Replacing VC Intrepid with Ideal Steel

How many sqft are you heating ZeeB?

 

I dont think I would have even know woodstock existed(And I live in NH) except for a coworker of mine who told me about them. He had burned out his Jotul and ended up with one of their stoves to replace it. I followed their progress hybrid build and had almost ordered one a couple times during sales but as I was unsure what kind of heat I would get I held off. Through this beta test I have been able to see what a difference it will make to this house to have an adequately sized stove operating. I am not sure what I will end up doing when the test is over, but I certainly think something from woodstock is in the cards.

 

I've got a partial daylight basement and two stories, each level is about 900sq ft. The stove sits on the main level so I the basement isnt getting any love, the only connection to upstairs is the stairway so upstairs is getting some help.

 

Looks like a great stove. Good luck. All wood stove are Good. Some just better than others!

 

Is the upstairs staying warm? Any other heat source being used?

 

I think if I made the transition to running the stove nearly full time I could probably get the upstairs temps up to comfortable without needing much out of the suplimentary heat. At the moment though my wife and I have too many hobbies that keep us out of the house for long stretches(6am hockey, wrenching on race cars at a buddies house etc).

Upstairs we have the original radiant ceiling electric(which has to be the worst heating system ever conceived) that I try and use as little as possible. My wife doesn't deal well with the heat so when moved in we had a split vent heat pump system(electric) installed, we use that most of the time upstairs(heat in winter, AC in the summer). The heat pump is only good down to 10 degrees F so if it gets really cold out I end up having to resort to the ceiling stuff up there.

 

Zee, what's the deal with being a beta tester when your time's up, do they just come pick up the stove and that's that or can you buy the stove?

 

I am not actually sure the full story there weatherguy. They are coming back to get the stove once things warm up because they want to take the stoves to the factory and examine them. Beyond that I am not sure what the plan will be, I'm going to be in the market for a stove after feeling the difference in our house having something that is adequately large to heat the space.

 

Based on today's update it looks like because the stove I have hasnt officially passed EPA inspection I wont be able to buy it, they are going to offer me a screaming deal on a new final model stove though.

 

Screaming deal is right!
Any beta testers that want this stove should jump on it.

 

Been a little busy as of late an not much interesting to report as a result. However I thought I would toss this out there.
I have one of those fancy Nest Thermostats in my house and they send me monthly energy usage reports.

I got my stove installed the Jan 22, but wasn't around to actually get it rolling until Jan 26th, so it had minimal impact on my energy usage that month. However my thermostat in that room called for heat 135 hours. I recently received my Feb report and the thermostat only called for heat 50 hours. So that's 85 less hours the boiler was running. We did go away on vacation for a week in Feb and the report tells me that saved me 25 hours(it tracks when I put it in away mode too). There were likely some weather differences that impacted things, but the way I look at it, between weather and the IS stove my boiler ran 60 less hours, which equates to alot of oil still in my tank! Due to a snowstorm my wife was home all day a couple of weekdays which would have meant even more oil use, but with the stove we had fire 24/7 and I dont think the boiler even kicked in those days.

All this means I am going to need to get working on a seriously bigger woodpile because I would way rather split and stack wood than write checks to the oil company. And I think I have to write a check to woodstock to actually buy a production stove.

Nick

 

I just emailed Lorin to reserve a production unit.

 

A quick chat with the wife when I got home and our name is going on the list too!

 

Tom was down today and we were chatting, he said they have about 15 stoves out in the wild right now. So we are still seeing a pretty limited set of the total stoves here on FHC.