This is my 3rd year heating with wood, 1st with the Ideal Steel. Been burning it since 3rd week of September - about 2 cords through it so far. A mix of black walnut, silver maple, norway maple, and pine (all free, 12-18 months CSS). It got into the 50's on Thursday so after work I ran the chimney sweep brush through the stack. Stack is outside, excel class a stainless, 16 feet long. Inside of pipe was covered in ~1/4 inch black fluffy stuff - easy removal - blow on it and 'poof' most just falls off. When done I had about a quart of the stuff. Best I can tell it's type 1 creosote. Comparing this to my old stove - a Enviro Boston 1200 tube stove, that stove had nothing in the flue - perhaps a fine thin coating of grey powder. Theorizing the difference (more junk this year) is the lower stack temps of a cat stove? It's also been warmer so lots of low & slow burns with the Ideal Steel that would not have been possible the Enviro. Other Ideal Steel owners - what has your experience been? Gpsfool
cleaned mine also on Thursday I got 2.5 cups of what I call fly ash.. whitish to light brown in color.. fluffy.. like cigarette ashes.. how dry is your wood pine at 18 months should be fine the maples might be iffy depending on where how stacked?
Stove runs great - mostly clean glass - easy to get cat to fire off. Air adjustment once going is rairly past the first big notch. I've had no need to run it full bore - stove top temps usually 400-500, a few times almost 600. Cat probe usually 1200-1400, a few times it's got to 1600. Total stack height 18.5 feet. 2.5 feet up, into a 90 through the wall to outside, then 16 feet straight up to the cap. Not ideal but with the roof I have I can't go straight up through from stove. Draft has always seemed good. Also I have a outside air intake.
well sounds like she was running well... what are the chances some wood might be a little wet adding to your creosote... your setup sounds close to TurboDiesel iirc... do you have a moisture meter? I mean a quart sounds high after a couple of cord.. but I got 28 plus feet of chimney after tee in a chase so my draft is gooder
I've run the Ideal Steel 3 years. My stove has 2 90s into an outside lined chimney about 23ft with a 4 ft insulated extension. I have the same kind of buildup. 90's and a cold chimney will always cause buildup. It's always powder and not thick qooey creosote. I doubt it would light up and cause a fire.
Sounds similar to my experience. I got about 2-3x the amount of ash/creosote than I did with my Jotul tube stove. I figure it's burning lower and slower and retaining more heat in the stove and home versus sending it up the flue. My Jotul wasted a lot of heat up the flue, but did burn pretty clean partly because of that. Still though, I don't think a few extra cups is much concern, still not enough to worry about changing my once per year check/clean routine.
