assuming after 20 years the cement at the stoves joint is probably breaking down. I am not sure that after 20 years its worth going through the exercise of doing a complete rebuild or if its time to look to a new Stove. I have been looking at the Jotul Oslo F500 and the Hearthstone Heritage. They both seem like decent stoves, (different in heating quality from what I have been told). My gut is telling me that the Jotul looks a bit more "bullet proof" then the Heritage. I would welcome forum members opinions on a rebuild or not (not even sure if its a one person at home job) and their opinions on the two possibilities for a new stove. I appreciate your time and advice. Gus
I made this exact swap a little over a year ago. In my case, I had a 1986 Defiant Encore that gave us lots of heat, but also lots of backpuffing trouble. Replaced it with the Oslo, and am very happy. Here's what I've found relative to the VC:
Oslo pros: A bit more max heat output than the VC. Also a bit longer burn times. I have a 300F stovetop after 8 hrs with a full load of dry hardwood. Coal bed is still very good at 12 hours, so that you can restart with no kindling. Had coals after 24 hours that let me restart with fine splits. The fire view is fantastic, and the secondary combustion light show is better than what's on 198+ of my 200 cable channels. I find the temperature easier to control than with the VC, which usually struggled to avoid either a cold smolder or a raging inferno. And, my backpuffing problem disappeared entirely, though I'm sure that has a lot to do with my particular chimney setup. Ash pan is a little larger than the VC. Single air control lever is a little simpler to run. While others have reported needing to crack open a door during startup, that has not been the case with ours. I build a top-down fire, and as soon as I light the paper or SuperCedar, I can close it up with the air control fully open, and it takes right off.
Oslo cons: There is only one downside that I have experienced, but it can be avoided in most cases. There is a design flaw in the shape of the bottom of the front opening that creates a fairly large pocket for ash to collect in, between the stove body and the front door. When you open the front door, this ash dumps on the ash lip. It's not a real big deal, but if you like to run a clean hearth, it's a bit of a pain. The easy solution is not to use the front door routinely. After several ash dumpings, I switched to 100% side load operation, including for building the fire.
We were dedicated top-loaders with the VC, and we were very concerned, especially my wife, about losing that feature. Now I can tell you that we don't miss it at all. The key to happy Oslo operation is MINIMAL ash raking. If you rake too much, you end up filling the ash pan too quickly, and with a mixture of coals and ashes. The coals get buried in the ash and stop burning, so this mixture robs you of heat and coal bed, and fills the ash pan faster than desired since the coals take up more room in the pan that the ash they would have become. On most refills I do not rake at all. The ashes will drop into the pan on their own when they get done burning all the way. Sometimes I might just surface rake the high spots on the coal bed into the low spots. Only in very unusual cases will I rake any more than that, and only if the coal bed is getting too high. The ash pan lasts 5-7 days of 24/7, and the coal bed lasts much longer with this practice.
Happy burning.