Production Woodstock IS

One lesson I have learned is that if you want a nice burn with higher temps in the am you need to run hotter.

It might sound backwards, but trying to do a cat only burn really only works when there is still volitles left in the wood. After that the cat goes out. Your stove body is already cooler, the glass is cooler, and the stove top then follows suit.

Keeping everything hot allows the stove body and glass to stay warm. This gives you more even heat and keeps the temps from falling quickly when the cat goes out.

For me, that hotter burn pumps a lot more heat into my house than a really long slow burn would. A lot of spray foam and insulation helps keep it in the house.

 

I realize it changes depending on the daily conditions, but I am curious as to what notch you set your draft on when you leave it for the night to run "hotter"? In comparison, what notch do you set your draft at when you are shooting for cat only?

 

A lot of you guys are running the key dampers when you probably don't need to. I bet it's slowing down the draft a little too much. If you have a lot more draft than required I can see the reasoning. If you are at spec or a little above I don't think you are helping the situation. The chimney is the engine that drives the stove and a damper could definitely be bogging down the engine in some cases. If you are setting the draft all the way closed and your stove is still running away from you than by all means a key damper might be needed. Otherwise not sure. Especially during the later parts of the burn.

Maybe when we get into the colder weather the key dampers will really shine.

 

Yeah JA600L cat-only burn produces most of it's heat from the cat onto the stovetop, less so in the firebox, so once it's done offgassing probably less heat on the back end since the firebox is already cooler starting into the coaling stage and your air setting (especially primary) are much lower. That's why it's good for modest temps in the shoulder season when that gentle heat is actually preferred - especially if you time it so most of your heat is overnight and it's just luke-warm during the heat of the day. Sometimes that swing in output and longer burn can be helpful, of course some times you need more heat! Just depends on the situation. For those that need more constant heat without so long of a luke warm coaling stage I figure that is where BDF's ash pan air mod will shine. Someday I'll get around to trying that.

Babaganoosh I'm not sure about the others but mine drafts pretty hard. Like I said in my long burn yesterday I was hitting 1200F on the cat with the throttle only 1-2 notches open and that's with the key damper in the closed position and mild-ish 40 degree outside temps. With a lot more fuel packed into the stove like with compressed bricks I was running throttle fully closed and still getting a high burn with strong secondaries unless I used a magnet over the air intake to close it even more - that's mainly why I put the damper in but I'm not sure if it really made a big difference.

I know you asked JA but since I browsign the thread right now I'll throw in where mine normally sets (of course depends on your draft and wood load, etc,) but for me burning mostly full load of ash a good usual would be notch 1-2 for cat only, around 3 for whispy secondaries, 4 for good secondaries. That's with the fully closed position as 'zero'. By notch 5 (the big notch) - 6, I'd be getting into the hellfire secondaries range of things. I haven't done many burns with the key damper in yet, but it doesn't seem to shift things much maybe a notch? Just hoping that it gives more contact time with the heat on the stovetop (heatsink) as well as maybe fuel in the combuster contact time.

 

Thanks for the input. That's about where I'm at with throttle settings. And it sounds as if we both have a similarly strong draft. I had my first burn below 30F degrees the other night. I tried to keep the door cracked (handle resting on the factory notch that is on the latch) to burn down some of the coals, but my door literally kept sucking closed. I had to open it 4 inches or so to keep it from closing. That was with the key damper open though.

 

I've never opened my door to burn down coals, if I need to burn them faster I open up the throttle to half or 3/4 open and just stir the coals up every so often. If they are smothered in ash they take a lot longer to burn, keeping em stirred helps, but you gotta have the time to do it still. One thing that helps keep the door open a little though - make sure the ash flap isn't locked up. If you let it hang down it puts a light pressure against the door like a light spring to keep it open. But I know what you mean the draft can suck the door shut. It amazes me how well this stove breathes even being horizontally vented with a couple feet of horizontal pipe and a relatively average chimney! Alternatively you can loosen the ash pan handle until it's barely on the latch, but just be careful you don't cause too much heat from the coals or let the door fall open. Or do BDF's ash pan mod to get a bit of air down there.

 

When I want to burn down coals I rake them into a pile up front and open up the air a little bit. Basically I'm knocking the ash off and bringing the coals closer to where the air is coming into the stove.

 

Here are some pics of my new setup. This is the third stove setup I've done for my own IS and hopefully the last for some time. I didn't run it at all last year and, even with a new chimney, it's remarkably similer and it came back to me rather quick. The entire setup is built with a lot of stone and steel studs. My insurance co. better be thrilled. I Lao put in an outside air kit and Indinfeel so far it was worthwhile. I don't see any change when I run a portable fan nearby, or the bathroom vent. I think my stack probe somehow screwed the pooch sitting in storage so I need to order a new one.

 

Those of you who are using thermocouple probes in the firebox itself, where did you put it? I've got 3 days in a row at 50F so the stove will be off long enough for me to work out where to put this thing and get it installed but I'd like to hear what others have done.

Obviously, it'll have to be in the small amount of space above the interior soapstone bricks but below the top of the firebox. From looking at it without being able to stick my head inside, that almost looks like it's going to be above the secondary baffle line. Is the stove body single-wall through that whole area? I mean if I stick a hand inside and poke the wall and a hand outside and poke the wall are my fingers touching the same piece of steel? I know many stoves have an inner and outer box with an airgap in between but I have no idea about this one.

 

Since no one answered, I winged it. This places the probe in a small gap between the soapstone and the front/upper edge of the secondary baffle. It's pretty close, so don't just guess off my picture if you're going to add one. You need to measure carefully to ensure you miss everything.

 

Thanks for posting this picture. I was going to ask the same thing a few weeks back.

 

I just found both of these messages and would have answered the first one had I seen it earlier. You have yours exactly in the same spot I do except mine is on the other side of the stove, which I do not believe matters at all. I only chose the left side because my readout / recorder is on the left of the stove so it was the easier place to put the probe (Easy Boys!).

And exactly as you mentioned, there is really a very small area where there is no stone but still w/in the firebox proper, and what is great about that position is that the leg cover covers the probe. It also does not de- value the stove, at least IMO, because a short, button head 8 mm screw could be used to plug the hole and it would not be visible if the next owner chose not to use that same hole for his / her own probe (Boys!), unless the seller just included his / her own probe with the stove....

Now that I have a chimney and am burning again (YEA!), I am collecting data that I will post to show the differences a few mods. make to the burning characteristics of the stove, or at least what they did on my stove. BTW- the new chimney azz'y is now about 23' above the woodstove and I have not had to move the damper from full- open yet, certainly due to the unusually warm fall we are having, at least here in RI. 30 Nov. 2016 just after 10:00 PM and the outside temp. is 59F, pretty impressive.
Brian

 

I know a couple of you are running this logger:


If you are, I'd like you to do a little test for me. Once the stove is hot and all 4 channels are up in the high hundreds of degrees or higher, unplug each thermocouple from the logger one at a time and watch to see if any of the other 3 channels jump significantly in reading. In other words, pull out channel 1 and see if channels 2,3,4 change. Then plug channel 1 back in and pull out channel 2 while watching to see if channels 1,3,4 change, etc.

As you saw from the picture, I added a firebox probe last night and tonight I burned with it in for the first time. I got some really weird readings on my stove top temp channel. Unplugging the FB channel instantly made the STT snap 100F lower and read correctly. Plug the FB channel back in and the STT is instantly 100F off. Same problem doing it the other way around: the FB channel reads 100F differently depending on whether the STT channel is plugged in or not. The really weird thing is that it doesn't affect the other two channels on the gray ChiCom logger nor does it affect either of the Auber displays. Even weirder, if I plug the two problem sensors into my Fluke 52 II thermometer, they both read perfectly fine at the same time. It's ONLY when they're both plugged in to the gray ChiCom logger that they have problems. I've talked to my electrical engineer friend about it and he's suggesting it's either a defect inside the gray ChiCom logger or a bad circuit design that's susceptible to small ground offsets between the TC probes.

If you guys can do the test and observe similar results, it's a bad circuit design. If you guys don't observe any change in any readings as you plug and unplug one sensor at a time, then it's probably a defective logger and I have to go through the hell of trying to return something to China.

Thanks!

 

You guys are killing me with these data loggers. I've tried to use the K.I.S.S method so far with my stove but I'm a nerd at heart. I'm going to have to jump on board and get wired up too. I've been resisting but the dark side of the force is strong with this.

 

Ah, the genuine 'China' brand of thermocouple reader / recorder. Just like, say a Red Lion or Omega but 1) far cheaper and 2) far, far more cheaply made. They do work, kinda', mostly but as you have noticed, have some quirks. One of them is that the channels are not fully isolated from each other and apparently not from the internal ground either. Another is that they seem sensitive to SD cards, at least the ones I have are.

I have one I used to set up a new boiler and now and then, it would occasionally show an error on one channel and more rarely, all channels. Powering the unit down and back up solved the issue but I often had to do it several times. Finally, I spent some time troubleshooting it and found that if the actual thermocouple bead was in contact with any metal part of the boiler, pipes or fittings, all of which are of course hard- grounded, the unit was unstable. Simply electrically insulating all thermcouples of the bead type cured the issue for me. Of course other than reading the actual flue temperature, all other channels were low temp. and so a simple piece of tape under the thermocouple was sufficient; that method will of course not work on any part of a woodstove. Perhaps sheathed thermocouples for all four channels might cure that flaw? No doubt it is the device at fault but at the selling price, there is simply nothing else on the market that will do the same job, at least nothing that I am aware of.

Brian

 

I'm right there with you. I have a Snap On oscilloscope in my service truck. I see the fun in all of this data logging.

 

I almost ordered everything a few weeks ago, still debating, but kind of like you I fall back on the kiss and remembering I bought this unit to save money and it works quite well as is. I think I'm going to restrain myself again. I just spent a bunch on Christmas and my sons birthday so a little easier to resist at the moment. At least the folks with the data loggers have shared their findings so we can all learn, that's good enough for me right now.

 

And with that post I'm back to holding off. I really do need to concentrate on other things first. Gonna insulate above the sill plate and maybe try to start air sealing the ceiling to attic transition. I also have a bay window that needs to be better insulated. I put blankets on it inside the house this past winter. It's surface is easily 20 degrees colder than inside during the winter months.

 

thank you T-Stew as Babaganoosh .... for convincing me it's ok... to wait... instead of all that I am trying to devise a timer that opens air control at a predetermined time

 

That would definitely be beneficial. When I'm around I always throw the air open near the end of the burn cycle. If I have a lot of time I'll rake the coals up front, open the air all the way and let it burn for awhile. The IS definitely benefits from some air late in the burn. Maybe get a BK thermostat on there!