New Woodstock Progress Hybrid in my neighborhood

Oh!!! You guys are brutal!!! Well I've had some great left over roast beef, and a nice piece of birthday cake as I turned 64 this weekend and Mama made me my favorites! But I feel like all I've been doing is moving snow and doing pre-Christmas errands, so today was a nice break to help my good friend Steve H go pick up his new Woodstock Soapstone Progress Hybrid.

This is Part 1 of the install story as it was along day. We had gotten about a foot of snow over the week-end and then Tuesday we got another 8 inches, so I woke up to this.



Not really a big deal as the night before I went out late and did my snowblowing about 10PM



Steve was waiting for me at the front of my driveway at 9:00AM. I had a full coffee cup ready to go, and away we went.





The roads were really pretty leaving out little town on the NH border.

No doubt about it, winter is here and it's been snow and -4'F up to +12'F all week so far. We get these cold winters quite frequently here in the northeast, even in the Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island states.

A nice bright winter day leaving my house it was getting into the teens today.



Slow going on Rt119N that would take us to 12N to Keene NH then 9 west over to Brattleboro where would pick up 91N. The state crews apparently left much of the plowing till the early morning and the roads were quite slick and hard-packed snow glaze forthe first 80 or so miles through Keene over the Brattleboro VT.





I had to stop at the HD shop to talk quickly about a service call for my Electraglide. We eyed this piece of eye candy for a while. I may buy a new one next year.. I'm thinking about it, this one was $27.5K



Okay, back to the meat of the report. The main highway 91N was smooth sailing.



Continued in next attachment.

 

So we get there and as usual are greeted by the great Woodstock Staff.





He had 2 stoves in his choice of color to choose from. He took the one on the left.

What a beautiful stove.



As usual the WS staff was very helpful getting us loaded up.





After a great lunch at the 4Aces Diner we were headed home.



We got home at 4:45 PM and it was a pretty straight forward and easy job to get the stove positioned in front of the hearth. He's got a sliding glass door to the family room and we were able to get the stove onto a dolly and then using the wheels and a little lift were able to skid the stove down the trailer ramp and over a sheet of 1/2 inch plywood covering the threshold into the room.

We got the stove unpacked and he got the directions out and we decided to hold off on the install to the SS liner until he reads the directions and hopefully we can get some helpful hints from Charlie and others here for getting it off the pallet.

Steve has to travel to North Carolina, his daughter is stationed there in the Army with her West Point grad husband who is also an Afghanistan vet, and is now training there for Special Ops officer training. So it may be till after Chistmas before I have more news. But it's home and we now have another WS in my neighborhood. I wonder how often that happens where one owner talks about the stove and another neighbor, or even a reader out here purchases based on owners recommendations? Maybe more often than we think.

In any event, a long day. I've misplaced my new leather work gloves and I've got a bunch of other stuff to do. Talk to you later guys. Sorry I don't have pics ot the install yet, but I'll get some up as soon as I can.

PS always a pleasure going up to visit my friends at Woodstock Soapstone.

 

Looked like a nice blue sky day & a fun trip.
Pictures of smoke signals soon

 

Nice pics. Seems a little odd to see pics of the place I called today from half a country away.

 

Absolutely!!!!

 

If they didn't answer the phone quickly the place was hopping when we got there. Another guy, Scott, also showed up with a trailer and he was from the Upstate NY area. Also picking up a PH. Plus we were there at lunch time, but that was fine with them, they didn't blink an eye to help us out.

 

Great play by play Steve.
I don't suppose Steve was excited or anything, eh?
You posted just in time.....I was almost out of popcorn.

 

Oh, he's excited alright. Geezum, even I was excited!

I wish I had of taken pics of the unload which was more tricky due to the huge trailer he has that we needed to back around the back of their house, with a good 12+ inches of snow in the ground and a slight upward slant, to get to the small landing where the entrance as was. He had dropped me off at my house first so I could tell Mama I was home and I ran back out of the house to get over there without the camera. Plus the guy has two BIG German Shepard dogs that wanted to know all about me. ,,,and they had a few words of warning. ..luckily I came bring treats in my pocket, so we made friends pretty quickly. More pics of them soon.

Steve has a BIG John Deer he decided to use instead of the Expedition we brought it back in to bring it around and squeeze it nicely into the right spot. But even then moving that baby without a dolly was a pretty tricky endeavor for a couple of old codgers like us.

 

Steve, Woodstock's pallet removal instructions are great... Only thing that didn't come off was a piece off pallet wood in the back that won't let you slide the pallet out the front with the stove on it's legs... That should have been screwed on instead of nailed..I wound up stacking a couple of 2x4's under the legs on each side, having the wife slide one at a time underneath as I lifted the stove ....... Once they were underneath I believe that was high enough to slide the pallet out...... Next I took the 2x4's out and added furniture slides under the legs so you can get that 700lbs right where you want it without scratching anything with the legs... If you are pressed for room in the rear, install the rear heat shield before you slide it into place... Again good directions....

You didn't mention an ash pan ... If your are installing that slide a 2x4 underneath, this will allow things to be close enough that you can hold the ash pan up at one end and get a bolt started... I didn't bury these bolts but used common sense as to have the knife edge of metal pretty firm into the bottom gasket......... Two things,,,,,,, before you start the ash pan install the Ash Lip if your using one.... Next on the ash pan itself you will see tiny holes around the perimeter where the self tapping screws go in for the heat shields... Do yourself a favor and run those screws in once before you install the pan,,,,, otherwise you'll be laying down doing it... That makes the heat shield install flawless to do...

Next ,,,, install the fire

If you have any questions just post... glad to help...

Something I thought about was to make short 1/4 x20 studs, thread them into the bottom of the stove, then you could push the ash pan over the studs for immediate alignment and just add a few nuts until you started your bolts... But that's just me.... I use to do that on the Harley primary drive covers where you had about 10 bolts and a gasket, slide the gasket over a few studs, add the cover, then the finally allen bolts and remove the temporary studs... Makes it easy and RIGHT! Oh by the way, I used copper antisieze on the pan bolts and the bolts that held the legs on...and also the two rear heat shield studs... But that's just me....

Your friend is going to love the PH! The ash pan is the nuts!

 

Thanks for sharing, looks like you had a nice trip and visit. One of these days I'm going to hit the road to Woodstock.

 

Charlie, you are incredible.

I just called Steve to see if he wanted me to come over.. and he says "Oh, the directions are so good, I had a fire going last night at 10:00PM!" LOL! I left at 7:00PM and told him to read the directions.. so he's a very handy guy and I left him my motorcycle jack, and he just went to town.. he had the whole thing installed in no time and did get the paint smell but he says it wasn't too bad. He did a 2nd break in fire this AM and I am on my way over there now with my camera!!

He is already in love with this stove.! I'll take a pic of the basket case he was using. LOL! That one deserves to melted down and forgotton about.

 

Wow, sounds like he has a case of Woodstock fever! Keep us posted! That's nice, you'll get to see the PH in action! I'm just glad to help as far as the compliment! Thanks! Always try to make it easier for the next guy... Yes the stove does come with great directions! Woodstock goes all the way for it's owners... Those directions show how much they care after the sale...they want your stove installation experience to be enjoyable... that's a lot less phone calls for them providing nice directions... Smart! You'll have to get Steve on the FHC so he can keep us posted...

 

$27.5k for a touring bike is ridiculous. And that isn't a dig against Harley. Touring bike pricing have gotten insane no matter which manufacturer you go with.

 

I know! But, you get the "infotainment system" and the cappuccino maker! I can't believe Harley is bragging about how you can plug your iPhone into the socket and receive incoming and outgoing calls.

Really it's just too much money. Plus, due to all the EPA restrictions you got to strip off about $3K worth of hardware and put another $3K or hardware on to tune it to make it run cooler. ...never mind run better. Oh, and don't forget they are now liquid cooled.

I think I'll keep the one I got!

 

So I called Steve this morning and I was ready to go over there help him out with connecting the stove. He says "oh, it's all done! the directions from WS were great, and the pallet just stripped away one board at a time after I put the legs on", with help from my motorcycle jack I lent him.

So I went over there late this AM and took some pics so you guys get a flavor for what he's got.

He used this little toy to hook that monster trailer too and back it through the snow onto his porch so we could get the stove in last night.



Here's the stove we too off that hearth. It seems smaller than mine. Did VC make these in different sizes. This one was all warped and ruined in the rear firebrick. It was essentially a smoke dragon.. and way to small at that.



At present he has a 24 inch rear exhaust pipe, and as you can see he is right up against the hearth.



But the stove hooked right into the SS liner and seems to be getting a great draft. A later pic will show his chimney.



He did his 2nd and third break-in fires and is now off and running, but it's getting warmer here today and it is now 32'F at 3:30PM. He is LOVING the heat he is getting and he hasn't even begun to fill the firebox, just a few splits.

The stove looks great in this room, but he is already noodling on ideas to improve the looks and the heat distribution to upstairs rooms, via either floor registers and/or tapping into his forced hot air ducting.

His puppies are all excited too but we kept them outside as it was time to feed the horses and the pups like to supervise.



These are BIG horses.



The horses didn't seem to care about the Hybrid capabilities of the PH.



Here's his home and you can see his chimney is on the right side the stove is on the bottom/basement floor.



I'm sending him a link to this thread and I'm sure he'll be joining us either before or after Christmas. He's leaving tomorrow for North Carolina.

So, another WS Soapstone stove in the neighborhood.

Life is grand!

 

10 years ago you could get a Harley touring bike for under $19k.

Now? Yamaha's Royal Star is over $20k and Honda's two-wheeled Civic is $24k.

 

That's quite an upgrade to go from a Resolute to a PH. That is a firebox upgrade of 1.1 cu ft and nearly 400 lbs of additional mass.

 

Steve, I assume the stove is in the basement as you described? Reason I'm asking ... Just wondering what's under those floor tiles as without the ash lip the insulation requirement is about double... If it wasn't for me getting that simple ash lip on my PH, I would have been starting all over with my hearth build...Yet the hearth stone around the PH doesn't seem as hot as the Fireview ...

 

I paid $19 for my Eglide Classic in 07. The Ultra was about $21 and change at the time. They keep adding gizmoes to keep up with the hot competition, but they seem to sell them. Lots of guys got plenty of money apparently.

You can compare an Ultra to a Civic, but have you checked out the price of say a Honda Pilot, or a Chevy Tahoe or a Ford Explorer lately? How about a F150 for $45K?

I'm riding a 98 Honda Valkyrie.. 07 Electraglide, 2010 Chevy Malibu and 2005 GMC Envoy.. They all run well, and no payments on anything, and that's the way I like it.