Hearth Floor Rebuild for Fireview Install

Looks great HarvestMan.
I would expect you'll get a chance to do a few break in fires this spring.? I built a small fire Tuesday morning and could have built another this morning, but it has warmed up nicely today. Be sure to follow the break in procedures, there is a lot of moisture in a new soapstone stove. Water may run down the glass on the first fire.

 

Yeah, kinda what I said.........

 

We do have a ceiling fan, but we don't run it usually. Our home is a two story with 3 BRs and 2 baths upstairs. On a cold start, I shut all the doors upstairs until the heat has filled the upper hall and balcony area and starts working throughout the first floor. I then start opening 2nd floor doors as either needed to heat them or if I get it too hot downstairs I can flood cool air by opening a 2nd floor door. At some point, we close the upstairs doors so as not to get the BRs too hot for good sleeping. I don't know if this seems odd to others, but it is something we have done for 25 years. Of course, with the new stove, I may be altering that routine as the big benefit of the Fireview is not having to do cold starts every day as was needed with my Hearthstone.

 

Fire that baby up.....When I installed my stove it was 80 degrees and humid night air and I had the air conditioner cranking but I had to make sure it would draw right and all and I wasn't waiting....Lol....Yours looks fantastic....

 

Just wanted to thank everyone on this site for sharing their comments and ideas. When researching wood stoves, my love of soapstone and the many threads here lead me to the Fireview. I sent several regulars here with Fireview experience PMs to ask a few questions and they were very helpful in solidifying my belief that this was the correct stove for my needs. While I can't attest to how it performs for us yet, I can say that the pictures of this stove on the internet and even the WS sales literature just do not adequately show how attractive this stove is when seen in person. Having had a chance to look it over, I really like the simplicity of this stove. The two controls work smoothly and the easy access to the catalyst is a huge upgrade over my old stove. I'm already looking forward to next winter ...

 

Wow, great-looking install, HM! Yep, the Fireview is gorgeous when you finally see the rock sitting there in 3D. I bet you can hardly wait to fire her up. Count me among those who couldn't wait until fall, though. A few cool mornings, I would be curing the cement and cast iron with some low kindling fires with the bypass open, then work up to a cat burn. Another thing I would do is block off the top of the stack with a coffee can lid or the like. I have seen condensation in 3 different Fv installs here, from the warm, humid summer air condensing inside the stove, which is cooler in the house, especially when running the AC.

 

Harvest....
It is supposed to be cool enough again next week to build a fire......
We ran ours once earlier in the week.

 

I am very tempted to do the break in fires; time will tell if I can hold out until next fall.

I bought a 1 foot pipe and had WS install the key damper just in case I needed it on windy days; I will shut this off during the summer to address the condensation issue (hopefully). My sweep doesn't even like cleaning our chimney as it is 28 feet from the thimble, so I will pass on that coffee can idea. Now, if I wait until fall for the break in fires, I should not have any problems because there is no black stuff for the condensation to diffuse.

If I do break down and season it, I'll post pictures and confess to my weakness.

 

Hmmm ... I see that Tue & Wed next week may be tempting.

Don't think I would want you guys in any kind of addiction support group ...

 

Yeah, we tend to support our addiction.
No interventions here.
Actually, it's not an addiction, it's a "lifestyle".

 

Very nice

 

Of course I couldn't resist ...

Had the first kindling fire Friday evening when it was 68.
Had a little bit larger fire this morning when it was 50.
Here is the current fire at 49.

 

That's the way,
Uh huh, uh huh,
I like it, uh huh, uh huh.

 

That didn't take long. Just the way we like it, with pics.

 

Having fun with the new stove. Had the first extended cat burn today. Here are my observations so far:

1. Stove is quiet compared to my old one. Old one would ping and pop until up to temp (entire back was cast iron and a bunch of internal stainless used in cat chamber area). The only noise this makes is when the cat is engaged and you here a metallic tic tic tic sound for a few seconds as the cat lights off.
2. Air control on new stove actually allows for controlling the rate of burn. Old stove had three air intakes: primary, slide air wash, bimetallic catalyst air. Air wash was so crude it probably let in as much air as the primary. The bimetallic air worked like an inverse thermometer letting in more air as the cat chamber got hotter - had no control over it at all. Very nice to be able to change the air settings to see more flame or take the box black. I've always heard of this capability, but was pretty cool doing it for the first time.
3. Old stove would leak smoke when adding wood; new stove does not. You can actually feel the air being pulled into the stove as you load wood - the rear draft of this stove is obviously designed much better.
4. Cat lights much quicker than old stove - I engaged less than 30 minutes from cold start (stove top temp was 200). Manual suggests 250 stove top to engage, but this seems like a conservative number and I have heard others speak of engaging before 250.

Very glad we got a bit of cool weather so I could get the stove seasoned and get a few trial runs in prior to next fall.

The PH and IS must really be something if they are more controllable than the Fireview. Can't wait to hear about the new Franklin design and posts from the beta testers.