Production Woodstock IS

Started it with some sassafras kindling and then loaded a couple small splits of ash.

Hope i didnt break tradition

 

If there's a tradition I musta unknowingly broke it also.


But that wouldn't be the first thing I've ever broke.

 

Dude...that makes great tea and root beer and you’re using it for kindling. Send it to me. LOL!!!

 

The roots mainly. Got plenty if you want some! We had a mature stand of sassafras come down in a bad storm. The husky 450 rancher gave em the business though.

On topic:

Man do i love this stove. It rips!! Cant wait to really open it up.

 

Pumping the heat out quick!!! 1200 on the cat probe!!! How is the paint smell going?

 

I think its cause the wood was very very dry.(it peaked at 1300) The paint smell was pretty strong. It was 45 here though. Windows open with some nice ventilation. Only had the alarms go off once. They will probably go off again tomorrow.

 

When I broke in my Ideal Steel's paint our alarms kept going off. This stove is a great heater. I love it. 30 degrees with rain /snow mix right now and the IS is cruising down stairs with upstairs at 75. You will be very happy with the stove. Just keep feeding it nice seasoned wood and all will be good.

 

How hot is too hot for the cat? It seems like it always wants to shoot up to 1600 and the stove is still only 425 or so. I dont see how to get to STT 550 without the cat getting to 2000. Any input is appreciated.

I did a boil test on my condar probe and it was about 310 in boiling water so maybe im not running as hot as i think i am.

The wood is tested between 18-22% on a fresh split. 13 months seasoned(very hot dry summer as well)

I also think about the fact that someone without a condar probe does not even take cat into factor at all. So long as thermomemter provided with the stove is under 600 why would they be concerned.

Also i see pics of glowing cat . Mine has never glowed so how hot could it actually be?

 

If you are using a spring temperature probe, I would not trust its output. Anything at 1,600F will be well beyond merely glowing and be bright orange, heading toward yellow, to the human eye.

My cat. typically runs around 1,150F or so and stove top temps. are 400F to 450F. Driving the stove harder will actually reduce the cat. temp. because the secondaries in the stove burn most or all of the smoke, so while the stove top and stack temps. go up, the cat. temperatures do not. I have had my stove top at 650F steady and the cat. is nowhere near 1,600F.

About the only thing that drives my cat. temp. up over, say, 1250F to 1,300F is when burning scrap lumber which of course is extremely dry pine. If I choke the stove down, the wood stops burning and makes a tremendous amount of smoke, which in turn drives the cat. temp. way up; the 'fix' for this is to open the draft until there is actual flame in the firebox and the cat. temps. drop again. And of course I am talking about either a mix of lumber and firewood splits or a small amount of lumber scraps alone- filling a large firebox with lumber scraps is a bit touchy unless I stay in front of the stove to regulate it.

If you want more accuracy reading temperature, I suggest a thermocouple and readout- they are not that expensive and work far, far better than any spring expansion type of mechanical thermometer.

Brian

 

I also think about the fact that someone without a probe does not even take cat into factor at all. So long as thermomemter provided with the stove is under 600 why would they be concerned.

Thak you for the detailed reply. I definitely need another solution if i want to accurately monitor the catalyst.

I had a feeling this inaccurate probe was causing unnecessary anxiety.

 

Nothing worse than lousy instruments when trying to deal with a problem / situation. How does that old line go- something like 'A man with a watch has a very good idea what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure what time it is and a man with three watches has no idea what time it is'. Better to just 'eyeball' the stove than to add in bad readings IMO.

Older stoves, such as a favorite of mine, a pot belly stove, are easy enough to run and would not really benefit much, IMO, by using more technology on them such as thermometers. Newer, secondary burn stoves really are quite controllable and can be set to burn very well and very efficiently. Which means they can also be used to burn inefficiently also. So temp. monitoring is a benefit, again at least in my opinion and experience. And there is some really very good, quite inexpensive equipment available to do this.

Brian

 

Did a little more tinkering and realized the way i was measuring STT was actually about 40 degrees cooler than the way most measure it.

I am rear venting so i had been measuring it on the center of the top vent cover.
I found 2 spots on the stove that are hotter as well the more discussed being right next to cat probe holes. I found the crease in the cat cover to be very hot as well, esp right around where the top vent cover plate is.

 

I apologize if this has been discussed but I’m only about half way through reading this thread. Do any of you get the build up in your ash pan? It’s like a mix of ash and moisture that gets hard? My stove has done this since new. Gaskets aren’t leaking, is it causes from ash pan not having and insulation?

 

I never had that Slocum

 

Got the stutters this morning, huh?

 

Yes phones frozen ​

 

I burned a couple cords of kiln dried hardwood furniture cutoffs this season with no problems of overfiring.
Its hard to get the firebox full as the small pieces will try to roll out the door when shoveling it in. I'd get as much as i could in then put a split or two in front like a flood gate. Lots of heat and very controllable.
I hardly ever burn cat-only fires... I need a bit more heat to get upstairs.

 

My ash pan is coated black inside

 

Yeah, it helps if you push the stove a bit harder when using really dry, small pieces of wood. The major problem I have had is that the wood all engages but if the draft opening is turned down too low, the wood off-gasses like crazy and the stove will continuously back- puff.... and some of those are truly impressive, especially in the living room.

And I believe hardwood kiln dried lumber would burn better than softwood; most people have access to building scraps which are almost always pine. A stove full of 2 X 4's, especially short pieces, is tough to control. The stove will either run away or suffer the dreaded nuclear back puffing, at least in my experience. I have found

I have burned a tremendous amount of lumber and general building wood scraps with great success in an iron pot bellied stove but they are much better at burning fairly hot and fast, very much unlike more modern 'air tight' stoves.

Brian

 

I'll get some fireballs (we call it "whoofing" since that's at it sounds like) that send a smoke smell into the room if I try to run a stove full of pine in a certain range between straight cat black glass and consistent secondaries. Letting a little bit of secondary flame stay lit prevents this, as I'm sure most of us have found.