Progress Hybrid , closed off air feed

B-BAR I think the question is, is 2.8 cuft of wood enough BTUs over the burn times you're looking for? I'm sure the 700 lbs of stone would even out the heat release nicely and that would definitely help- but is there enough BTUs? A bk princess would give you ~30 burns and you would freeze to death.

 

No, the question is can the Progress produce 15+ hours of usable heat in my situation.

But I could crank up the Princess and get 15-20 hours of usable heat. Can the Progress offer that? I do not know.

 

I see burning six, 6 inch splits , 16 inched long of standing dead ash, a year old, absolutely no bark when harvested , I get about 8 hrs of usable heat.. The PH isn't even really half full... This is with the air shut 100% My stove seems to cruise between 400-500 all on it's own with the draft closed 100%.. The thing with the PH is the mass does produce some nice usable heat at the end.. When you move this stove, you will no doubt understand how this stove can heat at the end with just coals for 2-3 hours... So even if you go 12 hrs on your wood load , your still gaining another 3 on the coal bed... I'm burning ash.. Now hard maple , oak, locust, will really stretch those numbers. I realize now that this stove will deliver some nice heat from soft woods as well, again getting the coaling heat at the end... I know that no one wants to pull a stove back out , especially this heavy stove,, put trying to figure what will work and actually using the stoves, it's a good peace of mind knowing that you really haven't just blown over 6000 dollars... on something you can't return... Maybe the the Real Steel will fit the need as well for BB... That stove won't be for sale until the Summer, so who knows, maybe some other company will surprise everyone with a big stove that will be just what BB is looking for... Believe me, I didn't want to take my Fireview back out and over to Woodstock with just the wife and I doing the moving, and then her and I got the PH in place ourselves as well. But.... to have lost no money it was worth every penny and I now know I got the right stove for my heating needs without taking a loss on the Fireview... Maybe other people with the PH burning harder wood then me can add to the different burn times seen on a half load..

 

I think that little hole at the front of the stove under the glass is the coal burner at the end.. which burns it to powder... No wasted wood... You actually get heat from the PH until your down to powder! Nice!

 

B-BARoesn't your house require about a cuft of wood per hour? If so, other than the small efficiency differences in (EPA) stoves, that will not change. Three bk kings would get you 13 hours.

 

I disagree with that. There is absolutely no way I would only get 13 hour burns out of a BK King.

The Defiant, with hard wood will get me 10+ hours on a full load of hard wood. Problem is that the Defiant has a problem holding temperatures and you can not hold the temp at 500. The stove creeps and end up topping out at 650 providing me with too much heat. Which is fine, but not idle long term.

The 30 is a non-cat stove. The stove tops out at 650-750 and can provide 8-12 hours of heat. Problem is, the stove provides more heat than I need for the first 3 hours.

The Encore provides 6-10 hours of heat, but, like the Defiant, it likes to creep up on me. The Defiant is the size of the Fireview.

If I had three Princess or Ashford stoves, my burn times, based on the information available would be 20-30 hours in the shoulder season and 12-20 during winter temps.

If I were running three Kings, I would absolutely get the maximum burns during shoulder season while having 20+ during winter temps with three kings going.

 

I'm intrigued be the mass of the stove and what that would do for me.

But, with the way this house is laid out, during the uncommon cold spells we get here where we will have stretches in the 20s with lows in the single digits I will always need three stoves just because of how segmented the house is.

 

And to be clear, just because I disagree with you, does not mean I am arguing with you. Lord knows I don't need any angry emails!

 

Sorry for the semi- derailing. B-BAR I disagree with you disagreeing with me. Please stop that. J/K.
I think the PH would help out with the over heating during the early stage of the burn due to the thermal retention, and give it back at the end.
My logic is- you seem to be getting about ~10 hours of heat out of 9 cuft of wood. If you could avoid the early burn over heating, it would probably add a couple of hours, so lets say 1213 hrs/9 cuft. Thats what I see you getting out of three Princess or three PH (you did mention 12-20 hrs with three Princesses, I see the 12-13). Hmmm...maybe we are somewhat in agreement

 

My 1840 Farmhouse is all broken up , yet with the PH over the Fireview I could heat this whole house, 1900 sq ft.. Stove room was 78 and other end of house would hang at 70 degrees.. I'm sure I could move more heat with fans. Now at the end of the house
that's 70, my Esse cook stove is there.. Since having the PH, I haven't ran it much this year but to cook.. Now being 18 out tonight I have it running.. I can cruise the Esse and the PH on half loads and keep both ends of the house at a comfortable 74-76 degrees... Funny thing is the Esse weighs as much as the PH... So what I'm getting at is , I'm almost thinking the PH could take care of you, especially with just 2 .. If you need a third one, well then add one.. I've never even pushed the PH either. This is all with the draft closed or just cracked and never over 500 on the stove top temps.. Cookstove surface Temps hang at 300-350... Big cast iron top... If I had 2 PH's here, I'd be loading in about 3 pieces at a time... sipping the wood.. It would be interesting for sure to see if the PH stoves would work for you...

 

You WILL get 20 hours out of the king in the shoulder season, producing VERY little heat from it. BUT, you will NOT get 20 hours in the dead of winter during those cold spells out of it. In my experience, the BK and PH got almost identical burn times in the dead of winter (20's or below). The difference nobody seems to talk about is the bk burned more wood during that time. Something else I noticed during that time, the bk surface temp was allot hotter, but the PH seemed to heat the surrounding room more. So if you stood 3' in front of the bk, it was raging heat, hard time standing there. You could stand 3' from the PH, wasn't quite as bad. Not sure what that means, just an observation.

 

No, a King can give 40 hour burns. The King would give me 20 hours during the cold temps.

You have never owned a King. If I recall correctly, the PH is your first stove. Nothing wrong with that. Just trying to figure out where you were running a BK stove.

You are not comparing the King. You are comparing the Princess.

Both stoves at the same temp will feel mighty close to the same. A soapstone stove, cast iron stove, and steel stove all running at the same temps will feel very similar.

 

It means it's a more pleasant warmth in day to day living. Lotta BKs around my area are celler dwellers where people aren't standing in front of them anyways.. they just heat the downstairs family room, or basement and part of the earth and then send the rest upstairs.. so it's no big deal. But the soapstone is definitely a different kind of warmth, more comfortable and less intense which makes for a better room mate, in my opinion.

 

I feel no difference in terms of how the heat feels between steel, cast iron, and soapstone.

 

My next door neighbor had the king the 2nd half of last season. It has since been removed, has not been replaced yet (working on his house...). He did not see 20 hour burns when it was 20 out and he needed heat from it. He got the same burn times I did for the most part, maybe an hour longer here or there. He got great long burns when it was warmer out, but not when it was cold. And he burned more wood. Similar houses, his is about 600sq ft larger. He burned 4 cord, I burned 1.5. We both had similar burn habits.

Didn't feel the same to me or him. Both had pluses and minuses. Personally I think the soapstone heat is much softer, my soap never actually gets very hot compared to the steel stoves which get up above 500 regularly. The soap stays 400, 350 or so most of the time. Yet, it still gives off the same or more heat. That is something I don't understand, there is a lot of physics going on... But there are times I like the feel of the raging steel heat. I regularly stop in a shop by my office and they always burn a big ole Enerzone steel stove, which feels great when standing in front of it. But I would not want to be in front of it for too long. I'm surprised with all your experience, you don't notice that difference?

Anyway, I've said this before to you, if I were in your situation and had to feed 3 stoves to heat my house, I'd likely get 1 or 2 BKK's, which would heat the house in the shoulder season with long slow low output burns without having to feed it to often. Then install the other 1 or 2 locations with a PH, for looks and for tons of nice soft heat on those really cold days. Put the bk in the most central location so the shoulder season head spreads as much as possible, and the PH where you see it, and spend a lot of time. But of course that is guessing since I don't understand your house....

 

Since it's 20 degrees outside I decided to experiment again and plug the front air feed hole off again and see what happens...

I loaded the stove full, got the fire going easily on a good bed of coals.. Once my flue gases reached 500, I closed everything down and left the draft just open a hair. Stove top was at 300.... It took a full hour before I got any flames at all... Ran just like the Fireview, cat burn only. Usually with the air hole open I see 400-500 both on the stove top and flue gases. Now I left the draft just cracked open... My stove temps got interesting after an hour... Stove was 550 and flue gases were 650... That told me that cat was really burning some smoke..

Once the secondaries started they were big..... from the wood to the top ... I then closed the draft and just got top secondaries... Now with the draft closed my flue gas temp is starting to come down to match my stove top temp of 550...

Secondaries are now going but not ragging, about half the amount I would see , but still going well... They are burning more towards the back half of the upper plate... Now I will just watch and see how things burn... I still think I have a very strong draft here for some reason , even though I'm not straight up with my pipe...

I'm thinking that maybe with my good draft I really don't need the front air hole... I can say the secondaries really heat the room over the cat mode by itself, but I'm sure eventually just the cat would get things good and warm in here as well.. Room was 68 an hour ago it's now 70 and climbing... other end of the house with the Esse down to coals is 68, so that cooler air is drawing the warmer air from the PH room... so a 2 degree increase is pretty quick considering it's 20 outside....

Everything has settled in at 500 degrees with secondaries cruising along...

 

Last night it was 22 degree's here at 11pm, and went down to 20 for most of the night, at 8am it came up to 24, and 28 at 10am. At 11pm I loaded what I would call 3 large splits (triangle: 9" wide on 2 sides, by 6" tall/thick, by 18 to 20" long each). Two of these splits were 1 year old "Tree of Heaven" a tad bit green(only split about 3 months ago), and the third split was Red Oak split 1 year ago. I loaded onto a warm/hot stove (200 degrees) with just enough coals left to re-load. If I had waited another 15 minutes, I would have needed a super cedar to get it started. I let this cook for 7 minutes with bypass open of course and air open 100%. Some good flames kicked up indicating the bottom of the front split lit up pretty good, so I shut the air down 50%, and flipped the bypass. The stove pipe was 240 (or 480 inside), close enough to 500 to shut bypsass and get cat buring. The stove pipe went up to 300 for about 1/2 hour, and then settled down to around the normal 250 for rest of night. The stove top (soapstone) stayed between 280 and 325. The hottest part of stove, the flue collar steel just above the cat was 345. This is where it cruised for most of the night until about 6 or 7am when it started to slowly lower flue temps as the wood burned away.

My 1200 sq ft stove room (2nd floor) with cathedral ceilings was kept above 70 all night, and our bedroom on the 1st floor below (4" duct with an inline fan blowing air down) was kept at 65. At 9 am, the stove top (soap) was at 195, and the flue collar was 215. The stove room was still above 70, but the sunlight helps a bit in the morning (lots of windows). I opend the stove, and the 3rd split which was on the floor of the stove in the back, looked intact/same shape when I put it in, but it was all black. When I hit it with the rake, it fell apart into a bunch of 1 and 2" chunks of glowing charcoal, which of course picked up a bit after being stirred up and letting fresh air in. I closed the door and raised the air to 100% and could have let it burn another hour. Instead I reloaded a few more splits since I had to leave.

Not a bad burn for what most folks call "junk" wood. BB, maybe that will give you some insight on the burn times... The large splits help tremendously! I bet if I had loaded in the same exact wood, but split each one one more time first to make it 6 small splits, I would get 1/2 the burn time.

 

I think your right on about the small splits... Well I have to wait for 2 winters before I'll be into big wood now... All this years and next years wood was split for the Fireview...

I notice with the air hole plugged, now 7hrs later I have over twice the coaled wood left that I normally would... So plugging that air hole really saves the coals ... I'm still at 350 with my small splits...

 

You guys remember the dimmensions of the PH firebox?

 

Here's a pic from Saturday nights overnight load, about 1/2 full. This gave me an easy 12 hour burn, still hot stove in morning, plenty of red coals for reload...