Ideal Steel Season #2 Tips, Tricks, and Improvements.

It may be possible that we are burning these stoves lower then what Woodstock intended. I believe the stove was created to work as a hybrid with both technologies active during its burn cycle. Running it full cat ends up murdering the radiator above it and dirty glass. Not that I care, I just don't think it was engineered around the way I want to use it.

I do think the stove gives a better even burn cycle with a bit more air added. 4-5 notch does well for me.

 

I'll stick with my BK that burns in full cat mode without all this thinking.

 

Last I checked Hearth.com has a 50 page thread on Blaze King. .

 

That thread is more about bragging. I started the first bk performance thread in 2012 to limit the bk threads taking up space.

 

I think most of the problems we are experiencing are poor draft conditions from a very mild winter. New owners are off to a frustrating start. I can hardly justify burning wood with these high temps. The stove does the job nicely, but my chimney doesn't pull as hard.

 

I added 2 feet of stack height and it made a HUGE difference in improved burning characteristics in these rediculous temps for November and December.

 

Off topic but until I get a cat prob, where does everyone suggest I put the magnetic thermometer Woodstock sent with the stove....?

 

I had mine on the front of the stove above the door covering the plug for the probe until I actually got the probe

 

I scratched my stoves paint with that thermometer. I wouldn't use it on the front. Use an IR gun until you get the probe.

 

per manual and woodstock, I put mine 10 inches above collar on single wall pipe.. oh that's a top vent though

 

Yea, I've got double wall so I don't think I'd get an accurate reading on it.

 

hey guys we see st 20 pages of tips. first I will say I am very Happy.. with this stove. With the right draft in shoulder season. I am 3/4 loading with popular at night at 7 or 8 and still have coals and heat at 3 the next afternoon when get my little girl off school bus! I don't know how it works in cold it hasn't been cold yet... but I am satisfied

 

Agreed. Also I was thinking, looking at the air intake 'plates' they have quite a complex pattern to them, getting larger the more you open, then smaller, then larger again, etc. It is obvious they were designed for very specific air control, and perhaps it would have been nice if Woodstock actually showed what that would be - like visually - from here to here is pure cat burn, then etc.

I have to say though that learning this stove has been fairly easy so far, but I've only done pure cat burns so still a learning curve ahead when it starts getting colder.

I'm not sure if this is not what Woodstock intended, and the radiator life cycle might be designed that way but I don't really know. It's been pretty mild here in the 30's or higher so I've only been running full cat in the few days I've run the stove so far and don't really have much problem running it. However 4-5 notch on mine still creates as much heat on the radiator it seems... ran it that way for a bit last night after I was getting it going. I backed it all the way down to 5 while I was on the phone with my folks and forgot to engage the cat. When I realized it the cat probe was about 1400ºF, which is about where it cruises in full cat burn anyhow.

I wouldn't say its finicky but is fairly responsive. Been trying to find a good setting for the current temps. On notch 2 it just about pegs the cat, 1400ºF or so. Just going down to 1.5 drops the temps probably too much, so I've left it mostly on 2. Things will be changing once it gets colder, but I'm not complaining about the warm winter!

 

When the weather changes and draft picks up you can expect to see more secondaries. I gauge how low to set it by whether my glass is (somewhat) clean at the end of the burn or not. For me that line is around 4.

 

Actually I find it is the warmest temps. that I use the stove to be the more difficult; basically I am trying to run the stove with the lowest output possible and still have a clean burn, and that sometimes results in a stalled cat. and / or a too- warm house. Not the stove's fault at all but given a fairly big stove in a fairly small house, and trying to heat exclusively with wood is really asking a lot- probably too much.

Once it gets cold, running the stove is much easier IME- load, set the draft and the stove requires little attention and is certainly not the least finicky.

Woodstock really cannot say what the draft will be because they have no knowledge or control over the various chimneys used. I have had my I.S. on three different chimneys and it behaves quite differently on each one.

Brian

 

BDF, that's great .... so this is as hard as it to run this thing... GREAT I got good draft .. marginal wood.. never had a dirty glass.. if house get too hot Crack a window.. in bedroom.. I load it at 3 pm top it for bed at 10 is set it to a quarter air house still warm at 5 or 6 I imagine in winter I would load again.. since its been warm I leave it and still have bed of coals at 3 pm.

I am a firm believer in if wife has a sweater on stove gets more wood..

 

I've mentioned this before, and I am a firm believer. Burn the stove hot an hour before your final load and load hot on that.

I had it up to 75 degrees in the house last night and loaded hot. 10 hours later it is still 75 and I still have 300 stove top. 750 on the cat probe. The glass is pretty darn clean and I have lots of coals. This burn should keep going for a while. Real feel of 19 outside. Notch #4.

 

That is what has troubled me when thinking about this recently. Looking at the air intake plates it looks like they have a specific performance curve in mind. I wonder if they designed the stove around a particular draft. If the air control was linear like most stoves, then based on your particular draft you either open it a little more or close it a little more. But this control has shape, it gets larger then smaller, then larger again... and not just that but it changes the proportion of primary to secondary air. It seems to me like if your draft isn't similar to what they had in mind it might skew the air control setting from what it was intended to be. Maybe the stove isn't that sensative to draft that it doesn't require the position to be skewed so far for different drafts, but you say it does behave quite differently.

But sometimes I don't have a full hour to get the stove going! Yeah ideally... the biggest part of my learning curve so far has been cold starts and just getting the beast up to operating temps and settled out. It's a whole lot of metal and rock to warm up! Shouldn't be in issue come some time in January when it gets cold enough to burn 24x7!

 

Where do you measure your 300 stt? My house is a bit more drafty and attempting to heat the second story this year. Last night I lit the IS and burnt about 1/4 load of pine with the air basically set to half throttle inn an attempt to bring the house above 75, which it did. I loaded a full load of pine and cedar and 9 hours later I have an 8" coal bed, cat probe is at 800df and the house is 73. I would measure stt but it varies quite a bit as to where the temp is taken. Quite happy, I know it's not that cold yet but I think that's a pretty good burn time on marginal moisture soft wood.

 

I have the gauge to the rear side of the middle burner. My house is well insulated on top but it has 2x4 walls.




As far as the control settings, I'm sure they do design it around perfect draft. That is why they preach having a good chimney system. I think it is designed very well.