Production Woodstock IS

Should make the wife happy.

Planning on doing a burn in the IS tomorrow night, as we're supposed to get to 25 w/ snow. I'll try to get some video of the secondaries, if the camera can handle it.

 

Very nice... I think mines on its way too.

I can relate to keeping the stove in check at this time of the year.... That's what you get for nappin on the job!

 

BIG time! She pulled the mail from the box and handed me a package and said " I hope this is what I think it is"

 

I'm going to try and do the same.

 

Anyone seen this before? There's steady floating flames in the top of the firebox in the channel leading to the cat. Is this built up creosote burning off? Should I be concerned about the cat getting hit with flames?

The stove ran away from me a little today. It's sitting at 650 but the air has been shut down for a while. It kept climbing even with air closed. I got it to drop down but this is the hottest I have gotten the stove. Holy crap does it throw some heat

 

Quick question, Do you think the Ideal Steel would be overkill for 1,600-1,700 sq ft?

 

So early for someone like me to say, very limited experience and no real weather/winter time conditions. I'd almost direct you to a few of the beta testers who have a full seasons experience to chime in.

 

I haven't seen my firebox flames get into the carriage assembly just yet. I'm sure I'll have a day where it happens...
Big drafts today? do you have some windy conditions outside??

 

+1

 

I'd want to agree with you Dennis, the air damper is unbelievably sensitive and the the results are immediate.
I just don't have the experience to say just yet. I heat 2k sq ft and with my limited time with it I'm very happy. Ask me this question in 2 months I'll have plenty to say about it.

 

Well, I certainly hope not. No, it seems excellent so far and that is about the size of my house.

Still making the transition from old technology wood burning to new but I have to say that this thing is absolutely amazing me with its ability to burn 'low and slow'. Just as an example, I have been running all day today on 3 splits on a light bed of coals with the air set at 15% open; the stove is running absolutely clean and very steadily yet at a low enough burn that it is not overheating my house (temps. in the mid- 40's F). Never had this happen before- always had to let smaller fires burn out to keep the house below 80F.

The door glass gets dirty at these low temps. but that is to be expected. There are absolutely no secondaries and virtually no primary flames either but the cat. is cleaning everything up fantastically well. I monitor firebox, cat., stove top and exhaust temps. (internal, not surface stovepipe temps.) and the numbers I am getting are very impressive, at least to me: ~450F firebox, 650 to 750F cat., 240F stove top and.... here it comes.... exhaust temps. of 200F and under. Yep, I am actually running a condensing wood stove and it is running clean! And for those thinking that this is not a good idea, my repsonse would be that if the exhaust is clear and a positive draft is maintained, it does not matter how low the exhaust temp. is. Besides that, the low the exhaust temp., all else being equal, the higher the efficiency of the stove.

It is still too warm here to load the stove full or have much of a fire really but in the early shoulder season, this stove has greatly outrun my best hopes of a stove this big running slowly.

Brian

 

That looks like the cat. air may be feeding what amounts to a secondary burn. In other words, with the stove shut down but the stove temp. high, the cat. air supply will open and is probably feeding a bit of oxygen to the gasses before they actually get into the cat.. Looks pretty safe and reasonable to me. ??

The draft does not completely close on any modern stove, so even with the draft "closed" it is not and still feeds some air to the firebox. With a stove full of wood and hot, the wood gasses even without enough oxygen to actually burn and because the cat. has its own air supply it will still produce a lot of heat running like this. Opening the draft may knock those stove surface temps. down a bit. If the cat. is really running hot, you may have to open the bypass for a few minutes to vent off that excessive woodgas. There is really no direct way around this problem that I know of; a big load of wood in a hot, insulated firebox is going to give off a lot of gas and the only way to clean it up is to burn it.... which in turn makes a lot of heat.

Brian

 

It's hard to see, but at the top of the picture you can see the box that houses the catalyst, it's glowing. This is my first time seeing it on mine. Stove front is reading borderline 700. Just knocked down he air damper for the overnight.
This is not a great shot of the secondaries but you can kind of see how the tubular flames shoot down from the top plate . Amazing

 

Right, Dennis. We never saw this with the old cast combustor scoop and expanded-metal screen, but started seeing it with the new stainless scoop/mesh screen. I think that the thinner stainless scoop gets hotter...the massive cast scoop dispersed the cat heat better. And the screen probably keeps more heat there as well, causing ignition of gas inside the screen. It's like mini-secondaries; Who says cat stoves don't have a light show! I don't recall weather I saw it with both the steel and ceramic cat, but I think so. Anyway, I don't think what you're seeing is "flame impingement;" That happens when you have a roaring fire with the bypass closed, and flames are slamming into the face of the combustor, something I think would be very hard to do with the screen. Flame impingement is more of a concern with a ceramic combustor; The thing to watch out for with both is prolonged cat temps in excess of 1800 which can cause the precious-metal wash coat to peel from the substrate. I'll be interested to see weather you can get accurate cat temps on the IS with a stock probe thermometer, something I couldn't do with the Fireview or Keystone. In those, the probe just reads conditions at the flue exit, and I never see it rise rapidly or exceed 1000 degrees, like I do with the Dutchwest and Buck 91. In the Ks/Fv, you'd have to use a thermocouple or drill a hole in the top to get cat temps...or find a cat probe longer than 8" which would reach to above the surface of the cat. Not sure about the PH...

 

Like heck it's not...Thats an awsome pic....

 

There is a hole in the front of an I.S. that is for a cat. probe. I am using one with a K- type thermocouple and the end of it sits right on top of the catalyst. The one time I saw the cat. cover was red inside mine, the probe registered 1,300F, which seems about right. There is no visible glow when the cat. temp. is around 1,000 F (the cat. is glowing but the S.S. plate below it is not).

Not sure about a stock cat. probe; the folks at W.S. said they were looking for a source but had not found one yet. The depth to reach the cat. is not that great though and a 6" long probe would easily be well beyond the edge of the cat..

Brian

 

like to know what makes things work and got thinking about some IS owners having seen the plate beneath the combustor glowing, some haven't. You have to look upward througb the window or use a mirror on the floor. This only applies when the firebox has no flames. With our IS last night having the first real burn, 2/3 load of ash, my plate beneath the cat did glow. The firebox was totally dark. There were also flames above and beside the sled, wandering just under the stove top plate. This was 3 hours into the burn while primary air was at 1/4. I thought that odd so adjusted the primary to completely closed. The sled flames continued, the top stayed at 500 and the front thermo (next to the cat probe port screw) hit 680. I think that:
1. The plate under the cat would not glow just from proximity to the cat.
2. Secondary (non-catalyst) combustion occurs at the fresh air holes of the cat air supply tube, under certain conditions. A schematic of that tube is shown in Under The Hood diagrams on Woodstock's blog.
I will be reducing the primary air sooner and much lower for future burns from now on to let the combustor do its job.

 

You are really starting to understand this stove. I'm close behind! Tonight I saw the same thing happening to me with the air damper and the cat engaged. I did not shut down the air right away and the IS seemed to get ahead of me. When it did the stove front temps were close to 700 and after that I closed the air to 1/8th. After closing it down was when I observed the glowing cat and took the pics.