Another Woodstock Absolute Steel Install

Hey guys, this is an introductory post on my install and operations observations of the new Woodstock Soapstone Absolute Steel. I went up to Lebanon NH with my good friend and Progress owner Steve H. he isn't a forum member, but keeps promising. It's been crazy weather here in north central Mass. Over the weekend we had a couple of -15'F days. When we left to pick up the stove it was -2F, then Tuesday it's 501'F here. Wild.

Anyway, it's always fun going for a road trip to West Lebanon.


My friend Steve H.

Steve and Lorin and the field test Beta Absolute stove.

Then Chris and Mike joined Lorin to show me around the stove and wrap it up for the ride home on my trailer.

We got all loaded up and since the 4Aces was standing room only we drove south to Chester VT and had lunch ot the Heritage Deli.


I'll post another entry for the install.

 

Congrats! Looking forward to the reports!

 

Too funny - the original name of Chester was Flamstead, which is where my screen name comes from (Mount Flamstead is where I cut my firewood). You probably passed right by the house - we would have enjoyed meeting you as you passed through (but we were gone, at work)!

 

Steve, what's the plan for the Fireview?

 

We made it safely back to Ashby Mass and were able to put the ramp down on the motorcycle trailer and simply slide the stove down it's mild slope and low height right into the garage. But now we had a number of issues to deal with the get the stove into the family room and onto the hearth. This stove is about 500lbs. It's not an Ideal Steel or a Progress, but it is a good sized stove. We got smart and decided to take off some weight be taking off the cat lid, the firebox door, the ash-pan grate, the ash pan parts, the base firebrick and a couple of the soapstone side bricks and the andirons. You can see the 1988 vintage VC Resolute that has been doing some light duty but has seen much better days.


We had to make that dolly to be exactly 25 inches wide as the stove needed to get past my staircase and wall, which was a space of like 25.25 inches. Just getting the removeable parts off the stove makes it much more manageable. Neither of us are weight lifters and we wer able to tilt the stove and walk it off the pallet and onto the dolly. This is me, feeling better about getting this job done.

Now up over this little lip and then into the family room and onto the hearth.

There's a difference in height, and coming off the dolly onto the hearth you need to be careful of the ashpan, which is not the heavy gage steel as the stove body, it doesn't need to be, but it also wouldn't be capable of taking all the weight of the stove. So we used my motorcycle jack to create an angle and some spare boards to add height to the hearth.


Here's a pic to the motorcycle lift being used to add lift and angle to slide the stove onto the hearth.



Now just a little muscle and some gentle nudging.

 

I have been watching this stove and I am interested but the wings totally suck IMO.
Yes I'm aware I can get the stove without the wings but I have not seen an actual picture of the stove without the wings, drawings just don't get it

 

Very nice! Now it is time to get reacquainted with the smell of curing paint!

Different bypass handle. Narrower, textured wings with much less curve. Artwork fastened directly to the front. Shorter andirons. A notch in the wing near the bypass handle (?). Top vent. Red ball on handle!

 

The Fireview is staying right where it belongs in the main living room/dining rool area of the house. For many years we had my telecommuter office in the family room so I could work from home and not have too much interuption from the family on the main floors.

Fireview won't be going anywhere, we love it. But it is nice having that 2nd stove, which we won't use all the time, but for very cold weather, and also for shoulder season we use it a lot. Rather than toast ourselves out or run real low in the Fv upstairs, we just get the stove going downstairs and let the heat drift up and it does a pretty good job.. well, the previous stoive did and this will do it better. It's doing it right now.

 

Now you can double team ole man winter with confidence! Looking forward to hearing how the AS runs compared to the Fireview.

 

Yes I definitely am sniffing paint today. Not too strong but It's still there. Unfortunately I got the glass all black doing the break in fires and I haven't needed to fill the stove and get it hot to burn ot off. This is a BIG firebox comapared to everything I'm used to. But I finally got the room cleaned a bit and the stove is doing a great job pumping out nice warm heat on less than 1/2 a firebox.

 

What I like the very most so far with the stove is the innards. I have 2 close friends that have Progress Hybrids they bought because I introduced them to Woodstock and those suckers are beautiful, but they are foremost HEATERS. I guess the Ideal Steel is the same, but it is really BIG! It took me a while to get used to the looks of that, but now I think they are cool. (As an aside, I absolutely hated the looks of the new Camaros when they first came out, and now I love them.) I actually like the IS and now the Absolute more for their function than for their looks, but I will admit I have a Fireview in my living room, and I'm not about to switch. So looks do count, not doubt about it. I guess my only point is sometimes, at least for me, I grow into liking the style of something that at first I didn't.

 

Exactly the plan!

 

I figured it out once you got the new pics up.

 

So I had my first overnight fire last night. I let the Fv go out yesterday because it really was a shoulder season kind of day and I wanted to see what the Absolute could do for heating the house from the family room, during this warm days/cold nights we have in shoulder season. It was mid 40s during the day and into the early evenng yesterday and then last night dropped quickly to low 30s. I got up this AM to an outside temp of 18'F. - But the house was warm, 68'F in my living room/kitchen and rear back rooms as well, at 7:00AM.

I knew there would be plenty of hot coals for a re-light in the botton of the stove, but the window as blacked up quite a bit, I am letting it go out so I can clean it. The below is what it says in the DRAFT manual about this.

"Second, there will be some condensation on the glass.This condensation is a result of any moisture being driven out of the stove and condensing on the inner surface of the glass. It takes a couple of small fires to season the stove and remove this excess moisture. "

Being the OCD kinda' guy I am, I like clean glass for the most part, but I'm not obsessive about it. Usually with the Fv, a decent fire will clean the glass pretty good all by itself. So it is rare that I'll actually bother to manually clean the glass.

Here's a couple pics of the temp at 7:30 this AM. I am very impressed with how warm the stove still was with a nice glowing bed of hot coals in the firebox after an all night burn from about 2/3s of a loosely packed firebox.

 

That looks great Steve, nice install.

Did you catch any information on the R & D on the fireplace insert mentioned in the other thread? I am curious. It would open up an opportunity for us brick-bound burners.

 

I did not, but I'll make sure I check into that when I get an opportunity to ask. a Hybrid insert, sounds like a good opportunity.

 

Thanks for all the effort passing along info on the new stove. Great job.

 

I got the impression that it wasn't a "someday" project; it sounded rather high on the list of next projects they intend to take on.