Vermont Castings Aspen C3 2022

[30WCF]

Remove excess strap from ratchet.


Fold over the strap the rest of the way and fold clip tabs down.


Attach braces. I still have to trim them down before I screw it to the roof to get it away from the ridge.

What do the brain-trusts think before I finalize it.

 

[begreen]

Are the brace's legs adjustable? If so, shorten them a bit.

 

[30WCF]

They are. The have to trim them so I can get them off the ridge vent before I fasten it.

 

[30WCF]

I added some blocks under the roofing to help hold the screws down and liberally applied some roof/flashing sealant.
I cut about 14” off the braces.

 

[30WCF]

Got up there and polished the chimney this morning.

 

[30WCF]

Added 12” of Class A today. Make it look a lot taller than 12”.

 

[30WCF]

Chunk of Oak at 9:45.
Thermostat says 66*
Let’s see wats left in the A.M.

 

[begreen]

9:45 or 10:45pm?

I wish I had a stash of oak like that.

 

[30WCF]

Just took me a while to get from the “wood shed” to my old VC Aspen thread.


9:45EST, but since we are on this. I started posting my own time stamp as above since the forum will post the time at first, but then just switch to the day.
It’s in the screenshot above, it has the time. Come back tomorrow or next year, and it will just give the date. I noticed this last year when I went to look back at my starlogs and the realized half my data had been replaced with a date rather than than a time. I lost half my records of burn times. So, now I just post my own timestamp in my the posts.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

looks good.. nice coals

 

[30WCF]

Went from 9:45 pm to 4:45 am. So, 7 hrs on that log.
Flue was 200
The house was 66, but that’s also where the LP kicks in. I imagine it had ran some. 🤷‍♂️

Raked it around and tossed in another oak.

,

 

[30WCF]

I wish I had a stash of oak like that.

This oak is probably 2-3 years covered. A lot of the oak got split just enough to get it off the side of the road, turns out it’s kinda handy to get this little stove to run longer.

I have my eye on another big oak just in the edge of a gated dirt access road that goes off into the woods. I knocked on the door and asked the owner if I could cut it up when the bugs go away. He said I could come get it anytime. He would open the gate if he needed to.
We exchanged numbers. He’s texted me since saying he had two trees near the house that he had someone come out felled back into the woods edge. One is already cut into logs. Said I could grab both of them too. Not sure what those two are.
Sounds like I’m gonna have plenty of chunks to restock with.

 

[begreen]

Just took me a while to get from the “wood shed” to my old VC Aspen thread.


9:45EST, but since we are on this. I started posting my own time stamp as above since the forum will post the time at first, but then just switch to the day.
It’s in the screenshot above, it has the time. Come back tomorrow or next year, and it will just give the date. I noticed this last year when I went to look back at my starlogs and the realized half my data had been replaced with a date rather than than a time. I lost half my records of burn times. So, now I just post my own timestamp in my the posts.

Yes, something is odd with the time stamp. I saw your post at 7:45pm PST here which should have been a 3 hr time difference to EST or 10:45pm. That's what confused me. But if the shot was taken an hour earlier than the posting that would make sense.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

White oak will definitely extend your burn times. Its really dense, Im stove has done very well on pin oak as well. The best oak if you can get your hands on it is willow oak, thats the super premium of oak. They get super big also, so when you find one its usually a big score. The more dense the wood the more BTUs you get per load and the longer it burns in the stove

 

[30WCF]

Trying not to double post too much from the “What’s in Your Stove” thread, but I want to keep this thread updated. I get enough PMs based off this thread to make it feel worth while.
To counter the occasional post that the stove runs away on me, although I know it’s usually just too much air under the logs and they need to be knocked down, I should post the wins too.

It’s pretty cold the last couple days, and will be for the next week or so. Supposed to be 20*F tonight.

Anyway, I’ve been feeding it a little more full with no complaints. Three splits give me an off-gassing of just under 600 in the flue, the cruises down.

I run a big chunk for longer burns, and more smaller pieces for hotter burns.

I have to run a little pine to burn the coals down during the day.

 

[30WCF]

Been pretty cold out this last week. This load of hickory, maple and oak got us up to 73 inside.

 

[30WCF]

I adjusted the air control flap by shortening the chain by one ball. There was a little play in the flap when the stove is cold and the flap was about an 1/8 inch from full open. Overall, I don’t think the adjustment will affect the closing of the flap. I’m really just hoping to get it to start opening a little faster as the stove cools.

The adjustment took the chain from a little loose when cool, to just snug with the flap full open.

Right now, 471 in the flue on the Auber, the flap is closed and there is slack in the chain.

My theory is when it heats up, the temps climb so fast that the coil expands and blows right past any incremental changes as the flap closes. I think it was closed at 350 in the flue. As the stove slowly cools, I want to find the place where the damper opens a little earlier in the cool down so I don’t sit on coals so long.

Unless anything strange happens I’ll run it like this a while and maybe make another adjustment. Just have to see what happens.

 

[30WCF]

266 flue, 360 STT, 6” of hot coals. Cracked the door, I’ll see what can burn down and scoop it out when the house starts to get noticeably cooler.

View attachment 306179

11:20pm
I let the stove burn down more than normal because I had a high pile of coals. STT got down to 275 and house is 65. Outside temp is
View attachment 306053
I could have reloaded earlier and kept the house temps up, but I wanted to burn the coals down a bit, and prolong the overnight burn. Let’s see what happened in the A.M.

View attachment 306418

View attachment 306419

Flue and STT respectively. Rear air control is all but closed. Let’s just call it closed. I can maybe press it 1/16-1/32” before it bottoms out.

It may be worth specifying that this is on cool down, med/light coaling, ready for a reload for the evening then another before bed.

While this has been mostly remedied by rotating in a load or two of pine, I also wonder if at some point I get longer useful burn times if I get the chain opening a little earlier?
I can run the hardwoods hard and build up 6”-8” of clean coals, but with the damper shut down, it hangs out at somewhere around 225-275 in the flue, and 250-350 STT, and just hold those coals for days.

Now the damper is fully closed and there is a little slack in the chain. 425 STT and 385 flue. As soon as the secondaries crap out, I’ll drop 100* real fast and just be sitting on a pile of coals.

 

[Todd]

Is there any way to just manually open up the air flap to burn down the coals when you need too? I think it would drive me crazy not to have any control over the air.

 

[30WCF]

Is there any way to just manually open up the air flap to burn down the coals when you need too? I think it would drive me crazy not to have any control over the air.

View attachment 306420

Sometimes I literally crack the door, sometimes I wedge a pencil in the intake to keep it open.

I used to do this, but no more. Funny story. Last week I was burning down coals with a pencil because I didn’t have any pine left up at the house. Got busy and needed to head out, so I loaded the stove with a couple two or three nice splits and left to dinner and take the wife and kids out to see the movie Wicked. Came home to load the stove and went to check the condition of the flap since I’d been tracking it, and it had a pencil hanging out of it.
Since then I’ve cracked the door a couple times, as in just unlatched, and I can get another 100* out of it for a while.

30 minutes from my last post:
275 in the flue down from 385
325 STT down from 425
1/32” play in the flap

 

[EbS-P]

could a small fan help cool the area of the stove where the spring is?

 

[30WCF]

could a small fan help cool the area of the stove where the spring is?

You would have to blow air into the OAK opening and get it to run up the back of the stove behind the shield to the coil that is attached to the back of the probe just below the flue collar.

Pictured is the probe that sticks through the back wall. The spring is on the back of it.

If I keep tightening the chain to raise the opening temperature, the flap will will be fully opened and unable to move farther as the spring cools.

Say I took another 2 links out (compare it to a ceiling fan pull chain) maybe 1/4”, as the spring cools the flap would hit the full open position and be stopping the bimetal spring from retracting that last 1/4” into the room temperature position. I don’t know if holding tension on the spring and not letting it find its natural position would cause it to fail.

 

[EbS-P]

You would have to blow air into the OAK opening and get it to run up the back of the stove behind the shield to the coil that is attached to the back of the probe just below the flue collar.

Pictured is the probe that sticks through the back wall. The spring is on the back of it.

If I keep tightening the chain to raise the opening temperature, the flap will will be fully opened and unable to move farther as the spring cools.

Say I took another 2 links out (compare it to a ceiling fan pull chain) maybe 1/4”, as the spring cools the flap would hit the full open position and be stopping the bimetal spring from retracting that last 1/4” into the room temperature position. I don’t know if holding tension on the spring and not letting it find its natural position would cause it to fail.
View attachment 333635

Re engineering a stove is hard. Refresh my memory, Do you have a damper.

 

[30WCF]

Re engineering a stove is hard. Refresh my memory, Do you have a damper.

I did add one a year or two ago that I rarely use. Sometimes I would get a load that was a little hot, but I found I prefer using the intake damper I made over the chimney damper. Technically I could disable the flap and use a combination of the home made intake damper and a flue damper and run it like a pre-EPA stove, but that hats not really what I want to do either.

Like I said earlier too, it’s completely manageable with rotating in some pine, so it’s really just nuisance at this point, and the need to keep enough pine on hand to accomplish the coal burning. An outcome of +\- 1 hr of heat between reloads isn’t going to be a game changer for anyone. In fact, the heat isn’t better if you do burn the pine vs trying to introduce enough air for coals. In fact, it holds coals so well that I can almost always relight within 2 days without a match, just take the coals back up to the top and blow a little life into them.

So, in reality, I should quit feeling like something got left on the table, because that little stove does good and is probably doing about all a sub-2cu ft stove can do, but the tinker in me sees meat on the bone yet.

That tinker wants to adjust the chain, or add a factory looking linkage rod that runs just under the stove that will slide the flap, or I can just go cut another pine and put $20 more in the BK fund.

 

[EbS-P]

I did add one a year or two ago that I rarely use. Sometimes I would get a load that was a little hot, but I found I prefer using the intake damper I made over the chimney damper. Technically I could disable the flap and use a combination of the home made intake damper and a flue damper and run it like a pre-EPA stove, but that hats not really what I want to do either.

Like I said earlier too, it’s completely manageable with rotating in some pine, so it’s really just nuisance at this point, and the need to keep enough pine on hand to accomplish the coal burning. An outcome of +\- 1 hr of heat between reloads isn’t going to be a game changer for anyone. In fact, the heat isn’t better if you do burn the pine vs trying to introduce enough air for coals. In fact, it holds coals so well that I can almost always relight within 2 days without a match, just take the coals back up to the top and blow a little life into them.

So, in reality, I should quit feeling like something got left on the table, because that little stove does good and is probably doing about all a sub-2cu ft stove can do, but the tinker in me sees meat on the bone yet.

That tinker wants to adjust the chain, or add a factory looking linkage rod that runs just under the stove that will slide the flap, or I can just go cut another pine and put $20 more in the BK fund.

The BK fund is where to put your efforts. I do think your are trying to squeeze the last 5% out of that stove that seems to be working well will be a challenge.