Absolute Steel Hybrid

Your photos are fine! Yours is a rear exhaust, mine is top, but I would expect it would be a similar spot.

 

Yep, but I am guessing the body is charcoal I wonder what it would look like in black with the green decor. I just noticed the andirons are pine trees too, I really like that instead of the regular ol ones.

 

Yup, wet wood. Black glass on reload (this does not happen with decent wood)...


The black did burn off quickly, but the haze in the corners still lingers...


I'll see if I can find a friend with a MM to get me a reading on this wood. I am surprised at how well it is burning, and think it is drier than I expected.

 

Yeah, I got very heavy rain here last week and some of thebut it is closer to the wood I was using was from under my deck, which while protected mostly still allows water to drain off through the slots all over the top splits. I may have caused some of my own hazing using it, but it is closer to house and the path to the bigger covered woodpile was iced over from the rain. Not fun for an old hippie to fall down while carring a load of splits.

 

We let the fire die down and cleaned the glass today. Now a brightly burning small fire of the 1-yr Sugar Maple. I do love clean glass!

 

I'm burning low and slow and it fogged up again. I need to go over to the other woodpile. I've got a special stash of Locust but I'm going to wait for the cold to come back.

Looks great Sam!

 

I don't believe it is a matter of the wood being too wet. The reason I say this is that I have burned loads of 13%MC black cherry low and slow in my Fireview only to have the glass darken. If the firebox temp is low enough the condensation will happen on the cooler parts of the firebox. Low and slow results in too low a flow of air over the glass to prevent the condensation; I don't think it can be avoided. Just my 2 cents (which I may be over valuing ).

 

Yes, I think you have a point there. The same wood/same batch is burning in my Fireview just fine. Sometimes I get some coating on the glass but it burns off pretty quickly when I open it up a bit. But this box is BIG and so far I haven't been really pushing this stove, it hasn't been real cold, and the wood might have been rained on a bit.. the result being the firebox isn't getting really hot in the early stages of the burn, and almost immediately fogs over.

Dare I say it, I'm looking forward to some cold weather.

Steve

 

What do you mean by 'fogged'? These new hybrids will burn clean low enough that everything in the firebox will be coated black. My door routinely gets coated thick enough you can't see through it at all except sometimes the top corners about an inch or so I can shine a 1,000 lumen flashlight through to see inside. I consider that normal for a slow burn, and it self cleans next strong fire. But I don't have any apparent moisture inside the box, if that is what you are talking about. I've never seen any dripping, yet.

 

No the only reason I mentioned moisture is that the users manual for the stove says that the initial burns may cause condensation on the glass.

"....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."

But I'm glad you got me rethinking this, because it isn't condensation (moisture) that I'm getting, it's just that black coating.. and it happens almost immediately when I go from a cold start, and then it doesn't burn off. I never get this on the Fireview or even on the Resolute that this stove is replacing.

I'm going to cold start again tomorrow, and start with a kindling and then slowing build up to a larger and larger fire because it seems like this is an initial start issuebut then it doesn't burn off. I don't think it's the wood, as I mentioned, the wood is 2 years old and blazes right up and doesn't burn dirty or sizzle or any of that.

I'm guessing I'm still getting used to the stove, but surprised I'm still having this issue.

Thanks for poking me on this.

 

Here are AM/PM pictures, with black glass from burning the wet Sugar Maple. This is on startup (big bed of coals), with the air wide open. This does not happen with 2yr wood.



Luckily it all burns off. Hard to see, but there is one round, hazy spot in the center, upper third.


We've burned one cord, and are quite happy with the stove. I think we'll burn a little more Sugar Maple, and then run the brush up the liner to see if there is anything there.

 

It's happening on initial start. It's like it's not getting enough draft, and just smokes up the box, even though I have the bypass open, the draft on High, and even keep the door cracked an inch.
I'm wondering if something's up with my draft. Now that I think of it, it seems to collect the smoke as soon as I close the door.

I've let it go out, so I am going to test the draft first thing in the morning.

I'll let you guys know what I find.

 

Do you have negative pressure issues in your basement? Maybe some stack effect going on?

 

I actually don't, I've always had a good draft down there. It's about 30 feet of chimney. I opened the front top lid and lit a piece of newspaper and it was pulled right up the flue. I spent some time adding a small extension to the flue pipe to move the stove away from the back wall, checked to make sure the flue was clear and clean while I had that access, cleaned the glass and will re-start the stove as it gets colder this evening. Being very careful to use dry wood which I don't think is an issue as it burns fine in both my Fireview and the previous VC had had there.

This time I'm going to build the fire in stages as opposed to build it all at once. ...get the small kindling fire hot, then add to it, etc. I'll see how that works. If that doesn't do it, I'll give WS a call. I'm ordering one anyway, so I got a reason to call. Now I need to pick out style. I actually think I'm going to go with what I have "Foursquare".

 

I use a top down approach and have very little smoke on cold starts; if you have not tried it, it is worth a try. I don't know why there is such a bias against this starting technique, but there seems to be; perhaps the ones that don't like it don't have a sufficient supply of kindling.

 

My problem with top- down fires is that they cannot be maintained (reloaded). The last time I started a fire with kindling was back in October, and adding wood to an existing fire or even a hot bed of coals makes a bottom- up fire.

They are probably great for those who batch- burn and allow the stove to go out in- between fires but they just do not work for those of us who use wood as a main source of heat.

Brian

 

Do you clean the glass from the side door? Or is it really easy to remove the window azz'y and clean it that way?

Brian

 

I am kind of with BDF, on this one.. I read about top down here and tried it it worked fine.. but the IS goes 18 hours plus on low with popular so only time I have needed to start a fire is after it cooled and I purposefully shoveled it out to clean glass or replace radiator. Last stove if I left for more than 4 hours it was match and kindling time... so I have 5 years worth of kindling in barn in 55 gallon drums sorted that go smaller than old wooden ruler to chunks almost 2 by 6 size of kiln dried maple, walnut and cherry.

I think most issues with that type of fire starting are same ... most burn wet wood...

 

The only time I do a top down approach is on cold start; no need on reloads.