Fireview - Efficient burning

Here are 4 pics of my woodstove, a Woodstock Soapstone Fireview. I bought this stove in 2012. Today it was 11 degrees when Iwoke up. The 2nd pic shows the stove after I reloaded it, and engaged the Catalytic converter. You'll notice there are no flames.

The next shot is the Catalytic converter, which burns unburned smoke and converts it to heat energy that is absorbed by the Soapstone and then slowly being emitted gradually out into the house. You can see that the "Cat" is burning brightly.

The final pic is the temp at the stove top, 700'F. Which is 1/2 the temp inside the stove but not going out the chimney. The point being the wood is simply slowly smoldering, yet the heat is keeping the 1600sq feet house at 71' ~ 73'F. Toasty

 

Absolutely beautiful stove and a timeless design.

It's missing some nice record pics with a little audiophile porn.

 

Amazing that those temps are with what looks like nothing going on in the stove. Oldhippie, I believe you have an AS as well...which stove do you prefer? Do you usually run those stove top temps?

 

Good cat stoves are pretty great heaters.

 

Nice pics as always Steve.

So I have to ask... How can you tell if the stove is burning well and efficiently? Do you check the cat glow or stove top temp? Once it is dialed in, set temp and let it run?

 

Pretty neat. I’ve never seen or had experience with a cat stove. Do you ever get smoke from the pipe outside?

 

I know, I gotta get on that!

 

Which stove do I prefer? Is a funky question. The Fireview is the hands down winner for my living room area which was built with the hearth and woodstove to be the centerpiece of the main living area of the house, with a open concept kitchen, living room/hometheater/listening room, and kitchen/dining room. It's beautiful, has enough capacity, and puts out enough heat.

On the other hand, it doesn't have the great ash-pan system the AS has, or the capacity. Also the AS not only has the capacity but it's firebox shape allows even more wood to the large/square cube shape. Also, the AS has the Hybrid secondary heat/catalytic converter hybrid system that is an amazing best of both worlds. So for pure function, and especially if your home is larger than 1600sq the AS is the winner. BUT the lack of the ash-pan isn't that big of an issue for me, and I didn't need the capacity of the AS in my particular home and needs.

I would mourn the loss of the Fireview as it's almost a family member. If that makes any sense.

 

With the 2+ year wood supply that I have built up, hitting 700 is almost a standard burn. It doesn't exceed that by much and typically it's running in the 500~550 range.

 

This is just my opinion, but I think the science may back it up.

Two key and easy indicators of an efficient burn are high stovetop temps and low stack exhaust temp. So if I'm running a 550+ STT and 18 inches up the stack I'm running a 250'F Stack temp, that tells me there's excellent heat being generated in the stove and radiated out into the house, while at the same time there is minimal heat being sent up the chimney. (I only see smoke out the chimney during pre--cat engagement, and the very early stage of cat engagement.)

Secondly, simply looking at the fire I'll see minimal flames, and in many cases we see flames that are only just above the wood, on the bottom of the cat, and not really coming off the wood. What you're seeing there is the gas being pre-ignited as it rises up to the cat, but before it actually hits the cat, as the cat is so hot it is pre-igniting. This is very similar to secondary burn technology.
If you add just a little more air at this point, in many cases you'll see what we call "rolling flames". Where the flame seems to looking like a wave is breaking as it comes to shore. If you decrease the burn at this point you'll sometimes see what we call "ghost flames", these are little "puffs" of flame that come and go in the firebox. What you're seeing is the gasses building up and then pre-igniting and putting on a little light show for you. (If you see a lot of flame in the firebox, you're coming up to cruise heat, be thinking to decrease air intake as the stove gets the room/house warm enough.)

Yes, once I dial it in, I just leave it alone until late in the burn stage when it's really just coaling and then I'll open usually from a 1 setting on the FV to a 3.5 setting. Which just does a better job burning down the coals over the last 2 or 3 hours of a burn.
You're cruise setting will vary slightly depending on your draft, outside air temp and quality of the wood. I'm pretty steady at a 1 setting on my Fv but everyone's will differ a bit. My downstairs AS on a cold night, I (to my amazement) get it cruising at a 1.5 setting and then I'll readjust to fully closed and it goes into a cat burn, no firebox blame but 500+ STT which is very hot on an AS. and I have a probe to the cat reading 1400'F temp. - Accentuate the need for 2+ year oak being key for

These are just my practices and thoughts. I burned a smoke dragon from 79 to 2005 with some help from various newsgroups and notefiles. But never with the great info I get here from guys like Backwoods Savage and some of the many other knowledgeable folks out here. All mistakes and other bullchit is strictly my own.

 

Never see smoke out the pipe unless the cat is not engaged. Which is for maybe 10 minutes on a cold start or refill to char the wood. Once that cat is engaged if you are up over 200 STT it's a matter minuets to a clean burn.

 

Thank you for the thorough answer. A Fireview would still be a consideration for us down the road. I think it would work well here.

 

What would be really cool, would be a moderization of the Fireview into a hybrid stove. Might not work or be practical for one reason or another, I just like the technology and being wrapped into such a beautiful package is the icing on the cake.

 

I wanted to get the fire view, but needed a top exit stove... space reasons. So got the absolute steel... great stove, but it is a bit large for our needs.... we have to have small fire in morning and a new fire in the evening. Otherwise house is 90*

 

Nice pics.

I love my Fireview 201. Mine's due for a new cat. It's been sluggish this season and has started to stall. The cats are on backorder though. It's still keeping us warm, just with a little more smoke these days.

 

I am using a ceramic cat with mine now. I actually think it is an upgrade. It's the ceramic cat I'm getting these excellent burns with.

It is made up of two Applied Ceramics square cats, wrapped with a thin gasket. This is for the Fv that have the 2 piece frame around it.

Steve –
Below is the link for the ACI-56C which is the combustor for 205 Fireview. The gasket wrap is listed as ACIG-2 on the website and is sold by the foot.
Once you have determined this is the correct part(s) needed, please place your order online.
Thanks and Happy Holidays!
FireCat Catalytic Combustor ACI-56
PRF
Paula Rice Firebaugh
Customer Service
Applied Catalysts
Firecat Combustors
678-735-4937

 

Love my Fireview as well, but that is significantly better performance than I'm getting out of it. Unless I'm pushing it, getting it good and hot without the cat, then doing a hot load, and engaging the cat 15 or so minutes later, I don't generally see better than 500 degrees on the stove top.

Cat glows, no smoke from chimney, so I assume it's working correctly. Usually I don't see it without flame, but I know what you're talking about, because I was at a cabin with a Fireview a couple of times that behave that way. I've only ever hit the 700 degree line if I work it up that high without the cat engaged.

Makes me want to start troubleshooting an issue that I didn't know I had...

 

My experience as well, until I started hoarding wood, so I've got about 3 years worth of wood in back yard. I don't harvest it personally, I buy it, stack it and burn it, that's enough for me, I started buying 6 cord a year for a 3.5 cord house. Which got me to about 10 cord over a number of years. So now I'm only burning primo 3 year old stacked and covered wood. It's really the only difference I've made, but I was burning just like you until I started really getting to about 6 cord of 2+ year old wood and then 1 year of almost 3 year old wood. It's almost all oak, which burns great once it's old enough, but it takes almost 2.5 years to get it there.

I'm lucky to have the room to store this much wood and also the time and health and money (to buy it) at my age to keep stacking it. I've had a couple knees replaced and a couple rotator cuff surgeries and a few other health issues here and there that keep me off my motorcycles, and make it difficult to stack, but being a stubborn old coot, I've kept at it.