Used Vigilant II - Stove Pipe Needs Replacing.

I'm new here:

Just bought our first home and in the "den" was a Vigilant II stove. I downloaded the manual and discovered it was a coal burning stove. Found a bag of coal in the garage, and decided to fire it up. Got it going nice and hot the first night but didn't have much luck after that.

Stumbled upon this forum which has been a gold mine of useful information. After reading many postes I decided to take the thing apart, giving it a good cleaning and make sure everything's there and in order.

The ash pan has the sticker on it that says only Anthracite coal should be used. However, I found the metal plate that was suppose to have been removed was still there, while one of the clean out covers was missing... I suspect the dealer removed the wrong plate. Also found 5 dead birds behind the ash pan and behind the clean out covers; and 1-2 inch deep of ash behind the clean out covers.
I ordered a replacement plate, new gaskets, and and the ash pan cover (which was also missing).
Ok, now for my questions!

1. The stove pipe had what I am assuming was furnace cement around it where it met the stove. Didn't get a picture of it before I removed it all. It was filling this gap: I think I'll be replacing this pipe, which I've never done before. Any helpful tips for a first-timer? Should I use furnace cement when joining to the stove?

The top of the pipe also concerns me: I'm assuming this a "snap lock" type pipe, and it just seems like there's a lot of gap in the joints since it can't fit flush. Also it seems like it would better to just go straight from the stove to the box rather than using two lengths of pipe, any reason why that wouldn't be recommended?

2. There's a screw that holds the air inlet box / channel (called "primary air tube" on parts list) to the back plate under the grate. It was loose enough that I could spin it easily with my hand. I was able to tighten it by reaching back and holding the nut in the back. I'm wondering if I should leave it loose to allow for expansion? (sorry no picture for this one)

3. There's a fair amount of space between the fire brick. Just wondering if that's OK. Should I seal with furnace cement?
Thanks for reading! Looking forward to hearing what you all have to say, and keeping the house warm with coal!

Hope you don't mind all the pictures, here another of the whole set-up:

Fill stove pipe to stove collar gap with furnace cement like before...
Gaps in the fire brick are fine do not fill them...
Stove pipe comes in 2 foot lengths...
Or you can get an adjustable length pipe but it costs you $$...

It really doesn't look like this stove has seen much coal! Brick looks new. Other than the pipe installation, you've got a gem. You could get away with one piece of pipe from the stove to the chimney. It might be difficult to install with out any slack but be sure to screw all joints.

You'll need the dust covers. If they're not installed, you'll loose draft from below the fire making it hard to keep a fire. I've been through it when the dealer installed mine. All the gaps in the stovepipe need to be tight as well for the same reason.

The sticker on the ash drop door is placed there when the air restrictor is removed. It has to be installed if your are burning bituminous coal (or wood ). My dealer didn't even know which plate to remove! I figured it out after a few frustrating weeks. I've never check my primary air tube bolt. When I clean it up, nothing seems to be loose. I wouldn't worry about it being tight, cast to cast joints need expansion slack.

For the gaps in the firebrick, use furnace cement like suggested. You can leave them as is because ash will fill the gaps eventually but cement is better. The 45* pieces, I just keep them slathered in cement. Ever couple of years I pull all the brick and replace them with new. I soak them n water first so there's better cement adhesion when assembled

Hi CoalChap, this sove will keep you warm all the winter. You Should remove the restriction plate and make (easy to do because you have 2 others for model) or buy one. The clean out channels are what the name says. A good vac can do the job after you remove all what you can with your fingers or small pieces of cardboard acting as a small shovel. Yes, the fit for the base of the pipe is very bad on V.C. stoves. What I did on mine (you see it on my video) was to place a gasket roll, just one turn at the base of the pipe and covered it with a piece of stove pipe I did cut and turn the ends 90*, drill 2 holes and inserted a bolt for the tightening. I did the same for the top and used a decoration cover (the one you use when the pipes pass a wall) to hide the gasket rope. That way permits you to remove the pipe without the cement problems. For the pipe you have ,it looks like a telescopic pipe, the one you can slide down to be able to remove it easily. Just have it screw with 3 or more screws. If the pipe looks in good shape, keep it.The gap between bricks is not important. What I found more important was that, they are only held with a patch of stove cement and on mine,brand new, 2 bricks fall on the grates. I made a horizontal bracket to hold them in place. I used an angle St.St. 1"X1" bar, to hold them at the top and exceeding at the right and left and inserted these ends in crack or space at the two sides (spaces created by the 2 parts named right inner side and left inner side) at the rear top of them. For the triangular bricks, it's an other story for my case as you can see on the vid.
Best of luck and I hope I wasn't too complicated. If you have questions feel free to ask. A lot of peoples can help you on this forum.
Salutations from Qc

I'd bet the gaskets are in good shape. That 2310 doesn't look like it's seen any hard use. The door sets need to be readjusted to tighten the gap shown in the picture. You should check the ash drop door too. That sticker on the ash drop door looks bad where it's at. It should be on the top edge so you can see it only when the door is opened.

IMHO, you don't need to strap the brick onto the stove back. Proper mortaring techniques will secure the firebrick for a long time. Just like with nortcan's stove, my brick were factory mudded with very little cement. If they come loose and are in good condition or if you eventually need to replace them, it's not hard to mud them in properly. Here's how I've done it twice...

• Remove all of the brick to be replaced or resecured.
• Remove any old furnace cement from the cast iron back/side.
• Clean the back of the brick to be reused or use new - they're cheap.
• Set the brick in ~ 1cm.>1/2 inch of water to soak.
• With a damp/wet Turkish towel wipe clean the cast iron surface until it's free of loose stuff. It should be damp before you replace the brick.
• Remove the brick from the water and wipe with a towel. Apply ~ 1/8"(4mm) of furnace cement across the back. Score it with hash marks to create a series of criss-crossing 'valleys'. You can do the same to one side of the brick if it butts against another brick.
• Push the cemented side of the brick onto the damp cast iron and set the permanent position.
• Repeat until done! Let the set cure for a day or two. Make the first fire with wood and build it slowly to help the cement set properly.

This should work. Here's a picture of the first set of brick I replaced. Still secure after three hard seasons. The sides are already stripped as I was in the process of replacing the brick before last season.

Thanks for your quick responses and insight!

Due to other home projects, I wasn't able to do much with the stove till last week. I got new stove pipe and had to cement around the collar... I didn't have enough gasket after doing the doors to put in the pipe/colar gap, but I may try that next time around if the cement doesn't hold.

I also used cement to seal the fire brick in. Seems to be holding well, especially for the triangel pieces.

So far I've only burned wood fires. Getting coal delivered on Saturday and looking forward to getting the stove burning 24/7!

CoalChap wrote:Thanks for your quick responses and insight!
>8....8<
So far I've only burned wood fires. Getting coal delivered on Saturday and looking forward to getting the stove burning 24/7!

Be certain to assemble the pipe joints with a minimum of 3 screws each. Did you put the crimped end of the pipe into the stove? My SS pipe fit tightly assembled with the smooth side in, crimped side up.

We'll be here if you need some help. Learning to burn coal has its own set of rules, many that differ from wood burning. When you get the hang of burning anthracite, you'll not want to go back to wood

Just a question. Does this stove setup require a barometric damper?

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:
Be certain to assemble the pipe joints with a minimum of 3 screws each. Did you put the crimped end of the pipe into the stove? My SS pipe fit tightly assembled with the smooth side in, crimped side up.

We'll be here if you need some help. Learning to burn coal has its own set of rules, many that differ from wood burning. When you get the hang of burning anthracite, you'll not want to go back to wood

I used screws on all the pipe joints, and as you suspected, I put the crimped end of the pipe into the stove.

The pipe coming out of the chimney box is pretty securely fastened somehow inside. And that pipe has a crimped/tapered end down. So, I guess I could snip the crimped end off the pipe (there's enough length for that) so both ends would slip on. All I could find around me was the snap lock type pipe, which seems to get a little flat right along the snap seam. This leaves a wider gap on the one side. At this point There doesn't appear to be any smoke leaking from the joint, so I'm happy for now.

Another question:
When the stove is up to temp and running smoothly, the air intake flap constantly opens and closes, just a little, making a "tink-tink" sound. Is this normal? I was considering putting some gasket around the opening to dampen the sound, since it gets pretty annoying very quickly.

Also, I just noticed today that on the inside of the doors and on the inside of the collar and stove pipe there's a kind of shiny black coating. Almost like glossy black paint. The rest of the fire box doesn't seem to have this on it. It's hard to the touch, like dried paint as well... I'm assuming it's some kind of deposit from the wood I'm burning...

I've never owned a wood / coal stove so I don't know if this is normal.

Smoker858 wrote:Just a question. Does this stove setup require a barometric damper?

I don't think so, there's a built in exhaust damper, and a temperature controlled air intake damper.

The user manual also recommends not using any kind of in-flue damper.

My stove pipe as I recall from 8 yrs ago, is Duravent SS 6". My set up has two pieces; a telescoping piece and one 3' piece before the chimney connector. My chimney connector threads into the chimney base and I use a strap wrench to snug it up or loosen it. I know how the snap seam is on your type of pipe. It's difficult to shape but can be persuaded into round with blocks of wood, a ballpien hammer and patient small applications of force dampened by the wood blocks guided by a studied eye. Before you cut your pipe, flip it around and check how the uncrimped end fits into the stove collar.

You'll want to seal up any pipe to pipe/stove gaps when you start to burn coal. If you have down drafts or loose your draft, gaps are entry ports for CO - you do not want that.

The black coating on the front doors is most likely creosote build up. It condenses out of the wood smoke onto cool surfaces. Nasty stuff. It will burn off of the stove surfaces over several weeks of burning coal. Check your chimney to see if it's there too. You might need to brush your chimney out before you start coal burning. You don't want a sheet of creosote to break loose and close off your chimney/draft when you have a coal fire going. This shouldn't be too much of a concern unless you've burned a cord or more of wood.

The thermostatic air flap oscillating is most likely caused by draft variations when the stove temperature is close to your setting. By that I mean the flap is nearly closed over the intake hole. Don't put gasket there. If you're burning wood the restrictor plate should be installed inside the stove. That cuts down on the volume of air going through the charge of wood. If you burn wood with the doors closed and the r-plate out, the velocity and volume of air feeding the wood fire will cause this. Once you remove the r-plate for burning anthracite, the bed of coal and ash will dampen the draft surge that is causing the flap to pull shut. I occasionally hear this on very windy days but not often. BTW, the thermo-air door acts like a kind of reverse baro/manual pipe damper hybrid to equalize the draft. Once I'm set up and burning, I rarely adjust it for days or weeks.

So, I've been burning Blaschak pea since Saturday. The fire hasn't gone out yet I've just been adding coal and shaking it down. Unfortunately it hasn't been very cold (mid 40s to mid 50s) and the stove is putting out more heat than we need. Looks like tomorrow will cool off in to the low 30s so that will be nice.

I've got the stove running at about 350* on the surface. It seems to hold that temp pretty well, however the blue flames disappear. I still get bright orange glowing coals... but no blue flames. Is this something I should be concerned about? The manual warns against burning less than 400*...

CoalChap wrote:So, I've been burning Blaschak pea since Saturday. The fire hasn't gone out yet I've just been adding coal and shaking it down. Unfortunately it hasn't been very cold (mid 40s to mid 50s) and the stove is putting out more heat than we need. Looks like tomorrow will cool off in to the low 30s so that will be nice.

I've got the stove running at about 350* on the surface. It seems to hold that temp pretty well, however the blue flames disappear. I still get bright orange glowing coals... but no blue flames. Is this something I should be concerned about? The manual warns against burning less than 400*...

Pea size is a good choice for the seasonal temperatures that you are experiencing. It holds you draft down and makes operating at lower temperatures a little easier. You're experiencing similar temperatures that I am with my 2310 too. Don't be too concerned about the presence of the blue flames, it's more important to see the red bed and temperatures in the operating range. Just make sure you burn off the gasses from a new charge of coal, then don't be too concerned about seeing the blue flames all the time. In this weather I've been going 23-28 hrs in-between shaking & loading. If you get too much heat in the house, don't damp it down and let more heat go up the chimney (helps maintain draft at low burn). You'll have to close your air feed and find your running zone againf if you do this. Add to that some "window-stats" to keep the room temp comfortable

The main point to consider is maintaining draft when burning at lower stove top temperatures. If the flue gas temperature drops too far, you risk loosing draft, therefore the manual's warning about sub 400 temps. I recall the manual states don't switch the internal damper down when below 400. Make certain that you have working CO monitors at the appropriate places about your house. Monitor you flue pipe temperatures when you're at these stove temperatures and, if you can, the draft too. Each stove's installation and chimney characteristics are specific to that location so there's some learning curve to climb. From you post, you’re doing just fine.