New Woodstock Ideal Steel installation

I would highly suggest a cat probe! It may not be 100 percent acurate on temp but it will tell you if the cat starts heating up or is cooling off(stalling) with a quick glance.

On a fire from cold stove I let the cat probe work its way to about the 600 mark, close the bypass and adjust the air down in stages to about the 1/4 mark watching not to stall the cat. On a reload I will open the air wide open and let the coals burn down, after a packed full load, for about an hour. This causes the cat probe and cat area to make it back into or close to the 500ish temp area and after reloading I can basicly close the bypass and set the air where I want it and walk away. On a reload from a smaller load I will kind of repeat a cold stove reload but with bigger air adjustments to final setting as the stove is already warm.

 

Do you have a ceramic or steel cat? I've seen blue secondaries dance around right before the cat up in the cat chamber on the IS. I think the cat glowing is actually what was making them fire. From what I've seen this stove doesn't really have a whole lot of flame that will make it to the cat unless you run too long before closing the bypass.

 

Ceramic cat is all that is available for this stove. I have it down pat pretty well now on the process, just had the cat out yesterday and it looked good.

 

I will just chime in with a 'yeah, what those guys said'. There is no best way, as far as I know or have found yet. I tend to engage the cat. early and so sometimes the fire stalls a bit so I open the draft fully while leaving the bypass closed. Mostly I do not though but again, no hard and fast rule.

The efficiency of any catalytic stove is based on a small amount of air passing through it; pushing a lot of air through the stove pushes a lot of heat up the chimney. So once into the full winter heating season, when you will want max. heat and time out of full loads of wood, the goal is to get the damper closed and the intake air cut way back (no more than a notch or two past 1/4 open on an I.S.) with the combustor running hot, this is the efficient way to use a catalytic stove so that very little heat actually goes up the chimney.

Again, you will find out all of this and more as you get used to the stove and the weather turns colder. Judging by the work you did putting in that stove, you enjoy tinkering to some degree so even the learning curve should be interesting to you I think.

Brian

 

LOL all those numbers of which I agree but having used the same stove on different size chimneys (6" vs 7 and1/4") with 22 feet of chimney I can tell you there was no difference in how the stove worked.
Sometimes the proof is in the pudding.

 

Another time when I do put the intake full open and the cat (still) engaged is after the load cycle out-gassing phase. To burn down the coals (hardly any to no flame left, the coals have given up their burnable gasses) I leave the cat engaged and slowly increase the intake lever to max, to squeeze every last BTU from the coals into the stove instead of letting them up the chimney.

 

Good point. I do that too.

 

Yeah, all else being equal, an Ideal Steel runs more efficiently with the bypass closed (the sled forward) than it does with the bypass open. So even if the combustor is not 'lit' and producing heat, it is still more desirable to burn down the coals with the bypass closed, as long as you can get enough oxygen to the coals to burn them down quickly enough.

A damper helps too, or a shield on the back side of the radiator to force the gasses from the stove to travel forward and then along the stove top toward the back. Any trick necessary to grab that last few BTU's from the firebox gasses before tossing them 'overboard'.

Brian

 

Great responses, thank you! My only gripe at this point is a thick, hard reddish/black layer of "resin" on the inner glass after the first 3 fires. I'm running a non-cat burn here to get firebox temps up to see if that helps. Ash/newspaper didn't phase it. Caustic fireplace glass cleaner couldn't break it down, so I hit it with a new razor blade. After 10 minutes, I got 1/2 the window (the top half) clean. Not cool! The bottom 1/2 of the glass is basically opaque with this stuff. Manual says this is to be expected. I hope it's not a common occurrence, because this is incredibly difficult to remove!

 

Oh another interesting thing Qyota is that the hottest outside surface of the IS will be front face above the door immediately to the right of the Allen screw. Perhaps stick your magnetic thermo there to see a better idea of how much intense heat your cat makes.

The cat probe (upside down scale) is on the left and the stick on thermo is on the stoves hot spot (not WiFi LOL).

 

Well, do you want the truth or a more pleasant answer?



Here is the problem: running efficiently, the firebox is usually fairly cool (500 to 700F) and basically runs black. This is not burning per se but pyrolysing, smoldering exactly as a cigarette burns. The smoke is 'burned' by the combustor, which makes the whole process very efficient. Fine and well. But a downside to this is that the glass in the door tends to get dirty with creosote, and a fairly thick layer at that. A layer thick enough that normal cleaning methods will not work and it must be removed manually, a razor blade in a holder being the very best method I have found. So you have two choices: clean theglass often, or let it go black and ignore it. I guess a third choice would be to run the stove harder but that will not result in long, even burns.

What I did after a year of 'frolicking' with this issue was to buy another door from Woodstock. A complete door, with hardware, glass and everything. So now, I clean the door that is cold and not attached to the stove, and just swap them as needed. True it is an additional expense but it is not all that expensive IMO, and solves a couple of problems at one time: cleaning the glass being the major one but also the ability to service and re- gasket a door that is NOT attached to the stove.

Most people would not do that of course but I am a fan of dealing with a problem and stopping it cold, as much as practical. So a second door, while somewhat expensive, and a little in the way at times, provides that road to truly solving the problem, in my opinion of course.

By the way, few things are as annoying as trying to maintain a fire and clean the glass on the door at the same time, in the middle of the winter, when I am trying to heat the house. My left forearm has thanked me repeatedly (the one that used to get the light burns from the vicious fire in the stove).

Brian

 

Sage advice, thanks Brian. I'm not opposed to a little manual labor. I was just shocked that my old methods didn't work...not even close. Your solution makes perfect sense, even if it only lasts a few fire's worth.

 

That buildup on the window and in the firebox is what I get too when running “cat-only mode”. It will burn off when running CAT-ENGAGED and intake lever high enough to maintain good secondaries. At that burn, secondaries, most of the heat is made in the firebox by burning off the volatiles there instead of in the cat even though the cat is engaged. Once the glass is cleared/burned clean, prodigious radiant heat comes out the front of the stove (and a cool light show). I got the dirty glass my first year ‘cause I was so infatuated with cat-only burns (black burn box but great stove top heat). Now I burn to get secondaries (again, with cat engaged) and the glass stays much cleaner. Cool toy, isn’t it?

 

I've found that the IS will spill smoke way more than the Fireview ever did. I try to get the wood in quick and get the door closed, At least to the first latch, which i dont use too much. Usually just a couple minutes on a cold start.

 

My window stays dirty during shoulder season burns but when the weather gets cold it cleans itself up. I get it sparkly clean every 2-3 weeks with ash, water, and newspaper. I may follow that Up wig a little Windex. Run a hot fire and you won't have an issue with your old tricks.

 

Would that be the temperature on the surface of the stove as I dont think that is "fairly cool" at all.

 

BDF runs probes.. with a Thermacouples inside stove, cat temp stove top and flue I believe

 

No, those temps. are actual measurements taken inside the firebox and they are pretty low.

And I absolutely agree, and I.S. running 500F and higher on the outside surface of the stove is certainly NOT running slowly, that would be what I consider running pretty hard. I rarely seen 500F on my stovetop.

Brian

 

I usually see 600-800 on the front of the stove above the door to the right of the allen screw. I tend to run mine hard since its a basement install and i need to get enough heat to the main level.

 

TurboDiesel those are outside readings.. I get those too... but BDF readings are inside or true temps he got thermacouples inside firebox ... Tom at Woodstock said not to worry I'm barely stretching it's legs at those temps..