Woodstock burn times: Are they underated?

I have the Survival Hybrid model and it does not have a thermostatically controlled air intake. If you pull up a picture or take a look at the front of the stove the next time you're on the website you'll see that on the front of the stove directly below the viewing glass there's a set of 6 rectangles configured in a lower set of 3 that are slightly smaller and an upper set of three that are slightly longer. If you zoom in you'll note that basically dead center in the lower grouping of 3 there's a hole that looks like you'd be able to put the ink tube of a bic pen through it. The air controls are managed by the single lower lever (I came back and fixed a spelling error here). The concept is you can essentially cut off almost all the air to the primary burn chamber minus the tiny hole for the bic ink tube. As you shift over the air controls, the upper set of rectangles will partly close, but not fully- there will still be a visible and somewhat substantial amount of air that will get in --> That air intake is built into the door itself and travels through an enclosed channel and enters into the secondary chamber above the primary chamber. There are a bunch of holes in the top of it to let the air through. Then it all exhausts up through the catalyst and then onto the stove pipe.
I think it's a pretty cool design. I wonder how it stacks up against the larger hybrids.

 

I tried a couple more 24 hour burns with similar loads but just had a few embers left. Probably could do better with larger Oak splits. Consistent 12-16 hour burns are no problem.

 

I apologize if you did not know; I think we have met maybe Woodstock open house?? I got family in Bradford.. Scotty Overkill posted I don’t recall BDF wife contacted him Facebook?

I might have put you in missing members? Maybe if I could get screen name.. IIRC you have 2 chimney 2 stoves?? Beta tester

4 members In Bradford maybe? Small vt town on conn river with farm store before bridge


Again not best way get bad news

 

I've been running on the 12 hr schedule w/my Keystone for the last ~10 years as long as the temps are above 10F for the high. When it gets lower than that, I'll typically need to toss in a small mid afternoon fire to keep the whole house about 70. We designed the house around the location of the stove, so it is absolutely dead center in an open first floor plan. The stairs to the 2nd floor are around the corner.

I have access to mostly Sugar maple, w/some misc mix around it Hickory, Ash, cherry etc, but all nice high btu wood. I had built a 8x18 woodshed, with the thought that it would be 4 years worth of wood (2 sections 2 years each). As it turns out, its more like 6 years worth

I live it upstate NY, so we see our fair share of cold weather, but the combination of great insulation, low and slow heat release from the keystone makes for a wonderful comfortable life. I still can't believe I'm heating my house for the whole season on 1 - 1 1/3 cords.

 

Your south of me but close to Lake Ontario so less than 1.5 cords is amazing, in smaller stove

 

Truly I've been blown away. The slow steady heat is wonderful. The stove is in our living room, but because it's all open, it never feels overwhelming.

I've unfortunately not been able to fire it up yet this year. In the spring I noticed the exterior stone on the side opposite the loading door was cracked. So I ordered the replacement, but it was the off season so I put off the repair until Oct when it was starting to get cold like a bone head. After I pulled it, I realized the inner stone was cracked too, which you could not see from the inside. (probably the reason the exterior one was cracked, must have tossed a split in too hard. . . ) So then I needed to wait for that to arrive, which of course it's the busy season so it took a couple weeks. In the final of bonehead moves, when I was reattaching the top, I used the bolts that are actually the shipping bolts that hold the SS cat in place which are about .5" longer. So these longer bolts pushed into the stones on the top and cracked both of them before I realized what was happening.

I finally got it mostly back together last night. Should be able to round it out this evening. Just need to cement the inner seams, and I'm going to replace the door and ashpan gaskets while I'm at it. It's been an adventure to say the least. Should be able to have a few break in fires by the weekend.

 

Sounds like you have the optimal setup to only need 1.5 cords. I installed my Fireview late last Winter after a major rebuild and was chasing leaks and never really got dialed in. So far this year she’s burning great and have noticed some firewood savings compared to my previous Jotul F45 which used about 3-3.5 cords. I’d be happy to cut that down a cord or so which looks likely.

Years ago I had a Keystone and had to replace that outside side stone along with the stone under the door. It was quite the project. Lots of calls to Woodstock for advice, even talked with a stove builder. That little stove was amazing how long it could burn and sip wood.

 

I had my first real fire today! I put in 4, 4" splits of sugar maple this morning at 5:30 when I got up. STT is still over 200. I had a couple small kindling break in fires yesterday. I have 1 small leak on the stovepipe (stove needs to move an inch or 2 west), and I think there is one on the very bottom corner of the new side stone I replaced. I think it's going to be hard to track down, because its double wall it could really be anywhere along the inner stone. I had to have the incense right up on it to get it to suck in. We'll see how it goes, but it burned great.

Bonus is I was fighting w/smoke smell in the house after the cat was engaged. That didn't seem to happen, so fingers crossed that 1 of the thousand gaskets that were replaced was the culprit.

 

Another Keystone owner here - and I think the Woodstock stoves underpromise and overdeliver on burn times. I love the stove appearance (really fits my 1926 craftsmen house well) and while I wish it was 20% bigger, I have no plans to upgrade. It satisfies about 80% of my heat load. For my house in my climate it could not supply 100% of the heat (and I never expected it to). It can make a 12 hour reload cycle with good coals for a reload if burning good hardwoods (hickory, maybe good hard maple if not too cold, and using big splits).

Reload schedule
In the depths of winter I'll load early morning (5:30 am or so) and again at Noon with mostly softer hardwoods (black walnut, soft maple, cherry) and a little sugar maple or hickory. I'll more aggressively burn those loads down to coals (1.5 air setting after stovetop drops to <500 degrees F) so I can reload on a smaller coal bed. The evening load goes in about 6:30 pm or so and that is larger maple and hickory splits. I usually open the pipe damper all the way (unless it is <0 degrees outside) and open air to 1 (from 0 or 0.5 during peak of the burn, depending on outside temperature) before I go to bed at 10:30 pm or so. I will have a nice coal bed (not too thick) and a 200-250 degree F stovetop temperature and everything is nicely primed for a morning reload.

House details
My house is a 1750 square foot two-story house with about 1000 square feet on the 1st floor and 750 square feet on the 2nd floor. Stairwell is a room away from the woodstove. House is very well insulated (18,000 BTU/hour heat loss at 0 degrees F) and very tight (<1.0 ACH50). My stove is back-vented with a ~2' run to a 90 degree angle to a 27' vertical double-insulated stovepipe inside a masonry chimney. I have a damper on the stovepipe that I'll run at about 20-25% closed during the peak of the burn, then I open it up for the coaling stage.

Results and comfort
The little guy does a pretty good job of heating the house. In my very cold climate (typical - 8000 degree days, more recently 7000 but this year is on trend to be much colder than average), my stove will provide about 80% of my home heating needs. If there was a better way of getting heat upstairs, I could probably make it supply close to 90% of the heat. But if it gets below 10 degrees for more than half the day and never gets above 20 degrees in the daytime, then the upstairs (bedrooms, bathroom) get a little cool (60-61 degrees) for my liking. And yes, upstairs attic is really well-insulated (R-60), attic hatch is really well sealed, and most windows are new and high R-value upstairs - it is all just about how much heat can convect up the stairway and how much heat the stove can put out (downstairs has to be 5 degrees warmer than I want the upstairs to be, and that can be tough to obtain when it is cold outside).

Wood consumption
I burn about 2 full cords a year of mixed hardwoods (mostly hard maple, hickory and ash, a little cherry). I usually have about a 1/2 cord of softer hardwoods (black walnut, soft maple, etc.) that I'll burn in shoulder seasons or mix in with the hickory to help it get started. This year I brought down about 2-1/2 cords of 3-year dried wood from my upper meadow (about 1 cord of that was soft maple and black walnut). I will probably go though it all this winter whereas last winter I would have wood left over. If I only did a fire in the morning and a fire at night then I would probably be in the 1.5 cord/year range and maybe only getting 65-70% of my heat from the stove.

Other
In the depths of winter (or the mid-fall, this year - very cold this year) I just run my underfloor radiant heat in my upstairs bathroom and office to keep those rooms at 64-65 degrees. I adjust the water temperature way down (using the Tekmar 260 controller settings for the geothermal system water heat activation) so I'm running cooler (but still warm) water through those loops and operating my geothermal system at super efficient settings. This keeps the floors in those rooms warm all the time and keeps the room temperatures comfortable. The other two bedrooms just get heating from the woodstove and the heating wafting from the other rooms, and stay in the 61-63 degree range (depending on outside temperature).