Vermont Castings Aspen C3 2022

[30WCF]

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.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Sometimes the house acts like a better chimney than the chimney. Sealing the house can make a huge difference in how it’ll run.

 

[30WCF]

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

 

[30WCF]

Sometimes the house acts like a better chimney than the chimney. Sealing the house can make a huge difference in how it’ll run.

I have no draft issues that I know of. No smoke on start up, no smoke on reload. No smoking into the house. I do have a very drafty house though.

On a real hot reload I get the whomp whomp whomp whomp whomp whomp whomp of air sucking through the closed damper and I can settle it down by covering the OAK intake with my hand or foil even though the intake damper is fully closed.

I really just want to do away with the chain, replace the flap with a solid flap instead of the one with two holes in it and attach it to a linkage rod run to the front of the stove from underneath. But I’m not ready to do that yet.

 

[30WCF]

Recap:
On average days I wish the air control would close a little earlier, a little tighter, and I have no issues with excessive coaling.
On the record cold days I want it to run wide open and wish the air control would stay a little more open, and open up faster as it cools.

I’m going to squire some pine for next year to see how that does on the really cold days, but for the average day, I orders the DSP damper section. I should be able to slow the stove down a little when I want to, which seems would be the norm.

 

[30WCF]

Here is a pretty poor top down start just to show breathability of the stove on a warm day. It was about 45* outside.
I did everything wrong on purpose and still didn’t have to touch the stove for 4 hours.
I made a small kindling fire on large splits with no intermediate size splits. I closed the door immediately. I mean, latched the door 15 seconds in. It was warm out, so the draft should be kind of weak. I don’t get how some folks don’t like a top down. And this was a slow start on purpose, but I can’t see how it could be so troublesome. I kinda tried to make this one fail.

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[30WCF]

Here is tonight’s top down. It’s a more realistic attempt. Still warm out… about 5 minutes in I closed the door to a crack, and latched it about 10 minutes in when the flue temp got to around 450. Flue went to 650, and settled in for a bit and was putting off good heat. This time it needed to be fed about 2 hours in.

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[EbS-P]

You had to seal the house?

I had lots of air leaks. Every time a hole was made in the foundation or ceiling it was never sealed. Big holes around ceiling fans, the chimney where a wall was redone, where cast drain line existed foundation, where electrical entered the foundation and rim joist. All the ceiling fixtures new and old. I have not even attempted to to a good job just plug holes where I see light from the attic and obvious hole in the foundation. Just general people not caring about any work they did because it’s the south.

Two can of foam and a tube of caulk and my stove can heat down to low 20s instead of high 20s. once I insulate my crawl space and add 1000 sq ft of insulation to the attic after thorough air sealing. The upstairs stove should carry the heating load upstairs down to 20 as long as I get some solar gain during the day.

For us who don’t have a long winters, I prefer a slightly under sized stove to oversized because I can enjoy a fire more months of the year. Like yesterday morning low of 43. It got up to almost 70 but we had a morning fire to take the chill and enjoyed a fire without overheating.

 

[30WCF]

Did a sweeping the other day. Got about a 1/4 cup out of it after a brush followed by my DIY sooteater.

 

[EbS-P]

Did a sweeping the other day. Got about a 1/4 cup out of it after a brush followed by my DIY sooteater.

View attachment 307202

Impressive. Home much have you burned. I think I. About 1/2-3/4 of a cord in but I don’t really know I’m pulling off 2 different stacks and a the top of another pile.

 

[30WCF]

Impressive. Home much have you burned. I think I. About 1/2-3/4 of a cord in but I don’t really know I’m pulling off 2 different stacks and a the top of another pile.

Really hard to say, I’d say less than a half cord. Sometimes I go weeks without burning. I burned pretty steady that week it was so cold, but still didn’t burn that much wood. Probably three refills to the two park benches on the porch, but the top of one bench is usually mostly kindling size stuff.
What’s a park bench? 4’ wide? So, if concrete to top of stack is about 3’x4’ then multiply that by 5 or 6.

 

[30WCF]

Since this stove runs too hot on mild days, I added a damper section into the DSP.
Also testing out the new steamer pot.
Quartered apple, quartered orange and cinnamon in the brew.

 

[30WCF]

At 700 STT, the little cauldron was boiling right along and putting off visible steam.
With the settings on my phone camera that reduces movement and such, you can’t really tell that the water was boiling and hardly make out the steam.

 

[wjohn]

I've found it pretty handy to use flat bottomed cast iron skillets and dutch ovens. If the fire is cruising fairly low or winding down, direct contact with the stovetop gives you max heat transfer. I salvaged a burner grate off of an old gas range that I use to space it up off of the stovetop when things are really roaring. I just made quesadillas tonight.

Excuse the boilover marks in the pic below showing the old grate... I don't always catch pasta water in time. I'll repaint over the summer.

I do really like being able to cook on these stoves, even if it's only one spot.

I have yet to see anyone buy the trivet top from VC. It was pricey!

 

[30WCF]

I’ve been looking around for an old burner grate just to sit a little higher than my assortment of trivets.

 

[30WCF]

I’ve had the Auber probe for a few months now. I thought I was going to hate seeing a digital thermometer and the red glowing numbers. Well, I actually really like it once I got over the initial, reaction that my mind told me I wanted to have. It’s plenty bright enough during the day to see from across the room, but here with my coffee before the house wakes up, it’s quiet. Just a little popping and creaking going back and forth between my old rocking chair each time a shift my weight, and the cast iron when a log cools as it coals over then breaks and exposes a new surface to throw a warmer flame for a few minutes and gets the stoves to break the silence with some faster pops and pings as it warms and then some slower pops as it settles back down.

 

[30WCF]

We have been in the sweet spot for this stove (with my setup, layout and heat retention that my house possesses) for about a week. It’s been 40-50 for the highs, 30s for the lows. This little bugger shines here in that range. That’s honestly about our average winter temps. It could handle a little cooler as I’ve not been pushing it at all. In this range, I don’t hate the lack of user air controls and haven’t touched the flue damper. I just load it and go about my business or go run some errands. Those record lows a few weeks ago had me struggling, but I’d like to experiment with those conditions some more with different wood and or loading schedules. We just don’t see it like that too often.

I’ve been burning a nice split or two (small ones) during the day, and feeding it every 2-3 hrs. As the evening sets in, I’ll give it two splits about every three hours or so.

Last nite I put in three splits around midnight and let it do it’s thing.



I woke up around 4am and checked it. I still had good coals, could have reloaded but didn’t. I finally got up for good at 6, and the house was 69F with outside temps in the mid 30s. SST was maybe around 250F and the flue probe was 225.

I take the rake and pull the coals up, then I like to nestle the rake into the ash under the coals just behind the air vents and shove the ash bed all the way to the back wall. Two or three stokes of this method, then pull the coals off the surface back to the front leaves me with an ash bed in the back, and all the coals are piled up front at the air vent. I dropped on two smallish splits, that should cary me until late morning. They light right up without fussing with kindling.
The next two nights are going to dip down into the upper 20s. I suspect I’ll have no trouble, but the early morning inside temps will probably be closer to 65F if I don’t get an early morning reload in the wee hours.

Also, the little smudge pot works great as a steamer. It had some really awful chemical smells when initially seasoning and the first round of steaming with it. I had to take it outside and burn it off for a couple hours over charcoal. About an hour in, it just quit stinking, but I let it go a while longer. After it cooled I re-seasoned it in the oven with no detectable smell.

About 1-2 times a day I top it off. I filled it last night, and it’s half way empty this morning. It is shaped right and of an adequate size to allow me to put my thermometer on the actual cook plate, which gives me the hottest, most accurate readings compared to my IR. I’ve been steaming cinnamon, orange and clove water, and it’s quite pleasant when the scent catches you from time to time.

 

[EbS-P]

We have been in the sweet spot for this stove (with my setup, layout and heat retention that my house possesses) for about a week. It’s been 40-50 for the highs, 30s for the lows. This little bugger shines here in that range. That’s honestly about our average winter temps. It could handle a little cooler as I’ve not been pushing it at all. In this range, I don’t hate the lack of user air controls and haven’t touched the flue damper. I just load it and go about my business or go run some errands. Those record lows a few weeks ago had me struggling, but I’d like to experiment with those conditions some more with different wood and or loading schedules. We just don’t see it like that too often.

I’ve been burning a nice split or two (small ones) during the day, and feeding it every 2-3 hrs. As the evening sets in, I’ll give it two splits about every three hours or so.

Last nite I put in three splits around midnight and let it do it’s thing.

View attachment 308556

I woke up around 4am and checked it. I still had good coals, could have reloaded but didn’t. I finally got up for good at 6, and the house was 69F with outside temps in the mid 30s. SST was maybe around 250F and the flue probe was 225.

I take the rake and pull the coals up, then I like to nestle the rake into the ash under the coals just behind the air vents and shove the ash bed all the way to the back wall. Two or three stokes of this method, then pull the coals off the surface back to the front leaves me with an ash bed in the back, and all the coals are piled up front at the air vent. I dropped on two smallish splits, that should cary me until late morning. They light right up without fussing with kindling.
The next two nights are going to dip down into the upper 20s. I suspect I’ll have no trouble, but the early morning inside temps will probably be closer to 65F if I don’t get an early morning reload in the wee hours.

Also, the little smudge pot works great as a steamer. It had some really awful chemical smells when initially seasoning and the first round of steaming with it. I had to take it outside and burn it off for a couple hours over charcoal. About an hour in, it just quit stinking, but I let it go a while longer. After it cooled I re-seasoned it in the oven with no detectable smell.

About 1-2 times a day I too it off. I filled it last night, and it’s half way empty this morning. It is shaped right and of an adequate size to allow me to put my thermometer on the actual cook plate, which gives me the hottest, most accurate readings compared to my IR. I’ve been steaming cinnamon, orange and clove water, and it’s quite pleasant when the scent catches you from time to time.

View attachment 308555

Anything sized for record cold won’t work well the other 99.5% of the time. That’s what back up heat is for.

Glad this is working well for you. Our mild weather means we have to approach wood heat differently than others. Or just get a blaze king. I want to track how many pounds of wood I burn to see if the minimum BK burn rate is low enough.

 

[30WCF]

Breakfast this morning.
Leftover Ribeye and cheesy eggs with red onion.

 

[30WCF]

11:09pm 34F outside. 68F inside but I’ve been burning down some coals.
Supposed to be 27 in the AM. Just threw the Yule log on. Let’s see if we wake up cold.

 

[30WCF]

5:30a wake up call
28 outside
66 inside
Rough shape of the large log left in coal form
SST 250, flue 204
6hr and 20 minutes with a indoor loss of 2 degrees F
Easy relight

 

[30WCF]

Morning relight ran up to 637 in the flue then started to settle down. Putting off good heat within 30 minutes.

 

[Kevin Weis]

Glad to see that Aspen working well! That 700+ stt seems high but sounds like that's what it should be with that stove. Maybe that's due to an updraft design exhaust exit? I'm impressed with the burn time your getting with it.

 

[30WCF]

It will peak up there with the off gassing stage then settle down pretty quick. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any manufacturer recommendations other than if it glows it’s too hot. I haven’t seen it glow and I enjoy my early mornings and late evenings sitting by it in dim to no light sources.
All the factory paint still looks new except right at the cook plate (hottest SST area), it has dulled a little.
Hardly noticeable from some angles.

 

[30WCF]

I've found it pretty handy to use flat bottomed cast iron skillets and dutch ovens. If the fire is cruising fairly low or winding down, direct contact with the stovetop gives you max heat transfer. I salvaged a burner grate off of an old gas range that I use to space it up off of the stovetop when things are really roaring. I just made quesadillas tonight.

Excuse the boilover marks in the pic below showing the old grate... I don't always catch pasta water in time. I'll repaint over the summer.

I do really like being able to cook on these stoves, even if it's only one spot.

I have yet to see anyone buy the trivet top from VC. It was pricey!

View attachment 308344

I finally gave up digging around antique junk shops looking for a grate. I found this one online. It sits 1-1/4” tall and is pretty robust cast iron. It fills out the cook plate area fully and sits just inside the ring.
The ReoTemp thermometer is just under the surface, so I wouldn’t have to move it to put a pan on. Next time I get the stove ripping I’ll have to see how hot I can get a fry pan.
The old heat diffuser plate I have gets pretty hot and boils water even at modest stove top temps.