Not Feeling the Heat With Vigilant II

I had my vigilant II installed a few days ago. Fired it up Sunday morning. The temp in my house has not got over 67. The stove is in my basement. I really don't know what I am doing wrong. The thermostat I have on the stove pipe is reading just under 500 degrees. I am a newbie to coal stoves so any help would be great

500 degrees is very high on the stove pipe and most of your heat is going up the chimney. You need to switch the stove into the longer flame path mode. I'm sure a VigII owner will chime in. If you said the stove body was 500 you would be burning at a nice efficient temp. What size space are you trying to heat with it?

The fact that stove is in the basement is not helping either since it has to heat that space before anything gets upstairs and if you have concrete walls (un-insulated) down there you will lose allot of heat to them. Lastly, it sometimes take a few days to heat soak the house and stabilize. Do you have floor registers to get good distribution of the heat?

First off though, get that stack temp down. The stove can be that hot and more but the pipe near the thimble should be under 200 degrees.

Sarge, what's your house lay-out--what do you have--floor vents , tied into ductwork somehow, any kind of return air,etc-- pix really help people see what you're dealing with--I don't have any thermos on my stove, but 500 pipe temp sounds like you should be getting plenty of heat from the stove--not getting the heat where you want it is not a unique situation.

It could be a simple as the heat from the stove is be absorbed by the cold in the basement walls/floor. There is a lot of thermal mass down there and it can't take a few days of firing to get the temps you desire.

Pictures of your set up would help as well as a description of the floor plan. People much more in the know than me can help you figure this out.

Sorry for the wrong info I meant the thermostat was on top of the stove where you load it. The basement is full concrete. The are I want to heat up is about 650 square feet. Here are some pics. Please don't mind the mess. We are cleaning up down there.

Give it a few days at 500 degrees Sarg and see what happens. Usually take a bit of time to stabilize. It's not the ideal situation but that unit should be able to handle that size space fairly easily. Keep it cruising along with the 12/12hr shake and fill. Sounds like you are doing ok with it though if you can get maintain 500 on the stove 24/7 so good on that.

After the first of the year we plan on finishing that area with insulation and carpet. I am sure that will help. Thank you for the help guys

OK--500 on the stove top is good--you've got a moving the hot air situation--Sarge, what's that teeny lil white thing in the floor--looks kinda like puttin a 22 round in a 45 chamber is that the only floor vent you have--the chimney is in the middle of the house, yes??? Are you using the blower on the stove?? YES, you got a lot of block down there sucking up a way lot of stove heat--there are ways to direct the stove heat more twds floor vent if you find you need it. I've got to go trim a neighbors horses but I'll be back. Not to worry, you're going to get plenty of ideas thrown at you.--Impt thing is---it's very doable

I have three of those vents around the stove. All with fans in them. I don't have a blower for the stove. I didn't know there was one. The chimney is in the middle of the house.

RIArmySGT wrote:I have three of those vents around the stove. All with fans in them. I don't have a blower for the stove. I didn't know there was one.

I'm sure the blower is an option and you would have an electrical cord connected to a blower/fan usually attached at the rear of the stove. I am considering purchasing 1 or 2 of the power vents that you have, I moved my stove to the basement, do you like the vents output? keep in mind it difficult to add air to a filled balloon, a pressurized area is difficult to push warm air into, you need an air return to the basement. Check out the search box top right, many good points to consider. When you poke 1 hole in a large can, the liquid chugs out slowly, add a second hole to allow air to displace the liquid easier and the liquid flys out of the container. Good luck and welcome. Mike. Go Pats.

I didn't think about a return. I don't know if these fans have a reverse mode. I like them but they are pricey. Btw not a Pats fan. Giants fan here!

The Vigilant II will not have any problem heating 650sq. ft.. I heat close to 3,100 with mine. I run my stove top temperature consistantly at 600 - 700. It is designed for this so don't worry. My Vigilant II is entering its 12 or 13 season, just can't remember w/o looking it up

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From the pictures you posted:
First picture:

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• recommend closing the little frying pan shaped cover. It doesn't help at all when burning anthracite, just wood and bituminous.
• can't tell if you are running the internal damper in the vertical mode (pointing to the left) or the horizontal mode (handle vertical). Once you see good blue flames on a load and the top loading griddle is @~400*F, run the stove in damped mode - handle vertical.

Second picture:

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• it doesn't appear that your ash drop door is fully closed. Be sure it's tightly closed. All combustion air should enter thru the thermostatic flap controlled by the bimetallic coiled spring on top rear left (your left) corner. There's a tapered arrowhead graphic cast into the stove top. Mine runs ~ 600*f with the control rod set at the wide side (moved to your left)

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    ignore the metal rectangle I added, the rod shows in the right of the rectangle near the "-" sign.
  The flap it controls is connected to the bead chain, it will close to barely open as the stove reaches operating temperature.

Third picture:

• your fire isn't burning evenly across the grates. It should burn fairly even.

  

  If it hasn't caught fire completely, it should in a few hours. A possible cause:
  • the clean out doors are not in place. There are three; one one each side and on on the back right (your right) just below the grates.

    

  • When you check the clean out covers, check to confirm that the air restrictor plate has been removed. The above picture shows it removed and the full air feed hole is exposed just behind the left side of the grate rocker. You can see the screw hole above the hole where the plate is attached by a single screw.

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Check on all of this stuff. That stove will heat your space once you get the thermal mass of the concrete basement warmed. It's good to start heating with a radiant stove that's located in a basement early in the season. Check for some of my other Vigilant related posts by using the search function. My videos linked below my signature line might be of some help. Ask any questions you need answers to - we're all happy to help

RIArmySGT wrote:I didn't think about a return. I don't know if these fans have a reverse mode. I like them but they are pricey. Btw not a Pats fan. Giants fan here!

No optional blower for this stove. It's a true radiant appliance.

Don't fight gravity and Mother Nature buy trying to blow hot air up out of the basement. Cold air is more dense than hot air so you want to displace the hot air by getting the cold air into the basement thus forcing the hot air to rise into the void created by the falling cold air. Encouraging cold air to fall near the stove and hot air to rise from the perimeter of the stove room is usually most successful/efficient in moving heat around. If you have duct work for a hot air furnace, you can cut into that to move air.

Another point ... I would not recommend that you use the manual pipe damper (MPD) that you have installed. This stove is designed to operate with out one. The stove will limit the volume of air moving thru the stove in response to stove temperature via the thermostatically controlled air inlet. MPD are used to limit air volume moving up the chimney and is not needed for this stove. My stove pipe skin temperature never goes above 200F under the hottest burn conditions and stays ~ 180*F when the stove is running at 700*F.

The fry pan shaped vent should stay closed unless you are trying to slow the stove down it lets air in and weakens your draft. I also have had conserns that my vigilant cant heat my house but I think my draft is too weak.

carlherrnstein wrote:The fry pan shaped vent should stay closed unless you are trying to slow the stove down it lets air in and weakens your draft. I also have had conserns that my vigilant cant heat my house but I think my draft is too weak.

Carl makes a good point. Each chimney setup is different. How tall and what diameter (cross section) is your chimney? A good investment for all coal burners is a quality manometer. You could install it in the back hole from the MPD that you really don't need. Under winter burn conditions, my draft is very high at -0.09 to - 0.10. The high draw helps new coal to catch fire relatively quickly. Once the thermostat is closed down to hold the stove at cruise temperature, it drops into a more normal range of -0.03 +/- inches of vacuum.