Anyone burning the progress hybrid in this subzero snap?

Sherwood that looks great, cool color combo, different than most like mine and joshrohde.

Josh, love that wood rack, did you make that from plumbing pipes?

 

Yeah. It's 1/2in black pipe. I had some laying around and I bought some fittings to tie it all together. I need to cut my firewood longer for next winter as most of my splits are 16 inch or less which were cut for my old stove. The pipes are spaced 15 inches apart so stacking 18 to 21 inch splits will work nicely for next season.

 

Here's a couple more photos of the dogs enjoying the stove.

 

I bet it gets "warm" in there!!

 

Hi! New to the forum... I'm interested in a new wood stove install for next season. I really like the Woodstock stove line. Nice stove! Did you ask for a different color soapstone, yours looks darker than others. If so, was it an up charge?

 

There is no upcharge for the various colored and patterned soapstones. Woodstock encourages you to go and pick the one you prefer if you are near enough to make the trip. They will also listen to what you want (plain, patterned, dark, light etc) and will watch for stone for you and send you pictures of what they have in the type of stone you want, so you can choose that way.

I like the small pattern in the stone...find it interesting.

If you see soapstone you like, send them a snapshot of the stone you like, and they will try to find similar for you.

The same stone looks very different when complimented with the different color iron trims. I like the light gray because it is almost the same color as the stone and enhances the patterns.

 

Agreed. Very nice!

I was leaning towards a Woodstock IS, but now maybe the the ph is worth a second look knowing it can be customized a bit as well.

 

I went skiing (Killington) for a long weekend this past weekend, and visited Woodstock Soapstone while up there. Those 4 days were the first time since early November my PH wasn't burning except for a few hours about 3 weeks ago when I cleaned my CAT (vinegar bath). She's been chugging along ALL winter!

I've burned a grand total of 182 gallons of oil this year so far. Before installing the Progress Hybrid I would burn between 800 and 1200 gallons a winter. Can you say ONE THOUSAND GALLONS saved again?

 

I was very pleased to find this thread because we're just getting through our first winter with our PH, and it hasn't been as easy as we'd thought and we've struggled with all sorts of issues, so it was great to read all of your posts and see a lot of really positive things. I'm hoping you can provide us with some answers to things we've been having a tough time with. You've all been so helpful in the past!

I'll try to be as concise as I can--here goes:
We've burned at higher temperatures in order to stay consistently warm. We need to have the stovetop temp at around 500 in order to have the other rooms be comfortable. We want long, efficient burn times, but when the stove slowly drops in temperature to 250, we get cold. If we opt to put more wood in to raise the temp again, we're being inefficient, burning more wood than we want, and winding up with more coals than we want. too. The ashpan is great but only collects ash. We've had build up in the stove of coals up to 6" deep, to the point that the ashes are ready to fall out the door, and they keep us from being able to reload with a good number of splits. What do you do? When it's subzero in our very old house, we need to feed the stove too often, not because the stove isn't burning "correctly", but because we need the heat. Does anyone else have this problem, and do you just clean out some of the coals and dispose of them--wasteful it seems?

Some of you have said you can engage the cat and then close the "damper/airflow control" all the way and maintain the current temp for a while, opening the control as you need more heat. You've said that in that instance, you don't see any flames. If we do that, our flames will go out too, but then the window accumulates so much black buildup that you couldn't see flames even if they were there, and the temp doesn't stay where it was. We don't want to have a black window if we can help it--can we help it?

You all reference "secondaries". We think/thought secondaries were lively little flames above the wood that don't seem to be touching the wood. And that primaries were flames that came directly out of the wood. Are we right? Why would you not want to have the secondaries? We thought the secondaries were an indication of a more efficient burn, but I think we're missing something here.

We've looked very closely at the front of the stove, and we can't find the "hole" that you reference as an aid to airflow? We try to keep the very front clear of ash and coals, but it would help to know more precisely where that hole is.

Sherwood, you reference some pretty long burns--at the end of these burns, is your house still warm? We can get 10-12 hour burns easily, and the temp in the morning is around 250. If it's milder outside (20's?), the rooms adjacent to the wood stove room (the dining room located in the center of the house) can be nicely around 60, but when the temps have been below zero, all bets are off and those rooms are around 50. We have our oil furnace thermostat set to about 45, and it went on only once this winter, so that's good, but we just feel we're not getting the potential out of the stove that we could.

About a month ago, engaging the cat would cause the flames to very quickly disappear, making us think that the cat wasn't working properly. Because it was so cold, we didn't want to put the fire out and cool the stove so we could clean the cat, so I burned without using the cat at all, and it worked, sort of. I could get overnight burns, leaving flame in the firebox, and the stove temp would still be about 200-250 in the morning. Not efficient but it worked. I also left the door open to get it going quickly, which I realized about a week ago is a definite no-no, as it pulls ash up and into the cat area--duh!

Today, we cleaned the whole stove, vacuumed out everything we could, rinsed the cat thoroughly, put the inconel screen back in (had removed it because someone in another thread said Woodstock told them it was ok to do and would let the cat work better). We've just started it up again, got it almost to 500 just now, turned down the airflow, and engaged the cat. The flames have not disappeared but are fairly lazy. We've closed the airflow to about 1/4. It seems to be holding the temp but it's only been about 10 minutes. Please let us know if we're doing something wrong or if there's a better way to organize things?

Thanks in advance for any help! In another post, I'll try to post some photos so you can see our setup here.

 

Here are some photos that should give an idea of the stove room and the rooms that we want to send heat into. I should add that all our windows are going to be replaced this year, which should help the heating situation, but we still have a house about 175 yrs old with little or no insulation.

 

Just read your long post, Sherwood. Guess we're being real wimps--we thought we had to cool the stove in order to check and remove cat!!! You did this all with a hot stove?? You've given us a role model--we'll see if we can have the courage to do all that with a hot stove!! Wow!

 

dhumohr,
1st, welcome to FHC, lots of great info and folks around here! I'll do my best to answer your questions, I've had the PH for 3 years now and know it pretty good.

I get LOTS of heat from the stove, often the most heat the stove gives off, when the box is full of nothing but red hot coals and no real flames (just a whisper here and there). Not all see this, but I do. I attribute it to 2 things: the first being the CAT is burning full blast at this point since the stove has been hot for a long time and there are no flames or secondary's burning the fumes and smoke off in the firebox before getting to the cat. When the cat is burning, and has lots of fuel to burn (smoke and fumes), it gives off a ton of heat being it is burning at 1500 degree's. The second place the heat comes from is all that mass in the soapstone. I like to think of it as a delay in heat release. All the heat built up for the last few hours in the soaps is getting released at the same time as the cat heat. Between the 2, my stove room which is 1200 sq. feet with cathedral ceiling and lots of windows bakes to 90+ and we sometimes need ot open a door or window.

What does all this mean, my guess is your CAT was/is clogged and or dirty and needed cleaned and a nice vinegar bath to "re-activate" it.

Not quite "all the way". Most of us close it down ALMOST all the way. In my case, after closing the bypass I bring the air to 50%, wait a minute or 2 and then close it all the way down and bring it back up (open) just a tad, about 1/8" or so. If it's realy cold out (teens or single digits), then maybe a crack more to get more heat out at first. But when it's real cold usually there is a nice strong draft and once the stove is really going good, I can actually shut the air down to 100%, but that is rare and only on those really cold killer days of which we had a bunch of this year. On a normal day, 20's and up, if I shut it down 100% my flames will be extinguished in a minute or two, and you will only see red burning wood/coals. This can also cause some of the puffing when the box fills up with air slowly and bursts into flames for a few seconds and goes out again. And yes, this will often make the glass dirty, but that "dirt" will burn off as soon as the fire gets hot again!

The secondary's are the flames that come out of the top of the stove, out of the holes in that stainless steel plate at the top. It will often look like a propane gas grill up there with light blue blames, like a blow torch. Hoever, it can sometimes be light shimmering flames coming from the mix of the fresh air (oxygen) coming out of those holes in the top plate and the fumes (outgassing) from the wood.

Just below the glass (about 1 or 2" under it), in the very center of the stove, about 2" off the bottom of the stove is a small hole about 1/2" round. That is the primary air along with the air that comes down from along the top of the glass. Easy to see it when you are reloading and have raked the coals and ash down into the ashpan.

This sounds more of a moving heat problem than anything. Sure, when you get to the end of the burn and the stove top is down to 250 and below the room temps will be lower of course. My stove room never drops below 70, even after a 12 hour overnight burn and the stove is down to 200 - 250 and almost nothing left burning. The soap gives off a lot of heat for a while...

I never need to leave the door open to get it going, and never do it. I would not recommend leaving the cat bypassed, that is where much of the heat comes from. Leaving it bypassed your just burning inefficiently and wasting all that good extra heat the cat provides.

I like the screen, works fine for me and never clogs or has any issues. I think it helps keep the cat clean. Turn down the airflow before it reaches 500. I turn down the air when it reaches 260 or 270 and the close the bypass. Let it settle down and then adjust as needed (open for more heat, close for less...).

I clean the cat when the stove is cold. I wait for a warm day, or when I return from being away for a day or something. It takes 5 minutes to clean, and 15 minutes to give a bath (plus drying time). I do it about once a month or so.


Hope that helps....

 

Two questions for you:
1. How seasoned is your wood and whats the moister content? That makes a BIG difference in heat output!
2. What is your chimney like how long, what's it do after going in that wall?

 

dhumohr

It sounds to me like you have one of two problems. Either you have extremely unseasoned wood or your house is just too lossy for the stove. I'm leaning towards the lossy house, since your stove hits 500F, burns 10-12 hrs, and ends up at 250F. That's how this stove is supposed to run.

You did not mention how big an area you are trying to heat - but a poorly insulated 175 year old house is a red flag. What was your gas or oil usage before you burned wood? If we knew that, we might be able to figure out if the stove is sized right. I have a below average insulated 2300 sq ft colonial and used 800 gallons of oil to heat it. Now I use 2 stoves (Palladian and Progress) to keep warm (65-70F) when it's less than 15 degrees out. I've heard about others with bigger houses in colder climates who heat with just the Progress.

Your heavy coaling is a classic problem when loading too frequently to compensate for a stove that is underpowered for the house.

 

The cat is burning at 15o0 degrees?? Where did you find that information? We had no idea it was THAT hot!

We had the inside of the stove quite clean right down to the floor and looked very carefully and couldn't see this hole--If it's about 1/2", we should have been able to see it. Is it possible that Woodstock changed something and it's not there??

When we've done this, the temp hasn't reached the 500 we seem to need for this old sieve of a house. What's been the consensus from others? It sounds like you've somehow got Woodstock's absolute best burning beast!! I'm wondering if others have had the same experience as you??

To answer your wood question--the first wood we burned had been seasoned under a roof in a three sided barn for over 2 years. The wood we're burning now was cut early last year. Yes, we know how much difference different woods and seasoning affects burning temps--we have to buy our wood, and the guy we buy from gets semi loads delivered to him, so we get some of this and some of that---ash, oak, cherry mostly with some other woods, maple and whatever he gets. We tried to buy as much as we could this past year so it would be seasoned at least a year, and this year we'll stock up more.

Our chimney does a ninety into the wall and then about a 45 into the kitchen, a slight turn in there, and then another 90 up into the brick chimney and up through the second story and out. Not ideal, but pretty much the only way to do it. The chimney setup was done when we bought the house 25 years ago.

 

I'll answer in greater detail later, but my immediate reading on this is that your wood is suspect. Your window should NOT get black. Mine NEVER does, at all, unless I put a really wet piece of wood in there. Six inches of coals is another indicator to me that the wood is too wet. Storing it in a three sided barn, it isn't exposed to wind or sun, and will not dry very quickly.

I'd try making a couple of the shrink wrapped solar kilns that have been written about elsewhere on this forum. Make at least three of four separate ones, each on a pallet. Then, if necessary, you can mix the dry wood from those with your other wood in each fire. Stack your other wood outside, exposed to sun and wind, until the fall, then move it into the barn. Cut up/break the tops of trees and any branches you come across. Anything over 1 inch up to 3 inches I stack separately into a cord, and use along with my splits to get the fire going quickly and hot, until I am at the stage where I keep a good fire going 24/7. For instance, I started doing this again two days ago, after stopping in December. I'm using just one split with about the equivalent of a five or six inch round of branches. Near freezing out, it's keeping the house comfortable. It gives you dry wood (those small branches dry very fast if cut and stacked), and preserves most of your dry splits for the colder weather.

(If you grow vegetables, you may want to make the solar kilns independent of a pallet, use them in your garden as a greenhouse to start your tomatoes, maybe get some early beans going, etc, then move them to a pallet and use for firewood. Seems it only takes them a few months, even in winter, to dry wood, so you might be able to use four and use them in your garden, and still dry two batches of wood to a moisture content where they will work nicely next winter. Although it's not ideal, I believe the PH works very efficiently even at 25 -30% moisture content. You can probably get your kiln dried down to below 20, the rest to this higher level if you stack it by early spring in an exposed site. I'm going to try the greenhouse experiment, myself)

Woodstock definitely has not changed the design. Your hole may be plugged by ash and hard to see. Someone posted a picture of it. My stove is hot, but when it is cool I'll try to remember to take a picture and post. The hole is in the front of the stove, in the exact center, below the glass, almost at the bottom of the front. I clear all the ash and coals away from that area before each reload, and rake or shovel a path from the front to the back of the stove, about six inches wide, so I have no coals or ash there, just a clear path for air to flow. I rake my two small piles of coals to the front left and right corners, and load on top of them. Invariably, the fire has started before I close the door.

I have to go. More later.

Oh...I doubt you have too strong a draft with your rather tortuous chimney path. Probably serves the same function as my flue damper. Will be very interested to see how much comes out of your chimney when you sweep, and what type of residue. It must be pretty hard to get the rods through all those turns? Are you able to take the pipe apart in the kitchen, and do from the stove to the kitchen, then from the kitchen to the cap?

 

The first floor of the house is about 1000 sq ft, and we agree that we live in a red flag! We're going to replace all the windows this year, and that should help, since a lot of heat is lost through them. We don't heat the upstairs, since it only has three bedrooms that aren't in use.

Sherwood, the window only got black when we closed the airflow all the way, as some have said they do. I'm sorry not to have been clear about that--it isn't a consistent problem at all. And I think the deep bed of coals is from the fact that we wanted to keep the stove at a temp that wasn't realistic for the length of time that we tried it. The subzero weather played havoc with our old house.

We found the little hole! I think it's maybe only about a quarter inch--I used the fireplace tool, and in running it over the surface, it caught in the little hole. We'll definitely be careful to do as you say. We usually get flames before we close the door, too.

So, an update from this afternoon. The stove is working beautifully now--the temp is still just above 400 after starting at just under 500, and it's been more than 4 hours burning with the cat engaged. We'll see how many coals we have in the morning. Of course, today was warmer than it's been here in a long time, actually above freezing. Tomorrow temps are going down again, with lows tomorrow night -2, so we'll have another chance to try things.

Now 9:30 and temp is about 350 or so. Turned off the cat, opened the door and the airflow and filled the stove--flames shooting up. Now bringing up to temp and will engage cat and turn down airflow--more tomorrow.

 

Sherwood, just saw the end of your post--we seem to have a good draft, not too strong but certainly enough. We don't do our own chimney--we use a chimney sweep to do it. It's always been very good, quite clean he says, maybe because we had always been really careful to have a "hot burn" every day with our old Lopi stove. He uses a vacuum after he goes up on the roof to work from there. I think it will be even better this year because the flue temps are always hotter with less variation than with the old stove, but we'll see.

 

Regarding the black glass, I too never get "black" glass, it just gets a bit dirty with a long slow burn with suspect wood. Never so dirty you can't see the flames! So as Sherwood said, that does ring a bell with some wet wood if your seeing it get black enoughso you can't see flames.

If you don't have a moister meter, go pick one up at the local hardware store or on Amazon for 25 bucks. Then you can test your wood for sure.

 

Dhumohr, sounds like your doing mostly everything right, don't forget the stove will burn a little different in each set up so while I may turn mine down 100% you may have to leave yours open a tad, if I don't turn mine all the way down on a cold night my stove will over heat.

One way I've dealt with the coal build up in cold snaps is to rake the coals to the front and throw two splits of seasoned pine on top, it burns the coals down and gives decent heat, I don't get it to 500 but usually about 400. If you don't have any seasoned pine I used to use eco bricks or north east Idaho energy logs, the logs provide more heat and last a lot longer, then when the coals are way down I load it up with wood on top of the still burning logs and off we go.
I don't try to burn only wood, if the house needs some help with the furnace in sub zero weather my wife turns it on, in the morning she's up early before me and she turns the furnace on for 1/2 hour while she gets ready for work, or if I'm not around to reload the stove and its cooling off she'll turn the furnace on, not a big deal as I go through a tank a year and half of that is for heating hot water so maybe 150 gallons a year to supplement the wood stove isn't bad at all.
Also don't forget oak takes a lot longer to season than maple, ash and other hardwoods so I always stack it separate.