Now if i can just learn how run this thing!

My stove showing the cat. and stove top thermocouples.

Production Woodstock IS

This is a graph of the data I collect from my Ideal Steel. Time on the bottom (X), temps. of the four probes on the side (Y).

Looking at the graph, the stove was loaded at 7:00 PM and you can see the temps. rise pretty sharply, with the firebox being the hottest place on the stove. Later on, the bypass is closed at which point the combustor temps. rise sharply and stay hot for a number of hours. Once the cat. temp. is down to, say, 700 F and dropping, the off- gassing part of the burn is over, this occurs around midnight. Then the final leg of the burn is when the solids, mostly coals at this point, continue to burn. The temp. does not ever drop off sharply but rather just tapers off, making the 'how long did the stove burn' a very good but evasive answer.

Production Woodstock IS

At the moment, I cannot find any photos of the thermocouple reader / display although I know there are on this forum somewhere. I might suggest you take a look at the <long> thread Production Woodstock IS as there is a lot of information there. I will keep poking around but you might also want to try a search for 'display', 'thermocouple' and maybe 'data' under posts with my username, BDF.

 

I am using three probes that are S.S. sheathed, one installed where the factory hole for a cat. monitor is (but drilled and tapped 8mm for the thermocouple), one installed into the firebox from the left / outside such that the probe sticks into the top / left (looking at the stove) of the firebox, and the final one screwed into the flue pipe just before it enters the chimney thimble. All the sheathed thermocouples are about 1/4 to 5/16 in diameter, 100mm (four inches) long and end in 8mm threads for mounting. The fourth thermocouple is just a simple bead type and is held onto the top of the stove with a magnetic thermometer. All the wires route around the left side (again from the front) of the stove, tucked in to the nooks and crannies, exiting the stove at the rear right. The thermocouple in the flue just drapes down but I painted it black so it more or less disappears. All four thermocouples attach to the reader / display / data logger sitting on the edge of my TV stand, near the stove.

 

The stove seems to have an air intake on the right side. It is normal and common to have the left side of the glass black while the right side, particularly the bottom, is clearer. If I run low and slow my glass gets black. Depending on heating needs, I will just let it run hotter with secondary burn for awhile to burn off the black. If it is a little warmer out, I will run a small load hot to clean the glass.

 

Had the stove for about 2 days and so far i am impressed, stove works as advertised.

 

So have you got her figured out oldspark ? What stove were you running before?

 

A couple off the thermocouple probes BDF was mentioning.

Production Woodstock IS

Production Woodstock IS

 

Well the learning is not over by any means but its working very well with a little help from my friends here and at Woodstock.
My previous stove was a drolet austral (sp?)which worked well but running at its limits in my house, before that was the summit which i could not get to work well no matter what. Before that was the pre epa nashua that is now in my shop, special place in my heart for that one.

 

This is very interesting learning this stove, its pretty cold here now so using a fair amount of wood.
How does the stove work loaded east to west compared to north to south?

 

After tinkering with this very question, I ended up loading my stove E/W and cut my wood to 20". At least that is the theory but a lot of my splits are well under 20" so they do not quite fill the stove. Worse yet, they do not bridge the edges of the firebox opening if they are short and so will slip out and rest against the glass.

I really made an effort to load N/S but always found the tapered firebox of an I.S. to be in the way of that.

In the end, I have not been particularly successful in loading an I.S. firebox full of splits- maybe between 3/4 and 7/8 is the best I can do on a good day. On a bad day, maybe 2/3 full. And end loading stove such as the Progress Hybrid would be easier to fill IMO but I do not have one of those so.....

And yep, it IS very interesting learning how this stove works, loads, throttles and so forth. A very nice stove but there is a learning curve if you really want fine control over a burn, and especially so if you want a long, low burn that is clean and efficient. That is not a complaint, merely an observation on my part.

Give the stove some of your attention and I think it will be rewarded with longer, more efficient burns. Best of luck to you going forward and please do feel free to ask questions or even point out what you have found, and are finding regarding the use of this stove. Most of us share the same interest and are happy to have data and opinions made about this stove- it really is about community learning and all participants are valued!

 

I don't find much difference in burn times, E-W vs N-S. It's whichever way you can fit more in based on the size and shape of your splits. You do gain some good room by ditching the andirons. Mine haven't been in the stove in years.

 

oldspark Put the whip to that new stove tonight! Predicting -18F for my place. Let us know how the stove keeps up. Good luck!

 

I load mine to whatever fits best sometimes it is east to west ( most of the time I use this), if my wood is shorter, I use North to South. And there are times I stack like a log cabin - not really. I find I can put splits North to South on the bottom, but as I near the taper at the top, I can fit more in by placing logs in east and west.

For most of my burning I load up on the coals and pack the fireplace full. I then leave the bypass open and the air intake fully open until the thermometer reach 250 (magnetic type - one on the front by the cat and one on the stove pipe).
Then I will close down the bypass. After a minute or five I will turn down the air intake. If it needs a little more time to put out flames I leave it up a little longer.

For overnight I do the same as above, I just turn the air down more. I find once the stove is engaged, I get the most heat out of a full load and air at ~35%. I can turn the air down lower and get longer burns. Normally I run for a while at 15-30%

 

Thanks guys I really appreciate the information as its helpful with learning this stove.
I could add weird to interesting as when the stove goes black after engaging the cat, not used to that and takes some getting used to.
The stove is operating pretty much like the manual states so that is a plus in helping my apprehension.

 

Another thing, probe thermometer has not trust worthy at all, woodstock told me to go by stove top temps. Would a magnetic one be of any help placed in the same area? If I understand correctly coachschaller has placed one there.

 

I assume you're talking about the cat probe oldspark? What do you mean when you say it "has not been trustworthy at all"?

 

What flue temps is everyone seeing, mine is a little higher then expected, 350 ( single wall magnetic) with a 550 STT, thermometer is 10 inches above flue collar.

 

It reads really high so much i would have to have a very small fire to keep it in the safe temperature, it had a reading of 4 or 500 one morning on a stone cold stove.
Other wise if reading is correct I'm destroying it.
Yes cat probe.

 

My magnetic thermometer 18 inches up typically shows a bit more than 250f but I almost never look at it.
I do use the following (in order):

Probe thermometer (18 inches up): this gives me an indication of when the chimney is warm enough to draft well. Also a warning if it's too hot. I see it reach about 450f and later settle to 275f.

Stovetop surface thermometer (left of the flue): This tells me when it's warm enough to support secondaries and an engaged cat. I can start shutting it down at 325f for a cat only burn or let it get over 475f for max heat but burn times suffer. I also use this to know when to reload.

Cat probe thermometer: this tells me at least when I can engage the cat and that it lights off (it rises really fast). Incidentally the cat always pings and clicks when it lights off so you could just go by sound for that.

I'll peak at all of them in conjunction but that is the general plan I use and the only one I would give up is the magnetic flue thermometer. It's only there because I have an extra one sitting around.

 

I wondered what al the pinging noises were.
Boy do i have a lot to learn.
Might have to look at cat probe options.

 

The pinging noises are perfectly normal- they are because the stove is expanding and changing shape just a little bit as it heats up and later when it cools down.

Flue gas temps. are almost always under 400F and that is measured inside the stove pipe. The outside temps., on the smoke pipe, would be half of that. Bi-metal temperature gauges are really quite inaccurate and often not w/in hundreds of degrees of the actual temp. they are reacting to. Their claim to fame is two- fold; one is that they are quite cheap, both to produce and to purchase. The other is that they are basically bullet- proof and will continue to 'work' (sort of) after years of very high temperatures. But it is best not to go by the dial numbers if using them, rather they are more useful to note that the stove is 'hotter than it was' and so forth. After a while, you will get to know what those thermometers read when the stove is running normally regardless of the number the pointer is showing.

Electronic temperature reading devices are much, much more accurate and actually useful. Plus they respond instantly so when you make an adjustment it will show while you are making that adjustment and you will see what direction you are moving toward. Further, some of them have alarms which you can set and that can be very handy; mine have alarms on the cat. temp., the stove top and the flue gas temp. This makes it easy to set the stove up to start, then close the damper and damp down the stove later. Also it is easy to see if the cat. 'lit' or not w/in 20- 30 seconds. But they are more expensive and more complicated, mostly regarding the set up.