Vermont Stove Company, Shelburne Insert

[mnowaczyk]

Finally burning here again. It's been such a warm and busy winter. I promised myself I'd burn through it all this year, burned a lot early and slowed down to assure I had some left for a cold spell like this one.

The doors are still open as I'm just getting the fire started in this picture. I haven't turned on the ultra-loud blower that now had no rheostat to calm it down, but I can hear the creaking of the metal expanding. So soon I will turn that fan on... and shut the doors of course. But I like to make sure my big 40' tall clay lined 13x13" chimney gets at least a little warm first.

 

[mnowaczyk]

Talk about speaking too soon! I had a roaring fire and the needles in the top corners were maybe beyond 500 F and the fan just shut down on me. I dampened down the air inlet to quell the roaring fire and ultimately tried a hat dryer on "cool" to blow into the blower motor cavity. No luck, but I did notice that the fan blade spins silently when hair dryer air is pushed through it. It continues to spin a long time before it finally stops too. So that tells me it's the motor that is making all the noise, not the bearings.

When I plugged the motor back in this morning the fan was working fine again. So I'm up and burning trying to keep temps closer to 400 F this time around. I want that extra heat today when it's so cold (for this area).

 

[mnowaczyk]

I took some pics today, less than a year later. The house was freezing and I figured it was time to fire it up and get it hot. Proud of the temps my stove seems to handle really well. I hadn’t read the above. It’s amazing what you can forget in 11 months. I can’t remember when my outlet rheostat went bad, but hopefully eliminating that from the equation is better for the fan. Anyway, here are the temps I was so proud of coming here to post. Now I see that I should damper it down to cool it off.

 

[mnowaczyk]

I’m just getting back here and have a spare one of these stoves in my garage. I had the best hot blaze going a few days ago with 850+ F on the center of the doors and something hot in the top corners too. Damn fan shut off. Ugh.

I’m tired of the loud fan and it shutting off on me. A friend of mine suggested replacing it with a brushless motor. I think my noise might be coming from the bearing. I don’t even feel like pulling the stove out, but know I must, especially with all the wood with carpenter ant damage that I just brought home.

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[begreen]

Yes, that's pretty loud. It would drive me nuts.

 

[mnowaczyk]

Yes, that's pretty loud. It would drive me nuts.

Yes. Way too loud. I wish I’d learned to weld and how to fix the Vermont castings insert that had two quiet fans on the front. For some reason I chose not to keep that one and sold it to a guy that fixed it in no time.

My fan Rheostat had died a few years back, and I just ran the fan on high non-stop plugged in directly. The max speed causes resonance which is out of hand, to the point where I can hear in in my bedroom with my door shut. I bought a new rheostat on Amazon last week, and have not had the issue of the fan stopping since, and have been able to set the fan at a maximum speed that does not cause resonance. So even though it is still insanely loud, it seems totally bearable now in comparison, I even couldn’t hear it at all in my bedroom above with the door shut. When the door was open I could hear it though. My kids have gotten better about shutting it off when the stove is cold, but haven’t gotten to the point where they will get the fire going for me. Some day!

I purchased a new house that we are currently renting out. It’s a much larger home with only one fireplace, but I know inserts are the way to go for max heat. I have TWO of these shelburne inserts, which is nice for sore parts. For example, the rope came unglued on the door, and rather than needing to do a mid-fire repair, I was able to simply swap out the door. So that’s nice. Plus I like the way it looks. If I could just quiet the darn thing down, then maybe I will move these stoves to the new house. The garage has a chimney, so perhaps the second one could be setup in the garage too.

Or perhaps someone here in hearth.com can tell me which inserts are just lovely, and take me into the new millennium as opposed to using a 40 year old insert.

 

[Shyft]

I recently purchased a home and have this stove in it! So far I love it, though it definitely is noisy.

However our thermostatic damper is missing, well the thermostat part is. So for now we have just been leaving the damper propped open, but this obviously causes the stove to burn too fast. I was wondering if someone could show me what it is supposed to look like so I can try to rig up a replacement.

And any other tips or tricks to running the stove would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mnowaczyk]

If you don’t already have one of these to turn down the fan to a bearable sound level, yes, it’s friggin horrible how loud it is.

Variable Speed Controller... Amazon product ASIN B08MPTN7JL

 

[jonnylu]

Hello all, new to forum... trying to find manual/ info on Vermont stove Co. Shelburne 1982 stove insert... for some reason the links do not work.. Thanks so much

 

[begreen]

Hello all, new to forum... trying to find manual/ info on Vermont stove Co. Shelburne 1982 stove insert... for some reason the links do not work.. Thanks so much

Links got broken with a forum upgrade a while back. Hang in there, I will post it shortly and fix the bad link in this thread once the boss turns on permissions in the new Resources section.

 

[begreen]

@jonnylu Here is a link to the new Resource with the Shelburne manual provided for download.

Vermont Stove Company

Vermont Stove Company (NOT Vermont Castings) produced a line of fireplace inserts in the 1980's. The units had a distinctive look, with arched glass doors and cast fronts. The most popular model was named the Shelburne, after a town in Vermont...

www.hearth.com

 

[mnowaczyk]

manual: https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/shelburne-manual/?noRedirect=1

It looks like that link no longer works, but the page for the manual is here now apparently:

Vermont Stove Company

Vermont Stove Company (NOT Vermont Castings) produced a line of fireplace inserts in the 1980's. The units had a distinctive look, with arched glass doors and cast fronts. The most popular model was named the Shelburne, after a town in Vermont...

www.hearth.com

And direct to the manual:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/resources/vermont-stove-company.188/download

 

[begreen]

Thanks, a lot of the wiki links were broken with updates.

 

[mnowaczyk]

you scrap it? I not only run one of these quite happily, but I also have a full spare parts stove in the corner of my garage.

No. I still have both in a garage that I need to clear out. One has a broken fan, but the other is fine. I am now learning a VC Encore and starting to really appreciate how these steel plate stoves are so maintenance-free. The VC Encore apparently needs to be rebuilt periodically. Sounds like a total hassle compared to my ~14 trouble-free years with the VSC Shelburne. I am wondering if I should give them another chance before giving up on them.