Production Woodstock IS

I also suggested 2 by 4s but the drawback is I never felt it really fuels the cat all that much. The same with the fuel blocks. They will fire great secondaries but not really get the cat going all that well since it's so dry. I'd do the bottom layer regular splits and the rest 2 by 4s.

Just a thought.

 

I meant 2x4 for the kindling. I agree. Regular splits for the rest.

 

I'm ready to cut to the chase scene already! They are open Saturday. Hint hint.

 

This is a really basic question so don't take it personally but I have to ask. You do have the bypass fully open when you start a fire right? Meaning it is in the full up position.

 

You posted that too late for tonight as I had already lit it. Tonight went better than usual until I started trying to turn it down to cat-only mode to let it cruise for the night. One thing to keep in mind reading this log is that I'm a total noob at this, so I have no idea how big or small of adjustments to wait. That leads to me making a small adjustment and waiting a few minutes to see what happens, then having to make another small adjustment, etc whereas you guys might just know that you need to make a pretty big movement all at once.

The temps are all listed STT, cat, flue in degrees Fahrenheit. Times are 24-hour format. So each row is time, STT, cat, flue, comments.

1915 lit, main door cracked, ash pan door open

1923 90 400 250 shut main door fully, left ash pan door open

1927 133 815 525 shut the bypass to bring the cat into the loop and temps fell 150-175F on both the cat probe and the flue

1930 160 945 514 eased the ash pan door closed

1931 180 850 500 fire slowing and temps in free fall. Top kindling is fully involved and almost gone, middle layer (very small splits) is somewhat involved. Base layer (large splits) has almost no involvement.

1934 201 918 538 Middle layer nearly fully involved. Temps recovering slowly.

1938 237 935 590 Fast moving flames and climbing temps, so I closed the damper 2 large notches (placing it half way down to closed). Minimal to no effect on flame appearance.

1940 264 960 592 Closed it another half of a big notch, meaning it's now 1 and a half big notches above fully closed. Still no significant slowing of the flames.

1942 284 914 572 Closed it another half notch again, meaning it's now open to the first big notch above fully closed. Flames definitely slowed down some but still aren't what I'd call lazy. Some secondary action appearing (little jets of yellow flame coming down from the baffle plate).

1944 298 870 556. Cat temp suddenly plummeting even though I didn't adjust anything. Flames speeding up again.

1945 313 840 541 Closed the air down by 1 small notch (meaning one small notch under the first big notch) to slow down flames. No effect on fire.

1948 329 844 520 Closed the air down by 2 small notches to a position of three small notches above closed . Flames still quite active and some flames still attached to the pieces of wood but also significant blow torches from the secondary baffle plate.

1955 343 840 505

2000 (missing temp record here) The flue and cat temps keep falling and STT quit rising so I must have made a mistake and closed it down too much even though I had fast-moving flames attached to the wood. Opened back up to 1.5 big notches above fully closed to try to revive it.

2005 345 798 516 Lots of flame attached to the wood and lots of very active secondaries.

2010 345 875 538

2015 351 906 563 Closed to one big notch open. There are still fast moving flames attached to the wood but there's also slow moving, free-floating flames detached and hanging in mid-air now. Cat peaked at 960F and then came back down rapidly.

2022 365 846 540

2025 369 848 532 Secondaries fewer and bluer in color . Cat temp had fallen as low as 810F before starting back up.

2035 365 816 516

2040 361 850 532. Cat peaked at 960F before secondary flaring lowered it back down.

2045 361 1030 545. Fire in box is gone. Glowing embers only.

2228 360 886 523. No flames in box, decreasing amount of glow from wood.

 

Yes, cat bypass is fully open. Couldn't open the door to load it otherwise!


At this point, I wouldn't blame you guys for asking me if I was putting the wood in the stove rather than on the stove!

 

Did you watch the video I posted? That should give you an idea how to turn the stove down.

 

I'm not too far away ( work in Columbus, but live on the morrow co/knox co border) but I usually don't have much time for road trips especially this time of year, but if things don't seem better maybe we can figure something out. But taking a quick look at your last post seems mostly normal to me? Though I usually don't measure flue temps and STT varies by a couple hundred degrees depending on where you are taking it. One thing is its been pretty mild temps here in central Ohio lately, I'm sure the ISH is going to act a bit sluggish in these conditions. I haven't had mine running in several days.

One thing (and I know JA already mentioned it) is to quit using the ash pan. The ISH ash grate is pretty robust, but realize many other stoves on the market with cast iron grates could have actually been damaged by what you're doing already. With the ash door open your running the stove like a blast furnace, and then when you do close it you're taking the very active blast furnace and completely changing the air path. The ash pan door is to remove the ash tray, unless you are desperate to light off soggy wood when you might otherwise freeze to death, don't use it. But maybe I'm spoiled by how nicely mine breathes, it's been the best breathing stove I've had really. I can often get the fire going with the door shut. I do not even crack it open. Sometimes, especially if I am doing a cold start with a more minimal amount of kindling I may open the door so that it catches on the last tooth of the door latch, but just for a few minutes.

Also to go along with the ash pan door usage, absolutely do not engage the cat with any door open, be it the main door or ash pan door. I see in your last post you still had the ash pan door open after you engaged the cat.

Other than that it looked fine by me at a quick glance. Heck you hit over 800º on the cat within 12 minutes on a cold start, probably faster than mine! You also made kind of a big adjustment later going from 3rd notch to 8th(?) notch when you say the temps were falling. Sometimes things slack off a bit too much after we turn down but before the wood really starts off gassing a lot so sometimes you might have to open back up a bit. But when I make some tweaks after things are going well it is usually only 1 notch or maybe 2 at a time.

 

I think I'm late to the scene on this one... FWIW - I have noticed that doing the ashpan door trick when trying to get the fire going initially is counter productive at times. When doing a top down fire, cracking the door to the first notch does a better job of getting the fire started and keeping it going. I think it's because it uses a similar pathway of air from top/side opposed to the bottom grate. I would try just the door cracked and wait until the fire is good and established, then shut the door and leave the draft wide open.

Then WAIT! I usually wait until my single wall pipe is over 300 deg. That ensures that the cat area is over 500-600. At that time I usually see secondaries going as well as a lively firebox. Only then do I shut the catalyst, but leave the draft wide open. Watch it for a bit until the fire catches up. When closing the catalyst it's somewhat like throwing a wet blanket on the fire. It constricts it until it's good and hot.

After your fire is going pretty well with draft wide open, then gradually turn down using the large notch as a setting. For example, turn down to 3/4 after the fire is going well, then wait 2-5 min, then 1/4 or just above. I find that during the 40-50 deg weather the draft needs to be open a little more at first to keep things going. After you get it around the 1/4 mark or notch 3-4, it should be good to go for hours without any changes.

YES, your flame will go out. Don't expect to see fire in the box, it will be glowing on the bottom right and left of the glass since that's where the air gets shot into the firebox underneath. I hope this helps a little either it will let you know, that's what I've been doing, or I can try that way and see what happens. This stove is so much better than any others I've had as far as control once the air pathway is established (i.e. crack the door, not the floor - grate). Keep us posted. Worst case scenario, call up WS and ask them to help troubleshoot. They are very willing to help you out.

 

I don't have the time to give a great answer right now but I noticed you are touching the stove a lot. Lots of adjustments made withing a few minutes of each other. I've learned you really need to let an adjustment settle in and stop being reactionary so often. I'd say I don't make adjustments to the air within 10 minutes of each other. You really gotta let everything get involved before you start making cat adjustments in my opinion.

 

Ashpan trick is counterproductive because you are introducing air underneath the fire. Coals stoves operate like that..wood stoves do not. You also end up introducing too much air into the box in a way that it wasn't designed to work. If they wanted that much air rushing in there they would have designed it to do so. You are also sending all the heat right up the flue and outside when you do that. That doesn't let your actual stove heat up.

 

Ah, I think we found your problem- which is not a problem at all, more like a situation.

By opening the ash pan door, you are 'making' a bottom draft stove. These light fast, engage LOTS of fuel fast and are generally very aggressive overall. An easy stove to start and run but extremely aggressive and very easy to overfire.

The I.S. is not a bottom draft stove but a top draft stove. Totally different beast; much less aggressive, in fact downright docile, much harder to start and also much harder to get a relatively new fire to engage a large charge of wood- they really require a well- established small fire, mostly burned down, to ignite a large load of fuel. Put another way, a bottom draft stove is easy to light and fast to engage if you fill it full of splits before you begin while a top draft stove requires either a top- down fire with lots of kindling and small splits or a smaller initial fire that has burned long enough to make charcoal before loading a lot of large splits.

Woodstock Soapstone and quite a few other folks recommend never opening the ash pan door when the stove is running. This would steer you back to the smaller fires to start or the top- down method already suggested.

If you do use the ash pan door to start the fire, I would suggest you not close it once the fire is burning aggressively but rather close it in steps by using the locking handle. So start the fire with the door wide open and once the flue temp. is, say, 650F, close the door but only such that it is caught by the very edge of the door locking handle- this should leave about a 1/8" or so gap all around the door, which is a LOT of bottom draft. The flue temps. will drop immediately but the fire will keep burning pretty well and the flue temps. will climb again right away. Keep the door there until the flue temp.s again get around 600 / 650F, then close it in increments, a little at a time, to keep the flue temps. steady. All the while, keep the main stove draft wide open and eventually you will be able to close the ash pan door entirely and Viola! you will have a well- engaged fire that you can now control with the stove draft, as well as closing the bypass and engaging the cat.

If you do choose to use any bottom draft through the ash pan drawer, I suggest not leaving the stove for even a moment; it absolutely can and will over- fire and damage the stove at best, start a chimney fire, and at worst, have the fire get away entirely.... literally out of the stove and into the surrounding room. Bottom drafting burning devices are how a blacksmith melts steel and your stove will do this as well if allowed to do so.

Best of luck going forward. It really is a great stove but there is a learning curve and you have to learn how your stove works with your draft, your wood (Easy Boys!) and so forth.

Brian

 

I'll give it a go without the ash pan door tonight but, in the first 3 times I tried it that way, I was unable to get the flue temps over 400F before the fire went out (not out, died and couldn't be revived). Like I said, I'll give it a go tonight and see what happens.

 

Try leaving the ashpan closed and the door in that notch for a bit. After you kindling gets going well close that door. If you leave the door open too long it does the same thing and let's so much air in that all your heat goes out the flue instead of into the body of your stove. You really want the entire stove and soapstone getting hot and that won't happen if too much air is rushing in and carrying the heat right out.

Then adjust the air with the lever only. What are your predicted temperatures outside tonight?

I remeber someone in this thread talking about how they made a small non cat fire to preheat the stove before they went back and stuffed it full for a full burn cycle. I think it does have some merit because I've tried it and it works well. I don't worry about it during the dead of winter but it works great during the fall when you only need one fire at night. I make a small log cabin top down fire to get everything up to temperature and then do a normal full load off of that. The stove really does work best when it's full of wood. Small loads don't seem to have the btus to run the secondaries well or to really produce enough fuel for the cat.

 

It'll be about 50F when I light the stove and only drop another 5 degrees. That's about 10F warmer than last night, sadly.

 

This is a good strategy I use if I have the time- for instance if I start a fire 4 hours before bedtime.

 

I agree with rest will at 15 minutes ash pan door open that's 1 or twice maybe 2 minutes.... usually just main door not latched tight 1/4 inch open on 2ND grove

 

Yes, never, EVER open the ash pan door to start a fire! But if you do use the stove that way, it works really well. In fact, I seem to remember someone, somewhere modifying one of these stoves to include an adjustable ash pan door vent because 1) the stove is one- gazillion times easier to light and use that way and 2) it goes a long way to alleviate the problem that many of us have had with the stove not burning the coals down quickly enough. In fact, if I remember correctly, that person had some sort of data that actually showed the entire burn cycle was longer and much more even (reducing the initial 3- 4 hour high output and increasing the last 4- 5 hours of output) after the modification. But that person must have been a little.... 'off his feed' to even suggest such a thing and probably combines ether and internal combustion engines, stores primers never power and all sorts of radically dangerous things so caveat emptor.

With tongue firmly in cheek, Brian

P.S. Anyone who has ever had extensive experience with a pot belly stove will agree, I think, that bottom drafting stoves are the easiest to use, including starting and re- loading. They are not efficient or long- burning stoves but they have kept large parts of America warm for over a century.

 

BDF I agree .. a controlled amount of air to help burn down coals or to put air in system to get it started and I actually like your controllable air intake.. not what I saw in his post.. hs has stated dry wood 14% or so with addition of fire eco bricks (I haver never used but my equivalent is 2 x 4 pieces of kiln dry hardwood they catch like proverbial gasoline) and actually closed ash pan 3 minutes after engagement of the cat... ash pan door wide open 15 minutes most of that with door cracked also I would think cat would not have time to burn any smoke going up to fast as he stated with good draft.. yourself and many others have much more experience then myself.. with better equipment and data... I actually want to copy parts of what you do

No offense was meant to you... just for me and my experience that is a LOT of air.... possible to clog cat with fly ash isn't it?

 

Oh no, no offense taken at all- I was merely being humorous..... or at least my version of it I guess. All of the 'dreaded ash pan door open while running' stuff actually strikes me as amusing but I certainly do understand that Woodstock has no choice but to take that position, which is simply not to ever do it for any reason.

I do agree with you about kiln dried pine (2X4's or any dimensional building lumber)- that stuff is just too volatile to bottom draft, and it is not needed in any case. In fact, a stove full of lumber scraps can be downright dangerous IME because even when it can be throttled, the chances of gasses building up and igniting (a 'back- puff') are really high and the back- puff is often pretty violent. What I describe applies only to firewood splits, and hardwood at that. The only thing I have found worse than scrap lumber is cedar shingles and they are just not usable in any sizable quantity in any wood stove that I know of. A few pieces used as kindling is fine but a stove full of them is going to go nuclear in short order....

I do not and would not let in very much air from under the grate (ash pan door or similar) with the bypass closed. My starting sequence is usually something like this: bypass open, stove 1/2 full of fuel (normal splits with little- to- no kindling and 1/2 or (usually) 1/4 Cedar starter), ash pan door open until either the flue reaches 650F or, more usually, when the stove starts to oscillate through the intake- it starts to make a fluttering noise with the air starting / stopping and it is very obviously not a normal state. At that point, I close the door but leave the latch as far open as possible and again allow the flue temp. to climb to around 650F. All of this only takes about 5 to 10 minutes. Then I close the ash pan door in stages to keep the flue temp. steady at something above 500 or 550F, until the ash pan door is closed. Now I do have a small opening in the ash pan door that is always open because I have found the stove simply runs better with it than without it but it is only about 3/8" to perhaps 1/2" diameter hole equivilent. What it is is an adjustable vent but again, I leave it normally so that the opening is about the same as a 3/8" hole would be. By the time the ash pan door is fully closed, the main fuel pile is usually well- engaged and I can close the bypass (the sled) and begin a catalyst burn. And another interesting thing is that at that point, the cat. will light faster and increase in temp. faster if I close the main draft down quite a bit from wide open- usually to about 6- 8 notches open. I believe what is happening is when the draft is wide open, there is too much air moving too quickly through the combustor to allow it to actually light- off. Throttling the draft, while it is counter- intuitive, seems to help the cat. light- off much faster and better.

Brian