Woodstock Progress Hybrid performance

"It's all good!"

 

Well I can say after 7 fires now , I'm getting to know the PH a little better.. Wow what a heater! One thing I noticed, with just coals in the stove, it throws out lots of heat for hours... It's 750 lbs of mass shines with just coals... Once the stove is going I just add wood, wait 30 seconds and close the by pass and the draft all the way,,, done... An hour later I have a light show of secondaries for almost 3 hours... this is all with the stove about half full... This stove would burn big blocks of wood with ease, loaded in on coals, with no preheat needed, just shut everything up right away... I can tell we will be very warm this winter,, especially that the stove throws out loads of heat shut all the way down.. I wouldn't even want to open the draft but a hair.... Start up same way,,, 10 minutes and it's time to close the draft 3/4, about 20 minutes later and it's time to add your main wood and close her up... So far I'm very impressed! This should be good on wood as not needing to open the draft at all for the amount of heat I need... This stove with just coals definitely has a lot of usable heat..

 

I can't wait to compare notes on both the Fireview in my house, and the PH in yours some February day when it is about -20'F out there, before the windchill factor.

 

That stone heat will sneak up on ya

 

Charlie, couple things I've learned;

1. As you mentioned, it throws TONS of heat during the coal stage. In fact, I have found that is when the stove throws out the most of its heat, or the peak. I think it's because your starting to feel the heat from 1 or2 hours ago from the peak of the fire burn (takes that long for the heat to work thru all the stone and mass...), couple with that, that is when the CAT is most active and it rages with heat.

2. Your correct, you can burn any wood, with any moisture content in the PH. I really doesn't care what you feed it. Woodstock demonstrates that on YouTube, they do a test comparison with wet wood and dry wood.

3. The PH does start up very quickly, especially when it's already hot. I rake the coals forward, load the largest splits in the back, and shut the door. I usually wait 3to 5 minutes before shutting down air, just to scorch the wood a bit, and make sure all the air in there gets heated up so cold air doesn't hit the cat which can damage it.

4. How the heck have you been burning it? It's been waaaaaaaaay to warm for the PH!

 

With the windows open, was windy and cooler here yesterday... just want to get the smells all burned out before I can't open the windows... After we shut the windows it was 81 in here and was still 71 this morning, that was with a half load at 3 pm last night, believe it was in the high 40's last night.. I'm really liking the stove.. Suppose to get down to 34 here Sunday night.. It's really nice that in the coaling stages you don't even have to think about getting more wood yet... I like that!

 

The more I'm burning the PH the more I'm liking it,,,Wow! I realized now, what ever you do to it,, he throws out some great heat,,, all the time... I painted some heat shields for my walls inside and left a fan in the window sucking out and paint fumes, used a roller, no spray can, and the house still stayed 74 with it about 62 out and windy... Amazing heat... This was with a surface temp of just 400... Big mass equals big heat at a low temp... I can see I won't be using a lot of wood even though I bought a bigger stove, in fact it seems like it will be less. With this stove heating so well I'll even burn less in my Esse cookstove... I'm seeing the Esse just sitting around with a 6 inch bed of coals ready for some wood to be added when ever we need to get a fire going.. Should be an interesting heating season here.. I think really warm with less wood.. The amazing thing, this is all happening with 3-4 spilts of very, very dry wood and the draft closed "all" the way..

 

Well I am very glad I went with the ash pan on my PH.. After 11 days of 24/7 burning, and yes I burned the earlier days with the windows open to get rid of the new stove smell I'm amazed that the ash pan was barely half full.. I'm thinking I could easily go 3 weeks or more before that big ash pan needs to be emptied ... Goes to show that the stove doesn't use much wood to keep you warm I guess.. Proof is in the ash pan.. Been in the 30 's at night here the last few days as well.. Today is the first day I started my Esse cookstove since having the PH... With or without a small fan moving some air into the stove room, looks like the PH will heat the whole house now over the Fireview... and our Farm house is all broken up rooms, no open floor plan... plus I've been running the draft closed or just cracked, that's it..

 

Help! We installed our new Progress Hybrid in August, and after that (in September or early October) we began to have our initial burns. We were careful to have small fires, engaged the cat at about 300 and thought we were doing really well. We had several burns of 550-600, which worried us--we thought that might have been too hot too soon. But the stove seemed fine with it.

At this point, though, we are having difficulty getting the stove temps above about 450, and with the cold weather we've been having, we need to run the stove hotter in order to heat the house. First, I tried to simulate our initial burns but using more wood, thinking that we would then get hotter burns. No such luck. We would have coals in the morning, though, which is good. Then I started up the fire with a large split in the back, a small split in the front, and a medium split in the middle on top of the other two. I let the temp on the stovetop next to the stove pipe get to a little over 500 before closing the damper down most of the way and engaging the cat. The temp, instead of rising, fell back to between 400 and 450.

Our burn times have been 6 to 8 hours during the day with three splits, and overnight about 10 hours with usually 4 to 5 splits, with the stove top at just under 300 in the morning.

When I called Woodstock, I was told to check the innocent screen visually through the glass because it could have gotten partially plugged. This surprised me. In fact I was told to remove it and burn the fire without it to see if it would get hotter, the theory being that then we'd know if it was the inconel. In looking at the screen through the glass, it doesn't "appear" to be plugged, and anyway, we'd need to get the stove fairly cool in order to reach in and remove it. With the temps the way they have been, we decided to limp along for a bit, hoping we could find something else that might be contributing to the issue. We're willing to do it, but wanted to ask here first.

The wood we're using has been seasoned for two years, and besides, the early burns seemed fine with it, so we don't think that it's that.

So can anyone give us a clue?

 

Check the screen, clean the screen, check the cat, clean the cat. Chances afe its one of the two. Cat needs a wuick brushing about once a month or two depending. Takes like 2 minutes.

 

I'll preface my remarks with the qualification that this is my first year running this stove. But I've got a stove top temp of 500 degrees right now on my PH, and had it at 550 for a few hours earlier in the evening. Have you tried getting it going to about 300 degrees stove top (not sure where you have your thermo), engaged the cat, and then cutting the air intake down to maybe around 1/2? Earlier this evening I ran it for a few minutes with the cat engaged and the air intake open all the way. That will get the stove top temps up fairly quickly. You probably wouldn't want to leave the room with those settings. With the colder temps, I've been getting it up to where you'd like it to be for your home, and not closing down the air intake as much as I was during shoulder season.

Others have mentioned that they can't/don't get their stoves over 500 degrees, but I definitely need more heat than that, and haven't had any problems getting them. I actually had one incident in which I had it over 700 degrees with the air intake closed all the way, and learned quite a lot from a lot of nice folks who helped educate me on how to avoid that.
Hope this helps. And of course, we'd like to see pics of your setup! Great shot of your dog in your avatar, and welcome to the site!

 

Hi Dh,
Welcome to the site! I've had the PH for 2+ years now (starting 3rd season now), and can tell you I NEVER get 500 degree stove top temps. This stove is not designed to get real hot like steel stoves do. However, it gives off the same, or even more heat than the 500+ steel stoves. Don't pay so much attention to the actual stove temps. Pay more attention to your room temps, and how much heat you are getting out of the stove.
Questions:
What size is your house (sq feet)?
What size is your stove room?
My stove room is 1200 sq feet, and has 15' cathedral ceilings with average insulation. If it's upper 20's or 30 deg outside, I have to be careful with the stove and try to keep the fire very low. It can make that room 90+ degree's in a matter of 30 minutes if I leave it running too hot, or get an unwanted hot burn (with secondary's firing...) with really dry wood. But all the while, the stove top is only 300 to 350. My top soapstone when the stove is running at full blast is 300 to 350 degrees, max. The cast iron along the top of the back of the stove (and flue collar) will reach 400 to 450 normally during a full blast burn, but normally will be in the 350 to 400 range during average burns. BUT again, when you see those temps, the stove will be putting out ALOT of heat. It’s a blast furnace, it just doesn’t read 500+ top temps like steel stoves do. I’m always amazed when I see the stove top temps on a steel stove (friend’s house or at a shop), but yet they don’t seem to put out as much heat. My PH is a blast furnace at 300 degree’s, while I see steel stoves at 500 degree’s but don’t feel the same heat coming off them.
So the real question is, are you getting enough HEAT from the stove? In other words, is your stove room and house getting enough heat? And forget about the stove top temps. If the answer is no, the one thing I would check is the CAT. Remove it and make sure it’s not clogged. One thing I have noticed with this stove is, when the cat is firing, it’s a blast furnace. When the cat is not firing, it’s like any other stove and just radiates a bit of heat. It makes a big difference on the amount of heat it puts out. Lastly, it puts out the most heat when the secondary’s are firing as well. I try to keep them down unless it’s really cold out (below 20 out), otherwise I get too much heat from it. It’s easy to make the secondary’s fire, just open the air up a bit higher than normal and they will fire in a minute or two.

 

Everyone's set up is different, and for some of us, not getting our stoves past 500 degrees will not heat our homes adequately. I had the Progress Hybrid cruising at 550 for hours last night, the Ideal Steel hit 600 for a while, and I still woke up to the living room (the room in between the two stoves) at 67 degrees first thing this morning. Is it going to get colder than it did last night as winter progresses? You better believe it! It got down to 15 degrees last night, and on cold nights where we are in VT, it will get down to -20 almost every year, and -30 on occasion. Not everyone has the same setup, or lives in the same climatic conditions. dhumohr stated that he's not getting enough heat and would like to get his stove hotter than 450 - if the man needs it, let's help him get there!

This isn't my first time having to run a stove hard to help heat a home I've lived in. When I was in my teens it was my job to keep our old Vermont Castings going. It would get the stove room to 80 even on cold nights, but our living room would only be at 55 degrees down in our house is CT. Too many twists and turns not allowing the heat to move in our split level.

Your post prompted me to look at the Progress Hybrid manual, Machria. I was curious about where the idea that the stove wasn't designed to run above 500 degrees came from. I didn't see it in there, but I didn't give it the most thorough reading. I have seen others post similar comments on other threads, and just don't understand why you wouldn't want to push it if you need the heat. Is the contention that somehow the stove is generating more heat at 500 degrees stove top than it would at 600 degrees?

I'll post pics of my home and the energy audit infrared pics showing heat escaping from windows, areas where the vermiculite settled if you'd like, to prove that I'm not just blowing smoke about needing more than 500 degrees, and from two stoves to boot!

 

In the cold weather we try to keep the PH above 500 for as much of the time as possible. I suspect the differences are in the construction of the house, not the operation of the stoves. I suspect we will also be adding the Ideal Steel as our secondary stove.

Our PH will go up in temp, and can be leveled off, but I can't bring it back down (good draft), so we ease our way upward to make sure we stay in control. We get a reload burning well, bypass closed and fire stable, and then give it a little more air to bring the temp up. Once we get up to where we want, we can close the air most of the way. Maintaining these temps consumes some wood, but it also produces some nice heat.

{edit: and all due respects to Charlie, who was on this thread last year.}

 

I hope it gets to 500+, I'm sure when it gets colder here I'm going to need all of 500 to heat my house. I thought it said 600 is max, I was hoping I could run it about 550 or so once I learn to get good control of the stove.

 

Hi Machria, I was hoping you'd chime in! Here's some info on the house: We have an old house with not much insulation, and on the first floor we have about 1000 sq ft. What our hopes were was that it could heat that much for us reasonably. Our situation is that we have a kitchen on one end of the house with a laundry room behind it. Next to the kitchen is the dining room where the stove is. Then we have, going toward the other end of the house, a living room in front and a library behind that, with a closed stairway between. Then a bedroom on the other end of the house and a bathroom behind the bedroom. We'd hoped that we'd at least have good heat in the dining room (of course) and in the living room and library, and lesser heat in the bedroom and kitchen. We don't want the house hot and 65 would be fine in the LR and libe. Stove room--dining room--is about 300 sq ft.

Our draft is fine, we have a non insulated 6" stovepipe, I don't know what the height of the chimney is but it goes up two stories. We had two Lopi stoves over the last 25 years, and both had no trouble reaching quite hot burns--they just didn't hold the heat and heated the dining room nicely, but not any of the rest of the house very well. And you didn't want to stand too close if the fire was hot! Ours is an old house (circa 1825), as I said, and it doesn't have much insulation and has old single pane windows that also let in more cold than we'd like. It is what it is. We've been trying some new things, and it's doing much better--two adjoining rooms tonight are 65, which is great. But of course we don't have the crazy high winds and the temp has been in the 20's so that helps.

In checking the screen, it doesn't seem to be clogged--we can see all the holes nicely and there doesn't seem to be any buildup around the holes. Since we're burning 24/7, we can't very well look at the cat right now, but we're going away for 10 days, and when we get back the stove will be cold, so we'll check it then--seems like if the screen is OK, the cat should be? But we'll check it anyway because from what you say, it should be putting out a lot more heat.

This stove is not a blast furnace--the only time it got really hot in the stove room was when it was very mild outside--about 45 degrees. With the stovetop temp at 450, it's very comfortable in that room but it's not blasting us out of the room like our steel Lopi did--the heat does distribute much better. Obviously, we're not going to be able to heat the whole house the same as other people with great insulation, but I think it will work well for what we want once the stove and we get used to each other. We love our Progress and it does a MUCH better job than our Lopis--there's no way we'd go back!

Thank you for your input--we'll let you know how things go!

 

On one of the threads, I know that Woodstock did say that 600 was OK and even 700 wasn't damaging, provided that it didn't stay there. So that's why I was thinking that if we could get to 550 or 600 and then let it burn down from there, it would heat the house better.

Burndatwood, thanks for your comments. And oops, I'm a woman, not a man, which can probably make more understandable my issue with huge heavy splits, trying to load them in the side door and having control over only one end. I started to read these forums last spring before we got our PH, and I've done a lot of learning. I think I've read every thread that had to do with PHs, and I had a lot of enjoyment reading about others' experiences, as well as learning a lot (but living day to day with the stove is much different).

I agree with you that those of us who don't have well insulated, newer houses are going to have different needs than those that do, and we need to learn how to work with these stoves so that we can get the maximum benefit from them. And still, I thank Machria for his comments and his experience in learning how his PH can give him what he needs. He was where I am now in his early days, and anything I can learn from anyone, I'm glad to.

Flamestead, something I'm confused about is that some have said they engage the cat and if they want higher temps, they open the draft. Yet I've also read that if it gets too hot, opening the draft will help to cool it off????

OK, everyone, here are some pics of our setup--you'll notice that we have a 90 degree bend on our stovepipe, and we have another 90 on the other side of the wall (couldn't go straight up), but it's never been an issue over our last 25 years of burning--good draft despite this. The photos were taken last night, where as I said, stove room enjoyably warm but not hot, and two adjoining rooms at 65, which is what we wanted. Now we need to be able to do this on those really cold, windy nights too. And I apologize for the length of my posts--I'll try to be more brief in the future.

 

Bursar,
I'm not suggesting he or anybody for that matter not run the PH hard to get the required heat out of it. What I'm saying is, the PH does not get as hot as normal steel stoves do. And yes, it will put out more heat with its top at 450, than most Steele stoves tops at 600. The amount of heat radiating from a stove has more to do with how much heat it puts out than just the temp of the surface of the stove. My PH, and most people post similar results with theirs, rarely gets above 400-450 on the top. I can pack it full with nothing but super cedars, or kindling and run it at full blast and the surface still won't get as hot as what I see most steel stoves reported at. But again, that is not saying anything about the amount of heat it is putting out.

 

I was red faced last night when I clicked on your avatar last night and discovered my mistake, and noted your gender. I apologize!

Great pics of your stove. My wife likes the plates on the wall, and has our dining room decorated in much the same way. Don't keep your posts too brief in the future!