Yes, the Defiant Encore is a wonderful stove, enough so that I bought a second one for a vacation home. Cast iron does not like to be overfired and it looked like that is what happened to that one - and then someone tried to straighten it out. The other person was also correct that these stoves need to have periodic maintenance. The CAT should be taken out, inspected and the honeycomb vacuumed yearly, replaced when necessary. If the damper is stuck open, yes, the stove will overfire. I had a damper cable break after about 15 years and mine closed all the way. I had to call a service man to fix it.
In building a fire in your Encore, start with newspaper and kindling and maybe one medium log. Once it is burning well, then add others. I start my fires in a manner that is NOT recommended. The caveat is that you CANNOT leave the stove unattended when you do this. My front doors always stay closed and I do all my fire building and log loading from the top. I take my first piece of newspaper, crumple it and twist a point on it and stick it through the grate. After adding more paper and kindling I open the ash pan door and light it from the bottom, leaving the ash pan door barely cracked and NEVER leaving the stove. The bottom air draw is like having a set of bellows to get the fire going. Once it is burning well, add more logs and close the ash pan door. When the temperature gets high enough AND you have some decent coals, THEN I engage the CAT. Do it too early and you'll see the temperature drop and the flames quickly die. In the morning, with only an ember or two left, I add a few smaller logs, crack the door (with the CAT disengaged), and in no time the fire is resurrected.
So long as the fire is burning well and wood hasn't been added recently, to load the stove I disengage the CAT, open the damper and can load from the top without any smoking. The stove will continue to draw up the flu long enough to completely add your firewood. Loading from the top means far less mess than if you are opening the doors every time you want to add a log.
I will close with mentioning again - opening the ash pan door is NOT recommended by VC. If you forget and walk away you can overfire your stove and damage it in the long term. At the same time it can be a great way to efficiently start and manage your fires, minimize the mess and not spend a lot of time doing what can be done in a fraction of it.
