Vermont Castings® Using Your FlexBurn® Stove
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- Vermont Castings FlexBurn stoves provide more than heat: they are skillfully crafted, timeless pieces of furniture. Great design bridges beauty and utility, and a finely-fashioned exterior with classic curves and smooth cast iron finish complements features made with care.
Function is an art of its own, and our dedication to the wood stove experience results in components designed with convenience in mind.
• Easily load wood from the top, minimizing effort and keeping smoke and embers contained.
• Cleanly remove ashes, even when the stove is hot, with the exclusive swing-out ash pan and
handled cover.
• Enjoy longer burn times with more even heat with thermostatically controlled combustion.
Made the decision to buy a VC Defiant. Very glad we did. Heating our home this winter in Oregon and we love it. Love the top load and the bottom ash clean-out. Plus, we can (and have) cooked on this stove, including delicious bread, all without any electricity. This a a perfect stove for homeowners wanting to live both on or off the grid. Outstanding build quality and beautiful to look at. Very, very efficient.
Appreciate this feedback. Just purchased a Defiant despite the questionable reviews/problems reported on the internet.
@@corrigan405 I hope you enjoy this stove as much as us. Depending on your prior experience with stoves, this one may have a learning curve as you learn how to get the most out of it. Any problems described on the net have not proved true with our stove in any way so far. Good burning.
@@mic982 how does the air wash seem to be working for you, especially in high efficiency mode? Ours likes to blacken up and only seems to work good on the one side…
@@keystoneraillink2110 Well, not that well. A big reason why is the Defiant is probably too much stove for our home and we burn it down low, just above the 'Burn Zone' (~300F). At higher temps the glass will stay cleaner but then our house gets too warm. The glass never gets completely black, but burning the wood hotter definitely will help clean it. We are still very happy with the stove.
Saw your response on another video slamming the Defiant. We're getting one fairly soon so it's good to hear your positive experiences.
I heated my 2400 SQ FT (2 story) house exclusively with a VC Defiant for 4 years. Used about 5 cords of well seasoned wood (oak, birch or hickory) each winter (in Maryland). When I bought the stove, the "FlexBurn" moniker wasn't used. I was interested in a very efficient wood burning stove, and I chose the Defiant because the dealer touted the ability to redirect the flue from a basic "straight up the pipe" burn to a position that sent the smoke from the fire box through a catalytic burner, which he called a "second burn."
The video makes clear that a very high heat in the box is required to move into "catalytic" mode. I used a thermometer to judge when when to engage the "Flex" mode, usually around 1000 degrees. After loading up the stove for the night with a lot of wood, it often would take up to an hour to engage the Flex mode, but you get used to the timing for that. Once I engaged the Flex burner, I could count on a 10-hour burn, with enough coals to start again in the morning. What is amazing, though, is that while in Flex mode, the temp on the fire box is between 900-1200 degrees ... pumping out heat into the room. But the thermometer on the stove pipe 4 feet above the stove ran around 350 degrees, meaning that all the second burn particulate was creating heat, and what went up the flue was basically "cool " air. If I went outside and looked at what was coming out of the chimney: no grey smelly smoke...only a visual ripple of hot air hitting cooler air.
Once a day I would empty the ash tray. The ashes were like talcum powder with a few "drop-thru" chunks.. Very easy and safe to remove.
The VC stoves are beautiful, and can be used as fireplaces to enjoy some heat and visual aesthetics. But once you learn how to create a really efficient heat source for very little investment in wood, you'll be sold. And, in the event you lose electricity (as I did for 5 days), you will not only stay warm, but will be able to cook and help your neighbors..
PS.n
Nothing on the actual method of 'flex burning'. I think flex burn means two different ways to use the stove: with and without the catalytic or combustor element. This is a video on starting and running the stove but in what mode, with or without the combustor? How do you run the stove in the other mode?
see my experience above.
I bought a new defiant a couple months ago. If I put more than 2 pieces of firewood in it, it will run away. It has been over 825° with the air supply damper completely shut. There is no way that I could get over 3 or 4 hour burn times. It seems to constantly be feeding too much air. The ash door is latched. The supply damper closed. I can slow it down some by closing the door to engage the catalyst but then it gets even hotter. I would love to talke with someone from Vermont castings. The dealer seems clueless now and it's impossible to talk with the manufacturer. So much for buying American. Oh ya, the blower quit too! What a waste of $5k! If vermont castings is out there, please reach out to me!
You are correct with it being fed too much air. We dealt with something similar, but ours didn’t get that hot. The main issue stems from the ashdoor and main fire box doors not being properly aligned. They can latch all day, but if the alignments bad, they will overheat like crazy. It’s been quite the issue to sort out. Vermont Casting has videos on this channel of how to re-allign both the doors and the ashdoor. Best way to check if you have a good seal on your doors and ashdoor is to take a flashlight and shine it from every possible angle and see if there is any light coming through. Then try and align them till there’s little to no light coming through. It’s a real pain in the neck but it might give you a usable stove. I had to do quite a few reallignments and just redid the gaskets for the doors and ashdoor after just 3 years of having this stove, new from the dealer. Had to modify a few area’s of gasket to get a proper seal. Many people I feel though, would and will view it as more trouble than it’s worth. There’s definite room for improvement, but otherwise a nice stove to have when it’s not over firing and being problematic
@@keystoneraillink2110
Thank you for the info! The dealer actually came out and replaced it with a second new stove. I'm still having the same issues. I have to baby feed it wood. If I have a bed of coal and have the catalytic engaged I can only put 4 "average" pieces of wood in. I usually get a little less than an hour burn per piece. Definitely not the 18 hour burn time average. I have been communicating with vermont castings but they are just referring me back to the dealer. The dealer just keeps saying they will "figure it out." In the meantime I'm stuck with it.
@@lineman22 That’s good that the dealer is looking at it at the very least and was willing to replace the stove. There are 3 problem areas on the ashdoor: the hinge, the latch, and the bottom of the ashdoor where both ends of the gasket come together.
On the firebox doors, where they meet at the top and bottom are both problem areas.
Lastly is the section of the doors by where part number 62 (the door hinge strips are located.) The top inner corner of the squares where those hinge strips sit on the door. The recessed section that bumps out towards you when looking at the firebox from the front. I don’t know exactly how to describe without sending photos of the areas I’m talking about, but hopefully that helps.
@@keystoneraillink2110 thank you again! I will be checking those areas. How are you shining the light to see if it's leaking air?
@@lineman22 when the stove is cold I’ll open the top loading door and shine the light around the edges of the door from the inside while looking from the outside to see if any light shines through the gasket on the top sections of the doors.
To check the bottom of the fire box doors where they meet, I shine the light from the outside, onto the bottom of the doors and look through the griddle/ top load door into the firebox where the bottom of the doors meet the firebox.
Any light that shines through is a space where uncontrolled air gets through.
When checking the ashdoor, I take the ashpan out and lay a flashlight right along the edge by where the ashdoor meets the bottom of the wood stove. I latch the door, check for any light visible through the gasket, then flip the light around to check the other side.
If you want though, you could try opening the front doors, taking out the ash grate and holding the light and shining it from both the inside and outside to check for leaks.
New VC stoves...never. Ask why.
I'e often wondered is the catalyst if compromised as the wood becomes fully burned and the temperature of the stove decreases below the specified catalyst range.
No, please see my post above. What happens is that when the temp drops, the catalyst stops doing its job. I am sure that at the end of a long burn, the particulate just flows through the catalyst, unburned. However, once it is engaged again all residual particulate that settled on the catalyst is burned off. Occasionally, the catalyst has to be replaced if it is engaged too often at a low temp, (i.e. engaged improperly).
@@lizhasbrouck1376 Thank you for your explanation.
Complicated
Not really. But I am wondering how often the ash pan needs cleaning and if it can really be done safely while the stove is burning?
@@mic982 Do you really suppose a highly respected industry leader would produce a dangerous product that would leave them vulnerable to lawsuit? Do you really think the professional wood stove engineers maybe didn't think about safety when designing this?
Opening the flu to prevent backflow during adding wood is normal. Adding wood to the top of a fire is normal. Cleaning ashes is normal. Having a mechanism that can automatically adjust rate of combustion with a super simple lever might not be "normal", but it is certainly not "complicated". If you think this is complicated, your life must be truly difficult in all regards. How do you manage to even get to work each day?
@@rmcdaniel423 jotul f500 simply stove
@@rmcdaniel423 No, I do not - especially in this obsessedly contiguous society we live in today. I contacted VC directly and they clearly advised me to let the stove go out before cleaning the ash - something I doubt few do. I suppose they have to say this to cover their own behinds. Regardless, my wife and I are now the owners of a new VC Defiant stove and as soon as it is installed (replacing our old stove) I can give readers a full report on whether or not it is safe to clean the ash pan with the stove still running. I hope so...