Progress Hybrid , closed off air feed

I bet he could heat the whole place with 2 PH stoves instead of 3, and burn less wood.

Oh, and one reason it takes so long to fill the ash pan is, it burns EVERTHING! First few times I burned, and looked in the box late the next day, I actually scratched my head and asked my wife if she had cleaned out the stove! True story! I could not grasp how little ash was left, just a very fine white dust in the bottom of the stove.

 

I agree 100% Hey and what a heater Yes it does burn everything down to a fine powder... Ash pan is for sure just solid powder, no coal chunks at all... Shows me no wasted wood coals... I guess you would say that's complete combustion

 

Charlie.. what a precious picture of the two pups!! Awesome that it is working out for you. We knew it would. I'm still looking forward to a post on this when we're in sub zeros. I'm guessing it will be in cruise mode then.

 

I have no doubt about the PH's ability to heat. That is not the part I am worried about, at all.

My concern is that I can not wrap my head around the burn times. They seem to vary drastically from owner to owner. With the Fireview and Keystone, it is clear what you can expect when burning that stove as it regards air controls and burn times.

With the PH, all the owners seem to load differently. Burn times are different and I can not put my finger on why. Some people are heating huge spaces, while others are heating smaller spaces by getting shorter burn times.

I don't know what to make of it. It is the only stove out there that I can not get a read on. It's frustrating the chit out of me.

 

Yes the PH is quite the heater as I'm finding out.. It's 40 outside and I finally broke down and opened a window all the way.. Whoops a little too much wood... I'll take that.. I'd did love the Fireview... such an economical stove on wood usage and nice even heat.. Just a perfect stove... Guess that's why they never changed a thing for years on that stove.. It worked perfect, leave it alone, in which Woodstock did... I never even ran that stove hard, I can imagine the heat that can put out and from what others have said that stove doesn't even mind doing so... I'd say keeping her full off wood on a sub zero night will not even phase the Fireview.. Steve, you'll have to let me know how she does when it's bitter cold... Good wood is key... You have to admit that's quite the heater! Comes down to all that mass a again... That's why I feel you can't compare an all steel stove to something with soapstone.. Two different animals.. Stone heat is sweet!

 

BB, the odd thing with the PH is that it throws heat for hours on just coals as it burns everything down to powder. Myself I'm burning 1 year old standing dead ash that had no bark on it when I took it down.. That stuff is super dry , lots of heat but obviously burns faster.. I can go 8 hrs easily on 6 pieces and have plenty of coals and cruise at 500 degrees. I need to get some oak, or hickory which is split big , I think that will be a whole different ball game.. Another thing, all my wood I'm burning was split smaller in length and width figuring that I kept the Fireview. Now with the PH I could have split a 10 in diameter piece of wood once instead of 3 times and also left the wood in 20 inch lengths instead of 16, filling the stove even more.. The stove box measured to take a 22 inch piece.. So I'm not even filling the box even loading it full with the short pieces. So with some longer and bigger splits she will really gain some burn times and also burning harder wood then ash.. The stove has much more potential then what I'm feeding it.. Like others have said. It's all in the wood.. I think with some big wood you'd be impressed! The PH is already keeping me more then happy with the smaller stuff I'm feeding it... The real nice thing, for a stove with a cat, it's not fussy about wood quality... this thing can draft the spots off a leopard

 

One thing I do know.. it takes a half load of wood, or more to get it back up to heat after a cold start. Getting all that stone warm is a BIG job. I haven't really been able to load the stove fully, as it actually has only been deep cold one day, and even then climbed up into the low 40s by afternoon. So getting it filled fully won't happen until this shoulder season finally breaks. It's supposed to get really cold here next week, we'll see..

But I have learned that it is perfectly happy to cross the 500 mark, but I just let it coal out and cool down because it get's too warm in here.

Even my wife loves the warmth it gives though.. and then of course there's it's good looks. Imagine going from a blackbox smoke dragon with no glass window to the Fv... It really adds a whole new level of class to our place. It's pretty when it's not lit! LOL!

 

So, with a full load, can I still somewhat control the burn and get 15 hours out of it?

 

I think you get 3 hours of usable heat on coals alone...and a real 3 hours.. Now we are talking all this heat with a closed draft if not just cracked.. I can only imagine if you ran the stove open to the point where it cruised at 600, Wow! That heat would be incredible.. yet retained in the stone for hours... Yet I have never used the full volume of the stove yet... load wise... It won't be until 2 winters from now that I can burn really big wood as I have all my wood for next year already, and that was for the Fireview.. All in all BB, if this stove or stoves in your case didn't work out, you could get your money back, but I think the PH or a pair would work out... Better yet you could get the best of both worlds. Purchase one PH and one Real Steel Hybrid.. That would be a really interesting pair of stoves to have.. How nice to see what you like, then you could switch one out if need be.. I believe the PH has the best BTU rating out of the two stoves.. I will say the PH is very respectable stove weight wise.. When you muscle that weight around it gives you an idea of the serious mass of heat this stove can retain for hours. So yes I think with a full load of big wood, you'd be realistically looking at those numbers. This stove throws out a lot heat so you might be warm enough with less wood in the stove then you think you need.. At times I need no more wood because the stone is heating me , yet my coals are maybe getting low, so I add a few pieces of wood just to have a coal base for later on.. Maybe that's why it's hard getting a clear burn time from anyone.. The stove keeps heating without a wood load for hours. I guess I find myself just adding small loads here and there because I'm plenty warm and don't need to ad more wood yet, just keeping a few coals.. A very good heater indeed.. Stone heat storage is really amazing as far as not having to run to the stove just because the fire has died down... A whole different way of staying warm... More tolerant of not being a slave to the stove...

 

Like I said earlier, I'm not concerned about it's peak heating performance, just the duration of the burn cycle. My next purchase will be about comfort and convenience. If I am going to purchase two Progress stoves (living room and kitchen) it will need to produce usable heat of at least 15 hours (ideally, longer) during shoulder season and 12 hours of real heat during true winter temps (high of 20s, low of teens/single digits). Can this stove do that with my setup and layout? I do not know.

Visually, the Progress, for me, is the better looking stove when compared to the Ashford and the Woodstock steel stove. I could get two Progress stoves for at least $1,000 cheaper than two Ashfords.

That's the other thing. As nice as it is to know that I can return the stove, After driving all across the northeast picking up, moving, hauling, and installing six stoves the previous five years, I REALLY do not want to move another stove. So, when I make my next purchase I really do not want to go into it thinking I might have to move 1,400 lbs of stoves again if the setup does not work.

I believe that is an accurate statement. Which goes back to my main hurdle; can I load up this stove full and burn it at 450-500 degrees for 15+ hours or will the temps creep up on me, provide too much heat while reducing the burn time? Because this is the problem I have with the Defiant. I'm okay with this when it comes to the Defiant because I kind of knew that going into it. But, dealing with problems when the stove only cost you $400 is a little different than when you are looking for more convenience and the price tag is $3,000 (or $6,000 since I am buy two).

I am familiar with stone stoves as I owned a Hearthstone Heritage for two winters. It was a non-cat and undersized for my needs, but after it burned down to coals it would hover at 200-300 far longer than the steel and cast iron stoves. Unfortunately, since it was undersized, those temps offered little in terms of usable heat. The usable firebox size on that stove was about 1.8 cu ft, or about the same size as the Keystone.

 

I think as you spend more time with the Fireview you will learn to get the temps up a lot more quickly. With good dry wood I could get the Hearthstone Heritage up over 500 degrees in 20 minutes. The Heritage is about the same physical size/weight as the Fireview, but with a smaller firebox.

 

Old hippie,
One way I have learned to cut down on that long heat up time is, on a cold start I load a small amount of wood, no more than 1/4 load, usually a lot of small splits stacked over a few pieces of kindling (I use scrap 2x4's split down to 1"). Light a 1/4 chunk of super cedar under there and leave the air open well past the stove gets up to temp and you turn the bypass. All that small stuff lights up quickly, burns down to coals quickly and heats the stove quicker than any other method I've tried. After it burns down to almost nothing, the reload a real load. Depending on how small that start load is, I can reload in anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours. You can time it right, if it's early, I'll start a bit bigger load to last longer before reload. If it's late, and I just want to get it loaded, I'll just start with a really as all load.

 

BBAR,
You can easily get 12 hours of usable heat with a full load, with temps in teens or 20's. Most of the time you will get 12-16 hours of heat in peak winter with full loads. Especially with the type of splits you will use. The bigger the splits, the longer you will burn. The temp does not creep up, it gets up to temp and just sticks there unless you reload on too hot of a coal bed and/or leave the air open too long before shutting it down.

I think the reason there is such a big disparity on the PH burn times is, many folks don't load it up very often, and also many folks use too small of splits in it (like myself for most of last winter). You can load it with one split, and it will burn for 3 hours. I just did than tonight, it's 45 out, so I was just getting the chill out, and one medium split of black locust heated my 1200 sq ft room with cathedral ceilings for 3 hours to 75+, had to crack a window. It didn't allow me to pull much heat down to my 1st floor (I have a 4" duct with inline fan blowing to the room below the stove) cause I really need to heat it up to make that work, but then I would have baked I. The stove room. Anyway, the point is you can control it with a combo of what you feed it, and how much air you add to the feed. I'm a 100% sure I'm not telling you anything new here, but trying to give you a feel for the control and burn times you have.

This time of year, I'm loading 1/4 to 1/3 full for overnight burns, and getting 10 to 12 hour burns, which would be about 12 to 14 or 15 hour heat hours (heats a few hours after out). My splits are too small, If I had larger splits I would load 3/4 full, and likely get more like 16+ hour burn time, 18 heat hours.

 

Good idea, I've been doing a top down load, but it just seems like it takes forevah to get up over the 250 mark.. and like I said it takes a while, although I've never really timed it.. and also I'm comparing it to my old smoke dragon, and the VC Resolute I've got down in the family room. Both which don't have the mass of the Fv even though they have a similar size.

This is the learning curve I'm on.. and it being still shoulder season I don't have the best conditions to work with as far as outdoor temps. ..cold in the morning, warm in the afternoon.

 

Yeah... you may be right.. it's new to me, and I maybe have a tendency to turn down the draft earlier than I need to (even pre-cat-engagement), and also, thinking this through from Machria's reply as well, I've been hesitant to bring it up to high, as it just gets too damm warm in here this time of year. I'll be glad when shoulder season is over.

 

I got thinking about a cat probe gauge install... How about cut a hole in the the center stone , drill the top cook surface for the probe, 1/4 inch hole.. Now just place the probe into the hole in the stone.. I'm thinking if the face of the probe sits below the stones surface, it won't be in the way of a simmering pot , etc... Ideal would be to get a gauge with a glass face.. but as long as it sits into the stone and not above , it should be fine.. If you going to cook on the surface below, just make a metal plug to drop in the hole . Being in the middle you could also leave the gauge and still cook to either side of center.. I think this might work.. Woodstock could offer a stone already cut, the gauge and a simple paper template to lay over the cook surface for a hole location.. Or better yet, a wood plug with a center hole that sits in the hole in the stone, then you just drill through the center hole in the plug down through your cook surface... Of course some rags inside to catch the metal filings. Remove the cat too as to any people that would be wild with the drill.. Just want to drill through easy. Wonder if this would work... I thought of even using a thicker stone if need be so the probe face would be recessed into the stone.. I'm sure 3 new thicker stones wouldn't be too much money... Any thoughts?

 

Don't do it ! You're going to end up destroying that beautiful piece of heating equipment..

 

My thought is, forget the probe. Have woodstock make the center cooktop burner a clear glass type burner and we will be able to see and watch the cat. Now THAT would be cool!

 

Don't worry, it was just an idea....

 

I agree. Can someone not fill a PH to the top, dial it down, and see how long it will burn (and produce effective heat)?