Aaaaaahhhhh......

I took a shorter video last night. I had the house a little warm after staying home for the snow day.

 

"I can set my air at 30-40% and easily have secondary air secondaries run for four to six hours or more on cherry, eight to ten hours on oak and locust."

Brian, I didn't catch this little tidbit the first time through. What kind of temp does the stove have when burning this way?
I burn 99% Oak this time of year, so this sentence has me very intrigued.

 

450-550 on stove top near the flue collar when I'm running that much air.

 

Stove maintains that temp the whole time you're getting the 2ndaries?
That would be absolutely awesome for me (and I'm sure many others) to awake to the stove still at 450 or so.
The house would stay warmer, longer.
This is the kind of info that's leading me to the IS.
Now, all I need do is ....drink.
I'm anxiously awaiting the CTC numbers on this stove too. Well, that and the price.

 

Temp goes up at start, levels off for hours, then descends.

Follow the needle on the magnetic temp gauge in this 16 hour locust burn, as well as the secondaries. That hot spot on the front of the stove above the door tracks about 100-150 degrees above stove top temp when its in the yellow zone (about 200 degrees above STT when it pegs at the start of the video). Every 4 seconds is about an hour of the burn cycle:

Here's the magnetic thermometer so you can get a better idea of the temps in the video:


I don't wake to STT at 450 very often. Its usually around 300. But this stove at 300 is still throwing off a lot of heat.

I think the Progress Hybrid would maintain a more level temp overall. Though this stove has a soapstone firebox, it does not have the soapstone cladding that retains and releases the heat over longer periods. It makes up for that with a larger firebox and the ability to dial it down to a longer slower burn. And frankly its more affordable.

 

Here's the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of that long thread on the 24 hour oak burn I did early in the season:

I built a fire yesterday at 3:00pm with the 3.2cu ft soapstone lined firebox solidly packed with 3"x6" oak blocks that were on average 10"-12" in length, EW load, moisture content 10 to 14%. Cold stove, 2" bed of ashes.

I lit the firestarters at 3:00pm on full air, room temp at 68, outside temp 37. I let the flue temps on my Bacharach probe thermometer on the double wall stove pipe get up to about 600 degrees, then engaged the cat at about 15 minutes into the burn on 100% air. After an hour stove top temps were at 475 next to the collar on top, and room temps went up from 68 to 72. I turned the air down to about 10% at one hour for a long low burn.

Two hours into burn on 10% air, not much visible activity in firebox, stove top temps have leveled out around 350. There is a hot spot just above the middle of the door on the front of the stove just below the lift off top that is consistently running around 450 on the IR thermometer. Most of the heat from this stove comes off the door glass and the top front, not the top rear near the flue collar.

There's a little soot on the bottom left corner of the door glass, and the bimetallic coil for pre cat air is just a little open now. Outside temps now 35, room temps up to 74 from 68 at 3:00.

Five hours into burn, the two pieces on top front were a piece I split in half longways to load up to the top of the firebox in the front. One of them just started to coal and a piece broke off but the rest of the logs are still 95% intact.


Almost 8 hours into burn, house furnace had been off all day. Outside temp was 21 at this point, 71 in the stove room now and throughout the first floor. 68 on the second floor.

Stove top temp staying right at 300 on 10% air. Hot spot over door at 380. Double wall stove pipe probe thermometer sticking on 380.

At nine hours since I started this burn cycle, the air was still at 10% but stove top temps had creeped up to 325 , the hot spot on the front above the door is up to 400, and I'm seeing more of a glow but no flames in the stove. I wonder if the colder temps outside were increasing draft? Outdoor temp was down to 19 at this point and first floor temp had dropped to 69, second floor temp to 68.


At just shy of 10 hours into the burn, stove top temps settled down to 305, room temps holding at 69, outside temps were holding at 19 and the video above shows the firebox.




17 hours into this burn cycle this morning. I expected to come downstairs to a cold stove and a firebox full of ash. But stove top temp was 225 and the hot spot on the top front of the stove was 300 and I was still getting plenty of usable heat. The firebox looked like it was still a third to half full of wood. I wasn't sure if it was just coals ready to collapse into a heap of ash so I opened up the air to 100%. In the past when I've done that on a bed of coals the coals glowed and got hotter but I've never gotten flames. This time I got flames. I took photos before and after opening the air, as well as a quick video about 5 minutes after opening the air to 100%. To say I was surprised is an understatement.

I had the house furnace thermostat set on 65. With a low of 19 last night, it was too cold for a long low burn to keep inside temps where we like them, and the furnace kicked on sometime after 6:00am this morning. So current inside temps don't mean anything at this point. I cut back the thermostat to see how the stove carries the temps from this point forward.

At 10:30, 19 1/2 hours into the burn. Stove top temps are at 225, top front of stove is at 325 and this thing is definitely still throwing usable heat. This is a quick video of the firebox with the door open. It started sending up some small flames when I opened the door. Still usable fuel in there. I opened up the air to 100% at this point to see if it would heat up to any extent at this point in the burn. After 20 minutes on 100% air, at approx 20 hours into this burn, stove top temps climbed back up to 325, front of stove above door is at 350 and there are small flames in the firebox.

21 hours into the burn cycle. I opened up the air to 100% almost an hour prior (once I passed 20 hour mark in this test I figured I accomplished my goal) to burn it down and make some heat. Stove top temp was back up to 330, top front of stove above door is at 390, probe temp on the double wall stove pipe is 500, and its throwing off a lot of heat again, with some fire in the firebox now, not just coals. Room temp is back up to 71 with no assist from the natural gas furnace for the last couple hours, outside temp is 30.


22 hours into burn cycle, outside temp 33, first floor 74, second floor 70, stove on 100% air for just over 2 hours. Stove top temp 300, stove front above door 350, still pumping out more than enough heat. Coals are burning down slowly but steadily, no active flames in firebox now.

This stove took the house from 70 to 74 in two hours, from the 20 hour to 22 hour point in a burn cycle. That is pretty impressive!

23 hours into this burn, stove top has dropped to 290, top front of stove is at 325, outside temp is at 34, and first floor of the house is still holding at 74. We don't need to reload just yet, there's still a lot of usable heat coming off this stove.

​

 

Continued:

Ok, currently at the 24 hour mark on this burn, stove top temp is down to 265, top front of stove is 280, first floor temp is still holding at 74 so there's still enough heat coming off the stove at 24 hours to maintain an inside temp of 74 while outside temp is currently 34.​

 

You guys are awesome!. Hell, I been burnin" wood for 40 years and the only way I have ever been warm is to keep stokin" the stove. lol. Never got that kind of heat for that long. But just so you all know, I have never been cold either. You guys are awesome!

 

To be perfectly honest, I only did that long oak burn in response to some naysayers at another forum. I never expected it to burn that long, and that was with opening the door quite a few times for photos and videos. To say I was pleasantly surprised by the results would be an understatement.

During the coldest days of this year, when temps were well below zero and I was burning cherry and white birch, we would often reload at 6 to 8 hours, with oak and locust reloads at 8 to 10 hours. When you need a lot of heat, in a drafty old house like ours, you gotta burn through a lot of BTUs, but its good to know that in the shoulder season, during milder temps, I can go low and slow when I need to.

 

Thanks Brian, for the refresh on that.
My big need is a stove that can be controlled and can get a temp of 500-600 for more than a mere 2-3 hours.
I can get a decent burn of about 8-9 hours in the Ashley, with the stove at 300-350 at the end, but I'd really be thrilled if the stove....any stove....could produce that heat in a more controlled manner.
If I can burn the IS at 300 for even 12 hours in SS, I'm a pretty happy camper.
If I can burn it in below 0° temps @500° for a few hours, that works well too. I hate the roller coaster ride burns.......really high, then low.
I'm still following all the IS threads, and going over the older posts to find things I may have (and usually had) missed.

 

Does your current stove have a blower that works? I'm concerned that you will have close to the same results with the 30.

 

Let me know if there is anything else you need to know that's gotten lost in the volume of threads and posts about the IS here.

I'm trying to be very honest in my posts while also conveying my opinions on this stove. I don't like reading the "I got 48 hours of heat out of 3 small splits in my Amazin Blazin Stove!" So I'm trying to "keep it real" here and document it realistically.

Any time you need high BTU output you gotta burn wood quickly. This stove seems to be as efficient as anything out there right now at doing just that.

I saw the following posted on another forum:

"the Ideal Steel is rated at 60,000 BTU while the Progress is rated at 73,000. Doesn't the Ideal Steel have a 0.4ft3 larger firebox? What would cause the Progress to achieve higher BTU's?"

Tom at Woodstock was kind enough to offer this explanation:​

"The simple answer is that BTU/hr rating has nothing to do with firebox size. BTU/hr rating is basically a speed and efficiency rating. The (1) greater the number of POUNDS OF WOOD consumed per hour, and the (2) higher the OVERALL EFFICIENCY the higher the BTU/hr output."
​

So this is a good stove but its not a miracle worker. I like it a lot (which should be obvious by now ;-), it can do long low burns and it can heat us out of this house when we need it to. Its really easy to load, run and control, almost idiot proof.

Primary drawback is its a lot dirtier in day to day use. A lot more ash and coals fall out of that big front loading door, and its difficult to empty ashes without making a mess. And my wife and daughter simply do not like the looks. They prefer the Fireview and no combination of designs and colors will change that. I can't afford the Progress, which would make them happy, but the IS is a good compromise for me. Its big, functional, easy to load and use, heats my house well without needing to load it every 4 hours, and its the right price point.

The heat is higher/faster at the start and lower at the end than the soapstone stoves, but that might also be the way we tend to run it. We seem to procrastinate on reloads till its 68 in here, then we want heat now so we run it really hot right after reload.

It probably performs closer to a steel stove than a soapstone stove, but it does weigh 650lbs, so it certainly has plenty of mass. If you stay on top of the air control you can level out the heat easily. It can run for hours at a 500 degree stovetop, and it can run for a whole day at a lot lower settings as illustrated above.

 

If you watch the locust burn time lapse video closely, the magnetic thermometer is reading in the top half of the yellow range through 32 seconds in the video, which is over 8 hours into the burn. It stays within the yellow through 44 seconds, which is over 11 hours into the burn. Most of the heat comes off the top front of this stove, not the flue collar area.

 

I'm beginning to think I should give Dave my 30 as a loaner for next winter if I can get a hold of two Kings this off season.

 

So have you figured out a color scheme for your new IS yet?

 

Again, thank you Brian.
Wow, it looks like the gauge is pegged in the first hour, then takes approx. another hour to settle down to a less than ballistic burn. Is that because of your desire for high heat early? If that's the reason, no problem. However, if it can't be controlled at the start, then I need to continue my search or go back to BK. Just trying to clarify.
So, is ash falling out the front door because you don't like emptying or is the stove just inherently messy. Seems as though Flamestead isn't having this issue, and maybe it's due to the ashpan?
If the stove has a 3-4" belly, it doesn't seem as though this should be happening. Yours did not come with the ash pan, correct?
BBar, the old blower on the stove was great, until it started making a racket back in '10. I took it off to discover the motor shaft was moving in/out and hitting the housing/shroud.
I could not find a replacement for it, so it stayed off, and we now use an air purifier to move air into the stove room.
I appreciate the thought on the NC30 loaner, but I'll be putting something new on the hearth before next burn season commences.
Brian, finally watched those vids in HD. What a mesmerizing show.

 

Yes, I left the air on high to heat the place up at the start of the burn. If you watch it on YouTube you can see the position of the air control lever at the bottom left of the screen. I can shut it down to a black box by shutting down the air completely even from a nuclear burn like that.

If I had the ash pan I would empty it more often. As it stands I don't empty it enough. But if a log rest on the andirons coals tend to fall forward and ash collects on the inside edge of the bottom of the door on the gasket. Then when you open the door it can fall off the door edge and onto the floor. I told Tom about this and I think they are looking at it. Flamestead also mentioned somewhere that this stove is more messy to run than his Progress. Both of us were used to the smaller side opening door. The advantages of ease of loading and doing both EW and NS loading outweigh this minor annoyance.

With an ash pan I know I would empty it more often. Bottom line, get the ash pan.

 

I tend to load N/S for long burns, and smaller loads E/W during the day. That might change with a new stove that's as controllable as this sounds.
So, when you say you can shut it down to a black box, can I assume that means the temps drop to "normal" levels when you do that?
I've mentioned this before, but my wife doesn't seem to care what stove we get, as long as it has a nice window to see fire.
However, I haven't shown her any pics of the IS yet.
I'll sometimes get some small coals and ash on the lip just inside the door too. I've had an old spatula on the hearth for a while to scrape and shovel those back into the stove.
Works pretty well.

 

If I put it down to zero air the fire will go out and eventually the cat will stall.

 

Then I would pass on the 30. Go with the IS if you have a tight budget (based on our estimated cost of the IS). The 30 will not give you the control you need.