Woodstock Fireview in cruise mode

You have a good bit of flame there...what are temps like if you get closer to "black box"?

 

What's 'black box"? The pics of the cat burn and the fireview with lots of flame were taken at different times. I should have explained. We often see the cat glowing with little or no flame. At startup there is always lots of flame as the wood burn off the VOCs. Settles down as coaling gets going.

 

Black box is no visible flames

 

I love that we get to take pics like that showing the bright orange heat from the CAT even though the there is no flames on the wood itself!

 

I don’t think the Fireview or any Woodstock stove can maintain a black box burn for very long unless you have a cat stall. I can make mine go black for about an hour but after the firebox reaches a certain temp flames appear above the load even if I have the air fully shut. As the stove heats up more combustion air is drawn in, I suppose if there was a Blaze King thermostat installed it could control that more.

 

I agree for the most part. As you know the Fireview has a small firebox compared to several others. Once the load gives off the VOCs that it has, that's about all you can expect. Heat wise I'm more than happy with the performance. Our house is a 1,220 sf ranch on a crawl with a pretty much open floor plan. Anything bigger like one of Woodstock's or a Blaze King would be too much stove.

 

The way these new stoves can run on the lower end I wouldn’t be afraid to go bigger especially with the Blaze King thermostat stoves. I’m heating about 1000 sq ft open floor plan with loft log cabin and if I came across a good deal on a used Woodstock PH I’d jump on it.

 

You are correct about the efficiency of the Blaze King, but if you are on a limited budget like some of us, the cost is prohibitive. I bought my Fireview on Woodstocks layaway plan during their Fall Sale in 2012 for a little over $2,300. The same stove retails for $3,800 today. Blaze Kings start around $3,000 and go up to double that amount. The costs reflect today's economics and I understand that. Just saying not complaining.

 

Nothing wrong with a little flame. I just don’t like the loss of control of burn rate if the flame creates more heat that sucks in more air that creates more heat.