In loving memory of Kenis D. Keathley 6/4/81 - 3/27/22 Loving father, husband, brother, friend and firewood hoarder Rest in peace, Dexterday

WS IS clean and sweep report

Discussion in 'Modern EPA Stoves and Fireplaces' started by My IS heats my home, Oct 11, 2017.

  1. My IS heats my home

    My IS heats my home

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    IMG_0338.JPG
    Pic 1, this is a shot from just inside the door on the immediate left. It's the first piece of stone that sits on the bottom in the corner. It's the only piece, while inspecting while cleaning, that was found cracked in 2 places.

    Pic 2, is the welded in place lip that holds the sled gasket in place. The seal itself is in ok shape, the steel lip that surrounds that has warped in 2 places. The warpage has forced the sled not to seat itself correctly on the gasket when it's slid into position. The gasket itself also shows signs that the steel contact was uneven.

    Not pictured, I noticed when cleaning the ashpan that there was quite a bit of creosote collected down there. I think I was confused a bit when I saw that, it's a place where ash collects and the walls and bottom were coated in black creosote. I do not use the ash pan door as a damper, actually it's typically sealed for 2 weeks at a time before I open it for cleaning. Not sure what to think of this before the burning begins again.

    The rod that crosses the area of the CAT appears to be shrinking in the center. It does take quite a bit of heat in that area and like the radiator has seriously started to scale.

    The newer radiator (with SS pate attached) has limited the warpage the original radiator suffered from day 1. The scaling issue is the same, that's understood for a wear item.

    Other than those things, the CAT was cleaned and the backup CAT (original CAT) is also clean and ready to go. I suspect this cat will go the rest of this year and part of next before being replaced.

    Any other IS owners have pre-season reports from the last burn season?


    IMG_0339.JPG
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017
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  2. Canadian border VT

    Canadian border VT

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    looks good what's lower left bottom pic... have you :fire: yet​
     
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  3. chance04

    chance04

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    Did you manage to break a brick?

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  4. Canadian border VT

    Canadian border VT

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    is it soapstone or brick?
     
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  5. chance04

    chance04

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    That was gonna be my next question

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  6. My IS heats my home

    My IS heats my home

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    See updated post...theres a bit to read. Tell me what you think.

    Any word on WS doing an open house?
     
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  7. chance04

    chance04

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    I haven't noticed scaling on the rod that is above the cat, I'll have to keep an eye on that. You must run that thing in basically full cat mode all season?

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  8. My IS heats my home

    My IS heats my home

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    There aren't too many times I don't engage the CAT. It's so simple to reload, drop handle and then walk away.
     
  9. My IS heats my home

    My IS heats my home

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    I have the stone...and whats weird, this isn't even the hottest area of the firebox.
     
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  10. chance04

    chance04

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    Your wood supply must be FAR superior to mine lol I gotta get mine going again after a reload

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  11. Gark

    Gark

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    The first year using the IS, we got that creosote buildup on the ashpan area and door. In my case it was caused by my OCD clearing out all the ashes, to the point of clearing off the grate. Now I be sure to leave the grate channel filled (packed) with ash and small coals. This prevents the creo buildup around the ashpan big time.
    Our sled gasket and frame are like you described. Not sure if there’s any smoke sneaking through there.
     
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  12. My IS heats my home

    My IS heats my home

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    I'm still at a loss on how/why there is creosote down in the ashpan??
     
  13. Gark

    Gark

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    I think the firebox smoke wanders down through the ash grate unless the grate is covered with ashes.
     
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  14. My IS heats my home

    My IS heats my home

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    That makes sense. The entire sides and bottom were coated in a black creosote film. And the firebox itself, you can see where the line on the stone
    where the temperature difference was. I'm guessing this was all shoulder burning type fires too.

    TY
     
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  15. BDF

    BDF

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    Yeah, I think it is exactly what Gark said- just very smoke heavy air traveling down into the cooler area of the ashpan and cooling.... and the creosote condenses out of it exactly the same way a cold drink glass gets soaking went when sitting outside in the summer. My ash pan area has done the same thing, and it was bad enough that there was thick, gooey, black creosote bridging across the bottom of the ash pan door and gasket. It stretched out like chewing gum when the door was opened. The stove has not been doing it lately (??) but either way, it is not dangerous or any kind of flaw in the stove, just chemistry doing its thing. But it does make quite a mess.

    I have a couple of cracked stone plates in my stove too but as long as they are still full thickness, I am going to leave them alone. If they start to spall at the crack line I will have to replace them because they will get thinner over time.

    Brian

     
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  16. My IS heats my home

    My IS heats my home

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    I agree with you on the stone. The pieces are still in their original shape and hasn't shown any signs of falling apart or falling out of place.

    I like the info on the ash pan and the creosote, I hadn't heard much talk about others seeing it so I brought it up. Is there any concerns about
    the creosote catching fire in the ash pan? Is there enough O2 to ignite it? Is there enough heat down there? If it was to catch, will the ash pan
    area be ok to contain it?
     
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  17. BDF

    BDF

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    No, no chance of the ash pan igniting the creosote because it is cool there- which is exactly why the creosote is condensing out of the stove's gasses in the first place. It takes a lot of heat and high temperatures (sustained temps. over 800F) to ignite liquid or solid crystalline (the black, shiny stuff) creosote; it is much harder to ignite than wood. As there is nothing that would cause the ash pan container, ash pan or anything below the grate to get that hot, combined with the fact that there is virtually no oxygen down there (for those who do not feed the fire with ash pan door air :whistle: ) it would not burn anyway, even if it did get really hot, which it will not. So nah, it will not burn.... doubled. :)

    Wet or crystalline creosote is really hard to dry out and ignite; look at how hot a fire you have to get going and maintain for a while to burn the creosote off the glass on the door. And that is right next to the actual fire, not below it. That is also why chimney fires are usually started shortly after a stove is lit: the stove is really being pushed hard to get started, and often throwing raw flame all the way into the chimney. Once a stove is running in any kind of normal, sustained fashion, a chimeny fire is pretty unusual (though not impossible of course).

    Brian

     
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  18. My IS heats my home

    My IS heats my home

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    Thanks for your creosote reply, good answer.

    Next question, Creosote buildup. If we know that the black shiney stuff won't ignite, how far will the coating get in thickness?

    Is it only a shoulder burn type issue? In 24/7 mode I can't see them temps being low enough to get smoke so much
     
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  19. BDF

    BDF

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    Beats me but I guess it could build up pretty thick. Mine was thick enough to bridge the bottom of the entire ash pan door and make sticky, stringy threads that I had to scrape off with a putty knife. So it was what I thought was a lot.

    Mine has entirely stopped and I really do not know why, which I guess means I do not know why it was happening in the first place. I have change the chimney, so that may have had an effect. Maybe my wood was not as dry as I thought- or as dry as it should have been? I <think> it was good, and I tested some pieces which read OK (around 18% on average, using nails to dig deep into the wood rather than the pins into the surface). Perhaps I am not cleaning the stove as often as I used to and that layer of ash is preventing the firebox gasses from getting into the ash pan area in the first place? Honestly, I just do not know what has caused it to stop. ??

    The best way to attack it I think is to leave some ashes to clog up the grate. I used to clean the stove all the way down to the grate virtually all of the time and starting last year, have not been nearly as fussy about it- perhaps that is what has changed here; the first year before I was fighting to heat a house un-insulated above the ceiling and with a substantial number of outright leaks in it so had to keep the firebox as clean as possible to load as much wood as possible. Last winter I had a second floor on the house so the panic was over and I could be a lot more casual with loading the stove. Certainly isolating the ash pan volume from the firebox will prevent the problem.

    Brian

     
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  20. JA600L

    JA600L

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    So I took the top cover off my stove and the shield was warped and bolts loose. If you've never checked that yet you probably should.

    I also adjusted my door latch as it failed the dollar bill test. I added shim washers behind the handle.

    It should be ready to go now.