Ride to Lebanon NH

Dennis, I can tell you so far, I have ran the PH with the draft completely closed every time, 8th burn tonight, and it heats great! Once it's down to just coals, it heats for hours , like you would swear there was whole pieces of firewood still in the stove... Amazing... I think 750 lbs of mass is why PH owners said it put out twice the heat of a Fireview on the same amount of wood,,, berm mass.. It seems like it just keeps the place warm here for hours with just coals.. I'm impressed! Stove has only been half loaded as well if that.. 3-4 splits...

 

The Vrod has been liquid cooled and has been around for the last 13 years.

 

Yes , I knew about that model... I remember them trying to deal with a radiator location, yet not have it look unsightly.

 

Right.. I should have mentioned the first Twin-cam models.

 

OhioStihl just liked this old thread. Plus, today I was chatting with BeantownBurner about Fireviews and Woodstock the company and their great customer service. So Ohio's "Like" brought me to this thread I started back in 2013. ....and now I'm sitting here, with the Fv burning down coals and keeping us toasty but I gotta tell you guys, the posts by Charlie has got a lump in my throat. Miss you Charlie... there's a lot of "Aces" men and women on this board... but Charlie was just the most wonderful man.

RIP my dear friend, we all miss you.

 

Life is good here in New England Dennis. I wish I could have made the WS open house this year, but it was my 50th high school reunion that same weekend. But I'll make it next year.

I had to get a new motorcycle though, well new to me, I can't afford $28K which is what they want for the brand new ones.

 

Pardon my ignorance please but what type of stove was he referring to when he said PH?

 

Woodstock Progress Hybrid

 

Thank you sir. How many different models does Woodstock make?

 

And after that, but before the Milwaukee 8 motor, or whatever they call it, the Street 500 and 750 had lc heads.

I know you are using brand specific terminology, but the vrod had twin cams too. Twin cams per head.

 

Welcome to Woodstock Soapstone

 

Nice bike! Glad to see you here OH. I’ve read many of your posts here and at the other place and you, along with Dennis and a few others, really convinced me to go with the Fireview and I can’t thank you enough for that! Glad to see you’re still loving it 5 years later. I am curious about your comparative thoughts on the Fireview vs Absolute Steel. They’re rated similarly for output I believe, does that seem about right to you? Just curious as I’ve talked to a lot of interested people and they’re always looking for real life comparisons. What differences do you observe between the cat stove and the hybrid system?

 

Vrods were really nice bikes, too bad they got discontinued.

 

The MKE8 has just a many valves per cylinder as the VROD, but only uses a single cam mounted in the crankcase. Pretty innovative design.

 

The AS has a box shape and size that is not that much numerically larger than the Fv but it seems almost twice as big. If you're going to heat 2500sq or more and you want long burns but cant fit an IS or afford a PH then go with an AS.

But really, except for those really below 10'F or below zero days, I almost always have the AS in a slow burn mode with the secondaries doing almost nothing. It's really a CAT stove for me 90% of the time. I just don't need that BIG heat to open it up and let her rip in my 1600sq ft home when I also have the Fv doing most of the important heating upstairs. But if someone is using the AS as their primary stove and has a big house, the hybrid technology really does the job! I heat my whole house with it, near Christmas when the tree gets set up in the living room right beside the Fv and the Fv gets used for Santa decorations until after New Years. So that's when I burn solely with the AS and open up the air a bit and it's flexing some muscle then. I suppose I could open up the Fv like that, but I just usually don't need to. The Fv is in our central main living area and it's soapstone just put out this nice soft warm heat that it distributes nicely.. gets to the backrooms and the upstairs, but doesn't blast us out of the living room where it lives.

The IS was just too big for my place, and the PH was too big and too expensive. But the AS was just right. I'm pretty tight on clearances for my hearth as I didn't plan ahead 30 years when I build the hearth for a much smaller stove back in the late 70s. But it actually was just enough smaller than the IS to be a good fit for me.

 

I know, but it's not really that big of a deal. OHC is far more efficient.

Harley killed off the vrod because it was too different from what they currently have. With the electric models they'll be introducing, it would have been a lot to update the vrod, which was pretty long in the tooth. Fun fact, the vrod's engine was derived from the vr1000 superbike used in AMA Superbike racing.

 

Sometimes I will browse old threads. I lost track of what I was doing and “liked” one of your post. I later realized it dated back to 2013. I’m glad you could reminisce about Charlie.
Also, nice bike