Production Woodstock IS

This is a different person. I know Laurin (sp?) but the person who I have been speaking with lately is both a different person as well as having a different name (Laureen vs. [Laurin or Larin]). Pronounced Lor- reen. She is fairly new to Woodstock Soapstone.

Brian

 

I figure its my own fault for being so late getting the stove to em. I'm gonna let em have at it uninterrupted.....at least for now lol

 

Oh, ok, I thought you meant Lorin Day. I haven’t met a new person with similar name to Lorin’s.

 

Please forgive me if this has already been discussed. I searched and couldn't find anything. I have been looking at the data on the EPA list of the 2020 approval for the IS and I am confused. The data appears to show the IS is still very low emission rate of .89 grams per hour, CO rate of .27 gr per minute. Yet the efficiency fell from 82% down to 77%? And all of the numbers shown for the IS data would seem to indicate that it is still very efficient, in fact based on the numbers it looks like it should be listed as more efficient than most of the stoves stated to be more efficient in the list. Has Woodstock explained that 77% efficiency rating or do you guys have a read on how they came to that efficiency number? What am I missing here on the efficiency rating in the 2020 EPA list? Thanks.

 

Low emissions does not indicate high efficiency. It’s great when you get good numbers for both but they are different specifications.

 

Longsnowsm I think you are comparing 2 different tests. The Ideal Steel stats are the same still 82% on test wood; think
2x4 type wood
77% on regular cord wood which is hard to get consistently similar

 

Can you point me to a link

I am just looking at the EPA 2020 database for the latest test data. It says the stove model is the 210A Ideal Steel. And they list efficiency as 77%. So that didn't make sense to me and then when trying to correlate the emissions with the efficiency listed it didn't add up. So like Highbeam said there must be some other "measure" used to determine efficiency. This rating of 77% is with cord wood. So I would like to know what those factors are to determine efficiency. That seems like the number that should result in a reduction in consumption of wood. So I was sorting the list based on that and was surprised to see the IS was further down the list. I frankly thought it would be near the top of the list.

Woodstove Database | Burnwise | US EPA

 

Just got off the phone with Laureen (sp?) checking on my stove. She consulted her list of stoves to be repaired and I am not on it. She said the list is too old. She is going to check with production and get back to me.

It has been a very warm summer with few breaks. Today is 65F here, going to ~50f tonight. Not cool enough for long enough to need a fire but getting there. Maybe a ring of rocks on the tile where the stove normally goes and a small fire.....

Brian

 

I have not met Laureen (sp?) either but she has answered the phone every single time I have called this year. Not sure what she does though most of the Woodstock people seem to dabble in all different areas anyway, which is a great thing because anyone a customer speaks with can assist. They also leave great notes that everyone can get to- that saves a lot of time.

The only downside with Woodstock is that sometimes, like right now, they get slammed with a lot of work. But that is really good news, even for customers as it shows they have a lot of customers as well as making it much more likely that they will continue along for the foreseeable future. No one really wants a product from a company sitting around waiting for a call.

Brian

 

Longsnowsm yes check that very link it says cord wood. Go back to database you will see very few manufacturers are using cordwood results the IS does list both.

 

I met her when dropped off mine 12 days ago. She is new and from what I could tell handling showroom. Heck Tom (owner) was running forklift asking if we wanted a job. After being shut down for a few months with Covid, and everybody’s desire to become more self-sufficient and get out of the cities. They are slammed right now.

 

Aha! I never thought of Covid as having an impact on a wood stove company but of course, you are right! Between Covid, the unrest in some parts of the US and an election looming, there is a lot of concern driving people to do things they never did before such as buying wood stoves, firearms & ammunition (try to find a primer or a box of 9mm.... better pack a lunch first) refrigerators / freezers and a gazillion other things I assume. I went looking for a medium sized standing freezer back in the spring and found that anything that made 'cold' was simply unavailable, at least until I hit the $5,500 to $7,000 range.

Funny thing how a sudden change shows us exactly how tenuous the threads are that supply us with all that we take for granted. As in 'whadda ya' mean there are no wood stoves? There are always wood stoves!

Brian

 

Yep, I did my search based on cord wood as I want numbers closer to something based on reality. There are other Woodstock stoves listed as more efficient than the IS on the new database list(Palladin and Keystone coming in at 80%). I just thought it is strange to see the IS listed at 16th stove down on the list sorted by efficiency based on cord wood. The highest efficiency based on cord wood is 81%. The efficiency testing and how they came to this conclusion has me scratching my head. The IS was designed with both emissions and efficiency as part of the design goal. We know that Woodstock makes a very efficient stove but just seems like this number is unusually low.

 

Absolutely spot on.... Corona scamdemic has shutdown large portions of the supply chain. I bugged out and moved out on my land and started trying to find basic stuff and it couldn't be had. Ordered a chest deep freezer in May it didn't arrive until July. I have a long list of stuff that has been waiting list stuff. I went to buy a tractor and dealers were sold out and the wait they were quoting was a couple of months and that turns out to have been a guess because there are people still waiting. I thought I would end run that by buying something they had in stock instead of the model that I wanted only to find out that the options and accessories for it were all on back order and that took several months to get that filled. Now it is building supplies due to the riots the costs have skyrocketed and it can be hard to get stuff.... So wood stoves? You bet. It only looks like it will get worse as they try to use the cold and flu season as the excuse for the next lockdown. That should pretty much kill the rest of the supply chain. If you have stuff you know you need get it ordered and hope it gets filled before the lock downs.

 

Haven't seen a reply from Lorin, so left a message as some emails have ended up in my spam and could have been deleted by accident. Giving them the option on waiting until spring to repair it. Pain to put it back in place, but my fault for procrastinating all spring and summer.

 

Its the EPA man...don't try to hard to make sense of it, you'll go crazy.

 

You’re asking for a link that explains that efficiency is not the same as emissions? If so, try google. Maybe you’re asking something else.

This is why the epa list matters. We’re finally seeing the real numbers. Especially entertaining is the btu figures.

 

A big problem with any kind of testing like this is how the stove is set and used for the test. If they run the stove with the draft fully open, efficiency will go way down but it will also vary from stove to stove for no reason other than the max. draft will be different. The problem is that that is not the way most people actually use a wood stove and so comparing them when used like that is basically useless. I have an I.S. and almost always have the draft down in the 1 to 3 'marks' open, which is probably 90% + closed and the flue temp 18" above the stove is under 400F and usually closer to 300F (the actual temp. inside the flue, not the smoke pipe wall temp.) So the efficiency of a stove running like that will be much, much higher than it would be with the draft open all the way as a great deal of the heat produced will go out the flue.

I am not saying those efficiency numbers are incorrect but I am saying they do not mean much without a lot more information.

A few years ago I saw data taken from wood stoves installed and being used in houses and used in the normal way the owners always used them. The stoves included both EPA types as well as old metal boxes often called smoke dragons and the results were frankly amazing. First off, the actual emissions were no where near in- line with the ratings assigned to those stoves. The second amazing thing is that one of the smoke dragons was actually running cleaner than any of the EPA certified stoves in the test. So the testers dug a little deeper and found out how and what the stoves tested were burning and it turns out that most people were not using their stoves in a efficient manner, and almost none of them were using decent fire wood. The smoke dragon that was running so clean was being used by an older woman who had the driest wood of all the testers. She specifically said that they always make sure they have a supply of "good" firewood, meaning it was dry, clean and cut into reasonable sizes. The point is that even if they had done an efficiency test the data would have been worthless because it was so skewed by the actual stove users.

Brian

 

Disregard that question about a link. I started to ask that question and some others and then went googling, but forgot to remove that from the post I started. I found it fascinating when Woodstock showed off the IS and won that competition back in 2013 and they showed all the various types of testing and how it was measured. While not true to real world use cases there was actually some tests, observations, recording, and calculations made given a set of conditions that they recorded. I was hoping that the EPA and others would have posted that info and even shown some of the testing they did for this latest round of regulations for the stoves in 2020. Greater transparency would be a good thing here. It would help those of us who are wood burners or considering burning wood a better set of data to make decisions from. I sorta feel like I am looking at a window sticker that says "Good" "Gooder" "Goooooooooddderest" instead of actually giving consumers useful information. But then again it is the EPA and they have been giving fantastic detailed information on MPG figures for cars for decades now.... I guess I am a slow learner to reset my expectations. LOL