Another Woodstock Absolute Steel Install

The weather hasn't been cold enough and I haven't been very aggressive in the size of the fires so far. But I am building up to larger fires, and hopefully will bake the moisture out.

 

Well, I am day 3 into the install and operation of the Absolute Steel, aka "The Big Mama" in the basement. Here are some random thoughts.

• This is a serious heater, it will easily run longer than 12 hours on less than a full load of wood. The firebox has good width and height. Quite a bit larger than what the numbers indicate. I believe the Fv is a 2.2cu ft stove and the AS in a 2.45cu ft box. But it sure seems more than that to me.
• The cruise range for my stove/flue/climate etc seems to be STT @400+'F and single wall flue temp of 210'F give or take a 20 degrees depending on burn stage.
• Even though the stove's STT is very similar to the Fv, the actual amount of heat that translates into is much, much more. I am guessing this is due to 2 factors
  • surface area
  • steel vs soapstone (although there is a soapstone liner in the AS it also has a lot of steel)
• LOVE the ash-grate/ash-pan system! (I just feel like I'm cleaning out ashes too frequently with the Fv.)
• The Hybrid system is all things to all people! It works seamlessly. Set it and forget it.
• One nit: The draft control on the stove is this fairly long "Stick shift" labled from high and the top to low at the bottom. It runs along a serrated steel guide. The lever has plenty of granularity, almost infinite control, but it makes a lot of noise running along the steel serrated guide, which holds it stead at whatever setting you pick. The noise is annoying they are working on a better guide/lever system for this.
• The looks of this stove is really growing on me, in a form-follows function kind of way. It's not pretty and decorative, but the various decorative designs do give it personality. But on the other, this stove has a "Industrial Strength" look and feel to it, that it backs up with impressive performance in both BTUs and length of burn, that I can't help be impressed by.

I am still getting used to the stove. It is still fogging over the glass after a couple days of running. I will let the fire go out soon, clean it off that that will most likely be the end of the fogging. Having the ability to pull the andirons for cleaning is a definite plus in this case. I'm not obsessive about clean glass, but I do like clean glass. (It's prettier in the pictures. )

 

Here are some more pics of the stove and the initial break-in fires. I'm trying to capture some of the controls and operations of the stove.
Here is a look inside the top lid down to the cat. Also, not that directly in front of the cat is the bypass opening from the firebox and it is in the open position right now. The small handle with the circular end on the right is the lever that controls the bypass. The cat is slanted forward, directing heat toward the front. The cat can be easily lifted out for leaning of needed. In the next pic you will see the "Cat hood-scoop" which just sits atop of the cat and directs the heat forward.


Here's how the hood-scoop sits atop the cat. It's a cool little feature.



Here's what the hood scoop looks like off the cat.


The bypass control is down when the bypass is closed, and it prevents the door from being open. When the bypass in open then the firebox door can be open.



Here's a pic of the firebox door handle, it works really well, a nice solid closure.

 

Yes, I agree on that for the most part Dennis, but the interesting thing is I am used to steel stove heat from my previous Garrison, but this stove is much more gentle/softer than the radiant heat of that old Garrison.

But yes the difference between this and the Fv is probably/maybe all about the soapstone/steel. But I do wonder if the surface area also plays a part in heat output given the same about of wood load/BTUs input.

 

So it's Saturday (well, actually everyday is Saturday for me) but it really is and it was like 52'F today here in north central Ma. That's crazy. So I figured I'd let both stoves go out, clean them out and clean the glass and all that kinda' stuff.

So the Fv in the living room, I love it, but it has no ash-pan and I am really envious of these IS and Progress owners with the ash-pan. Nice thing with e Absolute Steel is it is part of the package and they have actually improved upon the system be adding 1/16th of an inch more width to the grate slots. This nicel lets the ashed fall through while the hot coals stay in the box to help with the next load.

So today I cleaned the glass and pulled the ash-pan to see how it works and see how much ash I had. I really didn't need to do this, I actually maybe should have left the firebox alone instead of raking all the ash away, as they claim a bit of an ash bed is a good thing. But... I'm a curious guy and so I cleaned it up and pulled the ash -pan and reloaded and will wait till tonight to start a new burn. But, here's what I had in the ash-pan. I'm like thinking this is so cool because it actually is a nice size. Also, the door to get at it, and the latch are very solid and tight. So a real good feel to all the latches. The bypass lever could use a detent or something, ala the Cat engagement "click" you get when you engage the cat, but that's a nit, and would be my only feedback on the controls.

Lorin did mention there is already some work in progress to improve upon the serrated guide/stick-shoft lever draft control. It makes annoying clicking sound when you slide it back and forth across the teeth. I could certainly live with it as is, but it may change before final first customer product ships.

 

That ash pan load picture shows well what I've been seeing - there are flecks of coals in with the ash. They are quite small, and I don't feel like I'm throwing away treasures, but I'd rather burn them and empty the pan that much less often. The IS grate really did need a change because it took a lot of raking (I enjoy playing with the fire, but all that raking got tedious). The PH grate lets very little for coals through and takes less raking than the original IS. In the cold weather we rake a lot to maximize room in the firebox for the next load, but now in this warmer weather I've started raking less.

 

Lorin mentioned that they are also improving on the ash-pan rails that the ash-pan rides on as it slides in and out of the carrier, as there is a slight space there now that allows the pan to tip slightly and not smoothly slide across without putting slight downward pressure on the pan as you slide it across.

I let the stove go out yesterday and now I'm looking at a 40' temp and it got no lower through the night, another 50' day here today.

 

I have noticed the pan takes a little fiddling to get out, but had attributed it to me. I'll look more closely the next time I pull it out. As far as I can see, the overall stove design is rock-solid, and is down to little tweaks like this.

We have a small fire going, and will let it burn down so we can clean the glass and take a peek inside. We tend to do the cleaning over the weekend because, unlike some people, not every day is a Saturday here!

 

I understand, but you'll be amazed at how fast you get here. I sit here now at 66, look at my 35 year old son and 31 year old daughter and think, "How did that happen!?"

 

Well, it has been so warm, I was just using the Absolute Steel, and let the Fireview in the upstairs main living area go out. Then over the week-end I went to Portland Maine to visit my daughter on Saturday and I filled the box before I left at 9:00AM. Arrived back home about 10:00PM that evening and had a stove still crusing along at 310'F on a pile of hot coals that I let die as it has gotten so warm here I decided not to burn wood Sunday or Monday. It has been in the mid 40s all day today but is supposed to get colder soon, so I justdecided to clean out the stove, and prep a kindling fire for my next burn which will probably be tomorrow.

I will say, I am really getting to like this stove. It is bigger than I really need to heat the downstairs area, but it is proving to be such a capable heater that has so many nice features and functionality that I have not had in a stove in this position in the house in 35 years. In the really cold weather it blasts enough heat to warm all of downstairs and we leave the basement door open and the heat rushes upstairs to put added heat to our back rooms that the Fireview doesn't fully reach. Then, in shoulder season, it's a great heater for the whole house, with a nice big boix capacity that at lower temps can last easily over 12 hours.

I've made a decision to purchase and am just making the decision of what model I want. I actually like the one I have and maybe that will be my final choice. This is called the Foursquare.



Although the stove is a style and design that is not for everyone and I'm not sure my wife would want it to trade places with the Fireview in the living room, the stove still has it's own handsome looks in a "form follows function" way. I've been very impressed by the details in this stove, having lived with some annoying weaknesses of other stoves I've owned. (A Garrison One, a CDW 24" and a VC Resolute.) All had weaknesses and strengths. The VC was pretty but a maintenance nightmare. The Garrison leaked smoke into the house by the bucket every time one opened the door to feed wood, and the CDW was actually a pretty good stove but after many years the cast iron cracked and the stove became unfit to burn.

This Absolute Steel seems to be a wood burners dream from the operations and features outlook. Although it isn't front loading, the side loading feature can be from either side and door is significantlhy large to provide easy loading of the 2.45cu ft box. I really like the door latch and handle. It's simple, and provides excellent and solid locking and seal of the door. The bypass control is also very solid, simple and when the bypass is closed the handle is positioned so it prevents the door from being open anymore than an inch. The draft control is also highly functional and easy to use. I've been told that WS is looking at making improvments to the sawtooth guide for the control because it makes noise, but it is simple enough to gently lever the handle out slightly from the guide and put it in position.



Although I'm no welder, a good friend who is very knowledgeable tells me that the weld quality of the box is high quality. New Hampshire pride of craftsmanship is what I believe. /some people don't care for the wings, but I like them. I think of them as heat sinks, and they do provide a nice visual frame into the fire. I also like the ash tray around the perimeter of the stove very much. It makes the stove easy to clean up after loading and just adds to the finish of the stove. The stove's ashpan system is the same great system you get with the PH and the IS but a small improvement in the grate by adding 1/16th of an inch to the width of the grate slots which provides easier ash raking and disposal into the ashpan.



All in all this is a great fit for my needs, between the hybrid capability, the capacity of the stove, the features and the size, it's a very good fit for my needs, and I like the style.

 

Jon I talked to Lorin about this and she tied this effort to the work they are currently doing in the way of building a conversion kit for older smoke dragons. Apparently the effort the currently have going to convert older stoves to clean burning stoves using a retrofit catalyst and heat exchanger. This development effort could then be leveraged into inserts and other form factors.

I'mnot sure that is quite the same as the solution you're looking for, but we shall see where they go.

Steve

 

I was curious if there was actually a fireplace insert being developed. They don't have a medium sized front loader catalytic stove that could fit in a fireplace opening.

Retrofit technology is probably going to be a front burner issue for a lot of manufacturers in the not to distant future.

Thanks for asking them.

 

Just to add to what you've noted, here's their latest retrofit blog posting
Woodstock Soapstone Co. Blog: R2Z Detour: Introducing Our First Test Stove

 

I'm guessing that WS has a Roadmap of their product development plans and the insert is on that map. I'm not sure how this current effort fits to the insert development or if it does at all, but they only have so much capacity and resources for the effort. They seem to take on one project at a time which works well for them.

Last time I was up there just a few weeks ago the place was buzzing with activity, large line-ups of stoves everyplace and they are hopping. The good news is I think they're backlog issues have been resolved and they are pretty much running on all cylinders.

I can only guess that a Hybrid Insert would be a major player in that market niche. I only wonder how many flavors/sizes they would need to build to satisfy a decent chunk of that market.

 

I've got a nasty cold. Woke up last night in the middle of the night, after going to bed about 11:00PM so I wondered downstairs to check the stoves.

The Fireview in the living room was just doing it's normal cruise with a 400'STT so then I went down to the next floor to check the Absolute Steel. I was surprised to see that there was a beautiful light show going on of the secondaries, a 525'F STT and yet no flames off the wood which was down a bit to about 2/3s of a box. But that entire secondary plate was lit up like a Xmas tree.

Really pretty, first time I had seen it and sat and watched for 5 mins before the Nyquil kicked in.

Love the extra room this box has over the Fv! I used to have to rush down to the family room at 6:00AM if I wanted to keep the stove going without a cold start. Not this one, I think anytime before noon and I'll be fine. It's not got the size of an IS but at 2.5cu ft it's more than I'm used to by a long shot.

 

I've had the AS now just a little over a month. It does take a little bit of experimentation to get the feel for a new stove and the AS is no different than others in that regard.

I had a chance to take a little video late this afternoon. Nothing we haven't seen similar with the Progress or the IS. The AS has proven to be an excellent heater. I've been really impressed with the heat it is capable of putting out, it's heat output consistency over long steady burns, it doesn't gobble wood. It's also got a very reasonable(small footprint) for a box that gives you a 2.5cu ft firebox, and of course need I rave on about the ash-pan system.

 

I fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 1:30 am. The Ideal Steel was pumping the secondaries like crazy. I wish I was awake enough to take a video.
The secondaries on this stove are pretty intense. They drill downward into the wood. I dropped the air one notch and it went black. Good stuff.

I'm still convinced that some sort of automatic control would be the real ticket to unlocking the potential of these stoves.

 

I think Woodstock is a very strategic company, and they have a "roadmap" of where they are going with their products. Key to their roadmap was getting to the R2Z that was the theme of the Hybrid technology. They have achieved this with the product development of the PH, IS and now AS. What will be really interesting is to see where they go from here, both from a "form factor" dimension and also from a "technology" dimension.

We're already hearing about their current R&D with the retrofit catalyst and heat exchanger technology for old pre-EPA stoves. Woodstock Soapstone Co. Blog: R2Z Detour: Introducing Our First Test Stove

What's up next? We've heard some talk of a Hybrid Insert product, so that is a possibility from a form factor perspective. What happens from a technology perspective in anyone's guess. I know this is the kind of thing that keeps Tom up at night, and I'm sure he has at least a mental roadmap of what we'll see next. It will be intersting times ahead.