Production Woodstock IS

Thanks. My theory is you use less wood and you don't create as much negative pressure in your house. So in a sense it seals your house off better .

Think about it. The more air you pull through that stove the more cold air that's coming in your house. If you take away the vacuum you stay warmer.

 

Looks like the remains of a framing square. Interesting mod you did there.

 

Yes, that all makes sense and it must happen to some degree (no pun intended) but modern, air- tight stoves use so little air when cruising along that I doubt it has much impact on cooling the house by bringing in cold air. Even the most modern, tightest and best insulated houses in the world leak a fair amount of air, otherwise we would suffer from lack of oxygen and things like cooking or smoking inside a house would not be tolerable. I mean, it a house was really a large, sealed, plastic bag, we could not go an entire day inside one without suffering pretty significantly. So all houses exchange a good amount of outside air under normal conditions anyway; I have to doubt that a stove running with something like a 1 square inch draft area can draw in enough cold air to make a big impact on heat needed to warm that house. This absolutely does NOT apply to fireplaces though, which draft enormous amounts of cold air but hey, they are essentially big air leaks that are intensified by a fire.

Brian

 

Thanks. And yep, that is exactly what it is. Too old, corroded and flaking lacquer to be useful as a building device anymore, it gave its life so that my stove could gain a few percentage points in efficiency.

Brian

 

I agree that it might not be anything too significant, but rather then thinking about the intake of the stove let's think about how much exhaust is going up the chimney. The hot chimney effect has to be pulling a very small vacuum on your house. The burn rate has to have SOME effect little or big. Running low and slow with less rapid heat escape up the chimney can only help the situation. I'm sure it's really not critical I'm just being a nerd . Here's an article. http://www.woodheat.org/the-outdoor-air-myth-exposed.html
and I'll leave it at that before we get derailed...

 

This looks like a great modification! My only concern would be that increased radiator heat might degrade it even faster.

 

Hey, I think we really agree here- surely drawing in outside air and sending it up the chimney must have some negative results on the inside temperature.

My only thought was that it was not all that great, and houses exchange air anyway meaning there is always a certain amount of air passing through a house even without a wood stove.

Besides, we are just talking here, which is what I think the forum is for.

Brian

 

Yep, that could absolutely be a result. But I am treating the radiator as basically a sacrificial part of the stove anyway and I believe it will last quite a while even if my blocking some of the heat escape speeds up its deterioration.

In the meantime, it seems I am getting more heat out of the stove and using less wood. Of course that may be 100% my hopeful imagination as I cannot prove the improvement but the flue temps do seem lower and the stove top temps do seem a bit higher.

At the end of the day, there are so many variables in burning firewood that I think the last 10% or maybe even more just cannot be determined. For example, I buy 'hardwood' and I believe most of it is. But the last couple of days, I have picked up some really light splits that I would have a hard time believing are the equal of oak, regardless of exactly what kind of wood it really is (and unlike some or most of you folks, I cannot tell a lot of my wood types apart). And sometimes the stove really packs more full of splits than it does at other times. And then there is the outside temperature, the wind, etc., etc.. My point is that I think it is really tough to gauge relatively small changes because each burn is so different anyway.

But I will say that that framing square's life as a framing square is probably over..... for certain. Although maybe the backside (the side away from the combustor) is still good?

Brian

 

We found some interesting information on a different website on this very subject. It makes alot of sense that, all things being equal, the stove that releases more heat up the pipe will be the lesser efficient when it comes to heating your home. It also makes sense that a load of wood only has so many btu's. It seems the heat would only have two places it could go, either up the pipe or in your home. This guy has flue temps in the 150-200 degree range on his Blaze King while your graph is showing 400 degrees half way through, then slowly dropping to 200 degrees. I think the light bulb has finally turned on for us. This would explain why the Blaze King's are able to heat a home for so much longer on the same amount of wood.


"This is why a consumer shopping for a new "high efficient" wood stove needs to understand what high efficiency means. Efficiency in the real world is how well a stove burns, extracts, and delivers heat to your home (aka HEATING EFFICIENCY). I believe the EPA ratings are only a measure of how cleanly a stove burns (low emissions), not how well it heats. Consumers are easily confused when talking about efficiency and there are companies out there that exploit that to sell stoves.

This is one of the reasons why I questioned the Woodstock Ideal Steel. It makes no sense to me how a stove can have a large firebox and "record 82% EPA tested efficiency", but yet only have average burn times of 10-14 hrs. It's being marketed as a super efficient stove which it is from an emissions standpoint (1 gr/hr). But from a standpoint of giving the consumer the most possible heat out of a given amount of wood, it's performance is just average. Does this make it a bad stove? ABSOLUTELY NOT and no one should take offense to that statement. I just believe that potential buyers should understand exactly what they are purchasing...and I shouldn't be attacked for that.

Here's the bottom line no matter if you burn a cat, non cat, secondary, or hybrid stove: The hotter your flue temps, the lower your stoves heating efficiency will be in the real world. If the heat energy is going up the stack, it's not going into your home. A magnet thermometer, placed on a single wall pipe, 5 inches above the stove top will tell you a lot about your stoves heating efficiency (for double wall use probe).

http://www.condar.com/Stovepipe_Thermometers.html

During normal operation, ours usually runs 150-200 degrees. There is nothing at all wrong with a stove that runs higher than that. It just means a lot of your heat energy is being wasted. Manufacturers can market their stoves pretty much however they want, no matter how misleading it may be. They are in business to sell stoves and make a profit. A flue thermometer is a low cost reliable way for consumers to monitor, first hand, the heating efficiency of their stove."


With that said, the wife and I are leaning towards the Ideal Steel. Even though it doesn't have the burn times we really want, we think we can make it work. One of us is usually home within 12 hours of leaving the house and would be able to put more wood on. If neither of us gets home in time, we can just build a new fire. Not that big of a deal and we will save alot of money on the purchase price of the stove.

 

In that last post, one factor is neglected. A BK burning with a flue temp of 150 to 200 degrees is NOT burning in a high burn mode, and will NOT heat a home when it is -15 F out. The Woodstocks are simply not designed to burn at a low temperature with a full load of wood. Blaze Kings are. Woodstocks will and do burn at a low rate while in the coaling stage. For low heat output at all stages of the burn, you need to load a small amount of wood. In my PH, a 1.3 cubic foot load will heat at about 350 degree stove top for 12 hours. And did that last night, zero degrees out, and is still, 15 1/2 hours after loading, burning coals down with a stovetop temp of 225, and still radiating a significant amount of heat off the soapstone. I will be reloading shortly.

 

I believe that information is based on the outside stove pipe temp., and I have no idea how far away from the stove those temps. were taken. My flue temperatures are taken from inside the flue and are generally about twice what the outside of the stove pipe would indicate.... so my temps. are also in the 200 and less range, if measured outside the stove pipe.

Again, as I keep saying over and over, there is no magic at work here. Stoves of a similar design will yield extremely similar efficiencies and produce very similar amounts of heat from a given weight of wood (of the same water content, etc.). There are no 'magic' stoves out there. Look around at what people are burning for wood per year and given modern stoves, it is remarkably similar given a similar climate and house size. Same thing goes for any other type of heat: if a person checks his / her oil consumption (the main fuel type in this area is #2 fuel oil), it will generally be found that all of the neighbors consume a similar amount of fuel per year. There are no 'magic' boilers either.

I believe the Blaze King legendary burns are just that- legends, just like King Arthur and the Tooth Fairy. 90 lb. of wood would not heat my house (to any reasonable level of comfort, at least for me) for 30 or 40 hours, when it is in the single digits outside, no matter what stove is being used. I also am quite confident that I can make my Ideal Steel stove "burn" for 40 hours as long as we define a burn as the time something can be found inside the stove that one cannot pick up with a bare hand. But as far as useful heat output, most of those 40 hours would be spent in a parka wishing the clock would move faster so I could load the stove and open the draft a tad....

Again, of course buy whichever stove you want. I looked at the cast iron Blaze King last weekend (stopped by the local stove emporium for a piece of stove pipe and they had one on the floor) and it was a fine looking stove that I am sure would perform quite well. The reasons I chose the I.S. still apply though and the B.K. has a few deal- killers for me: no grate and no sealed ash pan, much more expensive combustor, more difficult to maintain during the heating season (getting to the combustor, etc.), difficult to impossible to check / clean / replace the combustor in the middle of the heating season (wood is my only source of heat so shutting the stove down until it is cold in January is not at all desirable). I believe the I.S. is much more user friendly regarding maintenance, especially when in use or hot, and that is why I choose the stove. But as far as published burn times, I believe they are a useless, miss- leading parameter that just does not apply to real life. Exactly the same as car mfgs. rating automobiles based on how far they will coast with the ignition off; without other parameters, the value is meaningless. Even with parameters, the value is still useless, I mean how often have you tried to coast a car anywhere anyway?

As far as price, yes the I.S. is significantly less expensive than the B.K.'s I have seen in person, at retail prices. That said, shopping around can often yield a much better deal than retail; I found a Regency F5100, brand new, w/in 80 miles of where I live for $1,700 last summer. Wood stoves can often be found at better prices at the end of winter when a retailer knows they will have to carry the inventory most of the year. My suggestion would be to try your best to evaluate which stove you want based on what is important to you (don't mind shoveling ashes? How easy is it to clean the glass when the stove is hot? which stove do you like the looks of best- you will be looking at it for a long time, etc.) and then try to buy that one.

And whichever stove you end up with, the very best of luck with it and I hope it serves you well for a long time!

Brian

 

I'm not sure you would want to burn that Blaze King stove on high burn mode when it is -15F out. It might heat a person right out of their home. The Blaze King website shows that stove putting out a constant 51,582 btu's on high and 15,475 btu's on low.

We looked at that guys 43 hour burn test and the cat is very hot even when the flue temps are between 150-200:


"Home from work and have a little more time to explain this test of our Blaze King Ultra. Let me first start by saying that we have a small home (approx. 1250 sf) so the King Ultra is a lot of stove for that square footage. The sales person tried her best to talk us out of the King model saying, "it will run you out of your house." This statement is not true because Blaze King designed an awesome automatic damper which keeps the heat output even. You can really dampen these stoves down or open it up for some serious heat. I would say this stove works just as great on a small home like ours as it would a 2000 sf home although you will obviously use more wood. So for all of you out there with smaller homes considering a Blaze King, don't be afraid to go with the King model. It's better to have too much stove than not enough in my opinion. You can always cool your house down in the winter but always having enough heat can be a bit trickier without the right stove.

Our normal routine of loading the stove is once per day with lodge pole pine. It has worked flawlessly on this 24 hr. burn cycle. Every 12 hours or so we do what we call a burn off where we turn the thermostat up as high as it goes for 20-30 minutes. This gets everything hot and keeps it clean since it smolders a lot during normal burns. Creosote does build up in the stove but not in the pipe. The burn offs keep this creosote cleaned up. During the burn off, we generally let the cat get up to 1300 degrees and the flue about 500 degrees (measured approx. 5" above the top of the stove).

So the small size of our home obviously contributed to the long burn. But the weather was cold even by Idaho standards and the sun shined only about 5-6 hours during the test because of thick fog. So this was a real world test with some pretty cold conditions. The conclusion is that it heated our house for 43 hours straight. Here are the numbers:

Nov. 15, 17:35 - Loaded the stove with 2 pieces of pear and 2 pieces of plum and filled the gaps with smaller pieces of lodge pole. Burn off until 17:55.
Cat temp: 1300
Flue temp: 500
Inside temp: 75
Outside temp: 19

Nov. 16, 00:01 - Thermostat set on "2"
Cat temp: 900
Flue temp: 200
Inside temp: 73
Outside temp: 6

Nov. 16, 06:00 - Thermostat set on "2"
Cat temp: 1200
Flue temp: 290
Inside temp: 70
Outside temp: 1

Nov. 16, 09:20 - Thermostat set on "2". Burn off for 15 minutes.
Cat temp: 700
Flue temp: 190
Inside temp: 70
Outside temp: 7

Nov. 16, 19:45 - Thermostat set on "2". Burn off for 30 minutes.
Cat temp: 600
Flue temp: 150
Inside temp: 71
Outside temp: 13

Nov. 17, 06:30 - Thermostat bumped up to "2.5". Burn off for 40 minutes.
Cat temp: 600
Flue temp: 150
Inside temp: 67
Outside temp: 4

Nov. 17, 12:35 - Concluded test with approx. 2" of hot coals in bottom of stove. New wood started burning within 1-2 minutes.
Cat temp: 500
Flue temp: 150
Inside temp: 69
Outside temp: 15

Love burning lodge pole but man would it be nice to have a stockpile of hardwood like this test wood. I would only be loading the stove 3-4 times per week"

 

Agree with Brian. Look at all the parameters that re important to you and get the stove that works best for you. No one is pushing one stove over another...just trying to provide information. The above post is a great example of what you can accomplish with a combination of house size and stove size. Get a stove way bigger than you need, and you can heat your home for a long time at a low burn rate. Doesn't mean you are using less wood during that time, or are burning more efficiently (though you may be, depends what stove you are comparing to), but does mean that you have to load less frequently.

A 4 + cubic foot firebox is huge for a 1250 square foot home. Don't expect to duplicate that burn time while maintaining those house temps at those outdoor temps if you are heating a 3000 square foot home.

Again, assess what is important to you, and find the stove that best meets the most important points for you. Then you'll be happy, for a long time, with your purchase.

 

Sound advice and we really appreciate you and others chiming in. Thank You.

 

I agree that guy is full of himself and full of Blaze King. Woodstock told me from the beginning their burn time specs were very conservative. That guy probably never even saw an ideal steel in person to say all that. The first thing he says is I have a very small house. Most of the time the Ideal Steel is running I can put my hand on the double wall pipe.

 

I'm in no position to argue for any BK stoves. I did a little BK research last year just as the IS beat testers were in the middle of their heating season. BK has a decent reputation with good burn times and clean burns. IS has the same but in the end I went with what I knew, so I can really only advocate for WS IS. The price was right and they are delivering everything they advertised and some.

I also have to give kudos to some of the regular IS posters in here. Good field info from some dedicated wood burners, especially BDF with your thermocouples and graphs.

 

Not a good practice, search the forums and you will find a lot of real world experience contradicting this statement. A thermocouple or IR temp reading is really the only two good methods for temperature measurement on a single wall. I've seen my stack temps read up to 200 degrees higher than actual 18" up due to heat convecting off the stove.

For any fuel source the potential energy or Btu's is constant by measurement, you just cannot get around that. Emissions is a good indicator to efficiency as well as stack temps.

One thing a person has to remember, on single wall pipe, lost heat is radiated back into the room as it travels up the stack.

If I wanted to do a 24 burn on my fireview, I could, but I can guarantee my house would be froze with the -2 degrees and 40 mph winds we have right now. I'm happy I can run my stove hard, get lots of BTUs out of it and still burn cleanly and it is not the latest technology that Woodstock offers.

If one wants to buy a BK go for it, we chose Woodstock because of the support, technology, soft even heat of the stone and pure beauty of the stove. My wife gagged when we looked at BK stoves.

 

Here is a publication relating to the different testing models of woodstoves and some other facts:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...RsoPt6qTGdHqFK1uDl3-fcQ&bvm=bv.85761416,d.aWw

 

IMO the BK info should end up as part of a different thread. I enjoy reading about how the IS is performing for everyone in its first year, it's something I look forward to during the day. A lot of information about the BK stoves doesn't belong as part of this post. Discussing the merits of BK vs. Woodstock would be a good post elsewhere that I'm sure would receive a lot of responses.

 

Agreed. I deleted my post. I really don't want this thread to go off on that tangent.