Just relocated from NH to MI and bought a new house. I had a couple pellet stoves in my last house and knew quite a bit about them. Posted in The Pellet Mill forum for a few years. New house has a pellet stove in the basement and a VC Defiant wood stove upstairs in the living room. I haven't lit either yet as I'm still looking them over and making sure they're installed correctly. I know what's wrong with the pellet stove install and know how to fix that. I'm trying to determine what year the Defiant was built as I have to fill out a survey for my home owners insurance. I have downloaded some manuals but I'm still not sure exactly what I have here. It has cast doors on the front, no glass. No top loading, only front and end loading. Top oval outlet. It has a heat shield on the back but no ash pan or heat shield on the bottom. I was looking for the rating plate but I didn't see it. Where would it be located? Of course, I didn't get a manual from the PO. Depending on the manual I look at for the different vintages of Defiants, some of the installation clearances don't look right to me. The stovepipe installation may be iffy, also. It has an 8" vertical single wall pipe about 4.5 ft long from the oval outlet to the first 90, a couple feet to the double wall thimble plus a couple more feet (double wall) to the second 90 up (actually a tee) outside and then about 7 or 8 ft of vertical up to the cap. I'm note sure I have the proper clearance from the horizontal section of single wall to the cathedral ceiling. Not sure I have enough clearance from the vertical single wall to the interior combustible wall. If I can find the rating plate I can get the info I need to get in the right manual and get this figured out. If everything looks right I'll probably get a guy in to clean it and give it the once over. If it's obviously installed wrong, I may rethink what I want to do here. TIA!!
VC Defiant in new house - couple questions
- Thread starter skibumm100
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The manual for the original stoves is on our Wiki,in 3 parts.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/vermont-castings-older-stove-models/
If you can post some pictures of the installation we may be able to refine the year.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/vermont-castings-older-stove-models/
If you can post some pictures of the installation we may be able to refine the year.
Yep, I downloaded that one already. That's one of three different VC Defiant manuals I downloaded. There seems to be quite a few differences over the years for that stove or possibly they are different model variants.
Will do.I don't know if this helps but I found the nameplate. Completely illegible except for the SN. The SN is 024432. Does that help at all?
There is also a date cast into the inside of the left side door. The date is 12/22/83.
There is also a date cast into the inside of the left side door. The date is 12/22/83.
Neither of those things are really helpful, but if you could find a casting date on one of the front doors for example, THAT would do it. Left end and door was a common replacement item on old Defiant I's so the stove either was cast in 1983 or rebuilt about then can't be sure.
Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to the model number of my stove? I still have not lit this stove off and it still has the same two chunks of wood in it. I did add another 3 foot section of vertical double wall to the outdoor flue pipe. I checked the height and it failed the 3-10-2 rule by a fair amount. I added a 3 foot section and I'm good now. Hoping to light a fire in this stove to see how it does, as long as I'm in spec on the clearances.
I don't recall the earliest models having model numbers, just names, but maybe there was a VC part number. The extra chimney pipe outside will need bracing. There should be a brace at the 5' level.
There was already a brace on the flue that's about 5' above the "Tee" connection where it goes through the wall. I think it would've been better to go straight up through the ceiling/roof. There was originally a pellet stove in it's place as evidenced by the blocked off OAK opening and old pellet pipe exit. That probably has a lot to do with the skinny clearances. It may be the old pellet stove hearth.
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