Production Woodstock IS

I can't imagine your still considering beta testing the Franklin...are u?

 

Uh...I told Lorin this afternoon that my two sons will kill me if I tell them we are Beta testing another stove yet this year. They've had more than enough stove wrangling for this burning season.

She just laughed and said, "Tom can be very persuasive..."

 

How did I know she'd say something like that. The saga continues...
I can see the writing on the wall. He will send a crew to move the IS
out and the Franklin in, and vice versa in the spring if you will do it.
You will say yes.....

 

Hollywood (et al),
Penny told me the same thing, 600 is fine with spikes higher, just don't sustain it for a long period.

It was colder here today. The wife refilled the box a couple of times. We would have refilled the old one several times and run it wide open. The only problem now is a large load of coals I have been trying to burn down the past few hours.

I LOVE the ash pan!!!! This is my first clean out since I fired it up Thursday. It has run non-stop since. I had to use my shovel to knock the top of the pyramid of ash down, but it was quick and clean. I opted for a second ash pan and hot swapped them! I was also able to show my wife how keeping the ash door open would cause a nuclear reaction. Let us see how she runs tonight. I am not sure I will get the coals down to a level where I can put a full load in. It probably takes up one row of decent splits.

 

Ya' think?

 

What air setting are you guys putting the stove at for overnight burns now that we have some cold weather?

I have it at 1/4 open and it's settled in well below the 600 we mentioned above.

 

Well done sir. I didn't let her get hot enough before I put it to 1/4. Thanks!

 

I let it get to around 500* before I cut it back. It's also stuffed to the gills.

 

What a joy to be burning again. The natural gas furnace hasn't kicked on since this afternoon. It warms the cockles of my heart.

Stove top has stayed at 500 on a 2/3 load of cherry for several hours now with the air at 1/4. I just threw in a little oak as the cherry was burning down.

Only difference I've noticed so far is that my stove pipe probe temps seem a lot higher with this stove than they were with the Beta. My pre cat air valve never functioned properly on my Beta (it wouldn't open most of the time) and I'm wondering if that might have something to do with it.

 

Just like Hollywood, maybe a notch or two more, maybe. I have been waking up in the middle of the night and turning it up to 50%, just to get the coals down and get more heat. After the wood is coaled up and gassed out, opening her up doesn't cause an overfire like it would with a full load of new wood.

With my old stove, I would need to reload 1 to 2 times per night. Now, I just open the air intake to 50%, then 100%.

 

Wood usage report:
Old stove in this weather would use up my "in the house" stack within 2.5 days. I loaded up on Saturday morning and will have enough wood to make it through today, so and extra 1.5 days?
My "in the house" stack is about half a face cord. ~4ft long by ~4ft high and the width of a log ~16-18"

 

This full will run me a week! Not kidding. 38in diameter with 19-20in splits.

 

Id like to know your secret Hollywood . I have a similar sized ring and I get 4 days max out of it. A full IS reload will use 10-12 medium sized splits and smaller pieces to fill the voids. At a minimum of 2 reloads a day ( and now 3 with the colder temps) that's 20-24 splits per day. The average the ring holds is 65 pieces.

 

The secret has been one load started at 8pm when my boy goes to bed set the draft and dont touch it then the second at 8 pm when my boy goes to bed and so on. Haven't needed a fire during the day till today and that one was just a precautionary one at that. I load it completly full and usually at 12 noon it still has 200* surface temp.

 

Cool to warm start every night. Might have something to do with how I start it also. Nothing crazy just different than I've seen or heard before. I've posted my method somewhere in this thread, if you or anyone else wants to know PM me.

 

What kind of temps. do you maintain inside? I too burn more wood that that and am quite a lot further south in milder temps. but maintain the entire house at 72F or above. The difference in, say, maintaining 65F and 72F is really quite a lot.

Brian

 

It's usually 72-74 in the largest room with stove in it and 69-71 for the rest of the areas. You can see the door casing to a 12x12 bedroom with small walk in immediately right, kitchen, dining room, mud room, sitting room master bed/bath and large walk in.

 

Hopefully you can get the boys to man up; I can't take much more of this suspense.

I don't think you have enough clearance to those combustible SuperCedar crumbs...

 

We are at the opposite ends of the spectrum as far as heating needs are concerned. One stove is running at 500* stove top temp tonight, the other at 600*, and the living room in between is still only 68*. I'm a bit envious.

Rare to see new housing stock in VT. Did you have to do much prep work for the photo to get the kids stuff off the floor in the middle of the room? I just know what our house looks like after the kids have blown through.

I like the firewood holder. I've got to work on getting one or two. Anyone out there have a wood box rather than the ring? If so, how long does it get you through with the IS? It would be great to have inside storage.