New Stove Developments

Just when you thought you had it all figured out, new things come along and throw the situation into disarray. We were considering getting a new stove when the idea of having our old one fixed became more appealing, and for a couple of reasons. First off, our Vermont Castings Defiant is an old school stove, the first ones built by the company, and apparently they burn so hot that they had to redesign subsequent models so they didn’t burn so hot. My Mentor relayed this story to me, but I’d heard that the old VC stoves provided great heat.

With this in mind, getting a new stove, unless we got a big and expensive one, would have probably meant not getting as much heat. Possible, but not for sure. The second issue is that I’d read a few message boards and some issues seemed to come up with the Jotul stove we were interested in. Something to do with the damper malfunctioning and letting too much air in. I can’t say for sure, but some people said they would never get a Jotul again, though they were the minority.

Then there’s the issue of cost. A new stove is over $2000, while fixing our old one would be half that cost, if not even less. Finally, we really like our old stove, and I’m a big believer in fixing things and using them for as long as possible. The big issue was finding a person to fix it, and getting it to them. My Mentor was kind enough to offer the use of his truck, which can haul small buildings and has a lift. I was trying to figure out how to move the thing and even bought a furniture dolly at Home Depot ($20, not bad), when I happened upon a guy near Conway who specializes in VC stoves. He even travels to fix them.

He was willing to come to our house to fix our stove, and just needed to know some specific information. I’m guessing the repair will take about a day, and then it should be like a “new” old stove. There are other assorted repairs that need to be done, but apparently they are doable, and we’ve decided to go for it. The cost will be in the range that I expected, about half the cost of a new one, but we will have our beloved stove back, and won’t have to deal with transporting it.

I’m all for it, but won’t jump for joy until the deed is done. Stay tuned for more.

Until then, thanks for reading.