Stove Update

Lots of news on the stove front, and I must confess, it’s all rather informative. First off, we learned that with our current stove, a Vermont Castings Defiant, which for the record we love, you’re supposed to keep an inch or two of ash on the bottom to help insulate the metal from the heat. Some people use sand. I did not know this, and perhaps as a consequence, our stove bottom cracked. Big bummer.

I’ve also learned that not too many stoves out there generate as much heat as our Defiant. In fact, my Mentor informed me that they were originally built to give off so much heat that they redesigned them smaller. We have one of the ones that generates too much heat, but for us, it’s perfect, though now it’s cracked.

After doing some research and consulting with friends, we narrowed our options down to two - fix our old stove, or get a new one. These are standard options for any purchase, except that we are dealing with a quarter ton stove, and safety is an imperative. To fix our stove requires a bit of logistical prowess, mainly transporting a 450lb a reasonably far distance. To buy a new one requires possible logistical prowess if we want to save money on transport (of course we do, it costs $400 to deliver it), as well as a couple thousand dollars.

The new stove that we were looking at is called a Jotul, it’s Norwegian, and our good friend TG has one and swears by it. I’ve read mixed things about it, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get as hot as our Defiant. The guy at the stove store said it’s their best selling stove, not to mention one of the best made in the world. Thankfully, he didn’t give me the hard sell, and was satisfied if we chose to simply fix our Defiant.

Now I was ready to get a new stove, they are really nice, but I really like our old one. My Mentor was generous enough to offer use of his massive truck to transport it, which is nice because it has a hydraulic lift. The trip would have been nearly two hours, and two trips back and forth would have cost a lot in gas.

The whole thing, like everything in our lives, began to spiral out of control in terms of information and decision making, especially since summer is coming to an end and you’re not supposed to use the stove for 30 days after the repair. I felt myself slowly inserting my head in the sand when I happened upon a gentlemen up near Conway who is a Vermont Castings stove expert. I have been in consultations with him, and he may make the trip down here to fix our stove, which would be a bonus. I’m looking into this so stay tuned for more.

Until then, thanks for reading.