Vigilant II is just humming along!!!

Update, the Vig has been kicking hard in the frigid temps... Wadhams Ny received about 10" of dry snow from winter-storm Nemo last night. By early dawn wind gusts of 50 MPH from the NE ripped through the Champlain Valley. I awoke later than usual, actually much later, to discover the Vig had an inordinate amount of ash. I believe the stronger draft up the chimney may have aided in a faster burn. Even still, the bed was revived without much effort, just layer the top, allowed it to ignite, threw on another layer,
removed some ash and now she's belting out 700F. Yet a bit more ash removal is needed to stabilize the bed.... and that's that.

Last 7 weeks have been very cold, and the Vig has proven her worth. She's been running faithfully since early November, keeping this old house warm. With the addition of the Godin, two newly created ceiling registers, and one wall register, the heat is cycling through the front and and rear of the house fairly well. The heat is making a natural loop raising and cold air falling through the returns. Next week my friend will add more insulation up in the attic.

Each passing month, as I continue to observe and make notes, read and talk to those coal-burning buddies who are smarter than myself, I hope to become a more proficient
Mike Mulligan. Hey I just named my Vigilant Mary Ann.

vmi1983 wrote:Update, the Vig has been kicking hard in the frigid temps... Wadhams Ny received about 10" of dry snow from winter-storm Nemo last night. By early dawn wind gusts of 50 MPH from the NE ripped through the Champlain Valley. I awoke later than usual, actually much later, to discover the Vig had an inordinate amount of ash. I believe the stronger draft up the chimney may have aided in a faster burn. Even still, the bed was revived without much effort, just layer the top, allowed it to ignite, threw on another layer,
removed some ash and now she's belting out 700F. Yet a bit more ash removal is needed to stabilize the bed.... and that's that.
...>8...

Funny you should mention that! Before I went to bed I noticed the blue ladies really doing the jig at a time when it would normally be glowing steady. I checked the thermostat flap and it was closed down to the normal position. Checked the stack temp and it was up a little, 200 when it's usually 150, and noted the stove top temp was below 700*. The Vig II was pumping out the heat. Wind was blowing strong and steady. I actually opened up the secondary air inlet all the way too. That did drop the stack temp 15*. Kept it fed a little more and all was normal.

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:

vmi1983 wrote:Update, the Vig has been kicking hard in the frigid temps... Wadhams Ny received about 10" of dry snow from winter-storm Nemo last night. By early dawn wind gusts of 50 MPH from the NE ripped through the Champlain Valley. I awoke later than usual, actually much later, to discover the Vig had an inordinate amount of ash. I believe the stronger draft up the chimney may have aided in a faster burn. Even still, the bed was revived without much effort, just layer the top, allowed it to ignite, threw on another layer,
removed some ash and now she's belting out 700F. Yet a bit more ash removal is needed to stabilize the bed.... and that's that.
...>8...

Funny you should mention that! Before I went to bed I noticed the blue ladies really doing the jig at a time when it would normally be glowing steady. I checked the thermostat flap and it was closed down to the normal position. Checked the stack temp and it was up a little, 200 when it's usually 150, and noted the stove top temp was below 700*. The Vig II was pumping out the heat. Wind was blowing strong and steady. I actually opened up the secondary air inlet all the way too. That did drop the stack temp 15*. Kept it fed a little more and all was normal.

If I see the Ladies doing jigs, I check the top loading door. I have found a small piece of coal lodged in the recess causing some air to flow in from the top which upsets the slow dance....

vmi1983 wrote: If I see the Ladies doing jigs, I check the top loading door. I have found a small piece of coal lodged in the recess causing some air to flow in from the top which upsets the slow dance....

I did look for that but didn't spot any. Could have missed it, it was really late (early?) and my eyesight isn't that great just now.

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:

vmi1983 wrote: If I see the Ladies doing jigs, I check the top loading door. I have found a small piece of coal lodged in the recess causing some air to flow in from the top which upsets the slow dance....

I did look for that but didn't spot any. Could have missed it, it was really late (early?) and my eyesight isn't that great just now.

I hear ya.... once I had a piece in the front doors, pretty much caused the jigs too...

I'm having a great time keeping the stoves going... two stoves are not so bad, my buddy's running 5, that's crazy

I know we've discussed this before, but that "Air Control" port on the lower left side of the Vigilant II, when burning anthracite, has no function other than to feed cooler air
to the draft , thereby reducing the pressure created in the Chimney, right? Opening this port in theory, would serve as a sort of manual baro damper, right?

If this is true, when would I open the port? On warm windy days or if I wish to slow the draft down for a longer burn, or allow the Vigilant to burn say cruise at 400F or 350F on colder days when I am away from the home?
.
Big danger, would CO leak out through that "Air Control"?

I wish VC would have explained it's function in detail in the manual!

BTW secondary
combustion on my Vig is (I think) achieved by some air flowing under the front glass and up over the fire.

Ok it's 42F outside. I'm observing the temp on the stove for good reason. Earlier, the house was way too warm... with the air-inlet closed or just a wee bit ajar, and after refueling, the mighty Vig climbed over 650F and heading toward 700F, the standard solution is to open the large internal damper, close the air inlet and let the heat escape
up the chimney (or just add less fuel) In this situation, I still have strong draft which means I'm still burning same amount of fuel, so all that heat is lost.

The VigII
is an indirect design, it's not a simple stove, I think one should be able to load it, set it for moderate to high heat output.

Ok with the air inlet a crack open, it looks closed at first glance, but it isn't, it is open just about 1/16th of an inch... and with the left-side air controller wide open,
the operating temp dropped to a steady 580F (from 650F) and now it has level out at that temp...

Observing the fire... there are gentle blue ladies... the fire looks well regulated burning gently, not kicking so much heat, and it looks to me this fire will provide a long
burn.

I believe VigIIPB is correct, the Air Controller does indeed add fresh cool air to the chimney draft.

I would appreciate any observations, comments, etc. regarding the Air Controller and if it affects your draft, burn time, stove temp, etc.

I;ll let you know more when I get home at 2100 hrs.

Thanks,

Matt

Yes Matt, your statements about the secondary air inlet on the left side of the stove are correct imho. If your fuel of choice is anthracite, the port doesn't have much function other than bleeding off some chimney draft, bypassing the firebox just like any other leak in the stove will do above the grates. On the other hand if your choice of fuel is bituminous, the port might have some secondary combustion function. For anthracite, the secondary air is thru the unsealed bottom of the door glass. Secondary air for an anthracite fire needs to be close to the top of the coal bed - and very little of it too.

The Vigilant's exterior castings have been around since the model was released. The secondary air inlet followed them with the unchanged stove side casting. Modifications made to this model by VC began within the stove. If you chose the multi-fuel version, a multi-part hopper/grate system was needed to switch between using wood or anthracite as a fuel. I understand that VC made a coal version of this older model but the main difference was the grade of iron used in the casting. As the model changes moved the Vigilant toward a coal "only" stove, VC added glass to the larger front doors,grate design changes, more room for the larger ashpan and, eventually, the swing out ashdrop assembly, the stove-within-a-stove design and the integrated internal by-pass damper used on the model Vigilant II 2310. The exterior of the Vigilant variants staid essentially the same.

Going back to the port, it was originally designed to add pre-heated secondary combustion air into the side chamber to help support secondary combustion of wood smoke. This was old tech, not the new air systems and cats we see in modern EPA wood burners. My 70's vintage VC Defiant had the exact same cover over its secondary air inlet. It did serve a function, maybe not so much in introducing secondary air to support secondary combustion of the wood smoke, but more so to prevent puff-backs when the wood fire was barely burning and the smoke would linger in the stove. When the thermostatically controlled main air would close, the wood smoke would barely move away from the fire. As little O2 made it into the fire box, the smoke would continue to linger near the hottest part of the fire and reach it's ignition ratio of fuel/air/temperature until it would ignite in minor explosion - puffbacks not unlike we occasionally see with coal but much smaller. Small ammounts of wood smoke would puff out of the main air intake and then the cover would slam shut as the mini-explosion caused the column of smoke in the stove to expand a little, then as it settled it would again mix with O2 until the conditions were again right for another PUFF. Once the rhythm was established, there would be a chain of continuous puffs and you would hear the thermostat cover banging closed after each PUFF. The first time I encountered this, it sounded like a toy locomotive running on its track: chink-chink-chink-chink-chink ... . The room got smokey enough to set off the smoke alarm and wake me up in the middle of the night! Anyway, telling that story got a little long, sorry. To solve this, you had to close down the secondary air inlet a little to prevent O2 from being sucked back in to the combustion chamber and prevent the puffback cycle from occurring.

All said and done, IMHO, the air inlet on the side of our coal stove is vestigial. It use to have a purpose in a former design employing old technology that became outdated by better designs to accomplish the same function more efficiently to meet new EPA regs. Other VC wood stove models exterior appearances changed along with the modifications required to meet the newer EPA regs. The Vigilant's exterior staid much the same as it morphed into the "coal only" stove, the model II 2310.

I'm going to bed!

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:Yes Matt, your statements about the secondary air inlet on the left side of the stove are correct imho. If your fuel of choice is anthracite, the port doesn't have much function other than bleeding off some chimney draft, bypassing the firebox just like any other leak in the stove will do above the grates. On the other hand if your choice of fuel is bituminous, the port might have some secondary combustion function. For anthracite, the secondary air is thru the unsealed bottom of the door glass. Secondary air for an anthracite fire needs to be close to the top of the coal bed - and very little of it too.

The Vigilant's exterior castings have been around since the model was released. The secondary air inlet followed them with the unchanged stove side casting. Modifications made to this model by VC began within the stove. If you chose the multi-fuel version, a multi-part hopper/grate system was needed to switch between using wood or anthracite as a fuel. I understand that VC made a coal version of this older model but the main difference was the grade of iron used in the casting. As the model changes moved the Vigilant toward a coal "only" stove, VC added glass to the larger front doors,grate design changes, more room for the larger ashpan and, eventually, the swing out ashdrop assembly, the stove-within-a-stove design and the integrated internal by-pass damper used on the model Vigilant II 2310. The exterior of the Vigilant variants staid essentially the same.

Going back to the port, it was originally designed to add pre-heated secondary combustion air into the side chamber to help support secondary combustion of wood smoke. This was old tech, not the new air systems and cats we see in modern EPA wood burners. My 70's vintage VC Defiant had the exact same cover over its secondary air inlet. It did serve a function, maybe not so much in introducing secondary air to support secondary combustion of the wood smoke, but more so to prevent puff-backs when the wood fire was barely burning and the smoke would linger in the stove. When the thermostatically controlled main air would close, the wood smoke would barely move away from the fire. As little O2 made it into the fire box, the smoke would continue to linger near the hottest part of the fire and reach it's ignition ratio of fuel/air/temperature until it would ignite in minor explosion - puffbacks not unlike we occasionally see with coal but much smaller. Small ammounts of wood smoke would puff out of the main air intake and then the cover would slam shut as the mini-explosion caused the column of smoke in the stove to expand a little, then as it settled it would again mix with O2 until the conditions were again right for another PUFF. Once the rhythm was established, there would be a chain of continuous puffs and you would hear the thermostat cover banging closed after each PUFF. The first time I encountered this, it sounded like a toy locomotive running on its track: chink-chink-chink-chink-chink ... . The room got smokey enough to set off the smoke alarm and wake me up in the middle of the night! Anyway, telling that story got a little long, sorry. To solve this, you had to close down the secondary air inlet a little to prevent O2 from being sucked back in to the combustion chamber and prevent the puffback cycle from occurring.

All said and done, IMHO, the air inlet on the side of our coal stove is vestigial. It use to have a purpose in a former design employing old technology that became outdated by better designs to accomplish the same function more efficiently to meet new EPA regs. Other VC wood stove models exterior appearances changed along with the modifications required to meet the newer EPA regs. The Vigilant's exterior staid much the same as it morphed into the "coal only" stove, the model II 2310.

I'm going to bed!

Good Night VigIIPB!!! Wow... thanks for giving me the facts! Vestigial.... like that word!!!

Thanks to VigIIPB for straightening-me-out, no reason at this point to mess with the air-controller, I closed it completely last night.

Last night, the air-inlet flap was set ajar just a tad. 'Had a nice slow burn at 600F, and early in the morning 'did the shake down and slice, loaded up the Vig again... there was plenty of burn left, but I was away until 2100,
again there was plenty of coal to burn, still had blue ladies. The time between recharge was 14 hours, and I believe there was another 6 hours left. the milder temps during
the day helped extend the burn.


Now I reloaded the stove, no need to adjust the air inlet, I opened the damper for 10 minutes, and shut it closed. Nice slow ladies are appearing. The temp is 30F and expected to drop to a low of 20F. Stove top is reading is 600 F.

vmi1983 wrote:

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:

vmi1983 wrote: If I see the Ladies doing jigs, I check the top loading door. I have found a small piece of coal lodged in the recess causing some air to flow in from the top which upsets the slow dance....

I did look for that but didn't spot any. Could have missed it, it was really late (early?) and my eyesight isn't that great just now.

I hear ya.... once I had a piece in the front doors, pretty much caused the jigs too...

I'm having a great time keeping the stoves going... two stoves are not so bad, my buddy's running 5, that's crazy

We use to run 4 stoves; wood, not coal.

Copied from another thread. We all thought it be just as appropriatet to be re-posted here in Matt's thread too. Thanks Matt and OliverP

Subject: VC 2310 to a Harman 111

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:

oliver power wrote:When talking the Vigilant, as vigIIPeaBurner said; It's the double (mostly glass) doors that really sling the heat. The whole stove radiates heat. But, the double front doors will throw a giant beam of heat (and light), 20 feet or so across the room. And at that distance away, it feels like you're sitting under a big heat lamp. Quite impressive for a stove with no fan. ...>8....

A picture says it best

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iPad Photo Booth thermal camera.

The VigII has been burning slow and steady the last few days. Too warm, but the burns are complete, ash is 90% mere powder!!!!

Folks,

'Been using a range of Stove/Nut lately, the coal burns beaucoups longtime... nice and slow in the warmer temps, also burns beaucoups longtime in colder weather. May go with this mix on next order.