My Ideal Steel Is Pooping Creosote onto the Hearth Pad

That's a crazy thing to have to do. Especially considering woodstock's highly touted customer service.

When was the last time you talked to someone at Woodstock golf66 ?

 

Nice job of tracking down the problem, at least from what I can make out of the photos it looks like a weld seam is leaking.

And I agree with you sentiment that this should be corrected. But I have to ask: have you spoken with anyone on the telephone since you got the borescope photos? The reason I ask is that I am curious as to what you could have possibly been told regarding this issue; not getting an e-mail back is one thing but if on the phone, the other party must respond in some way.

You may be best off calling Tom personally on this matter.

As always, best of luck getting it ironed out and please let us know how it goes.

Brian

 

I posted the results of my smoke test on a separate thread so I would not clutter yours. I really truly hope that this is helpful in understanding what is going on with your stove.

 

Thanks for your testing. The matter is now resolved with a new stove body on the way. I will re-use everything else from the current stove (cat, front and top doors, side covers, andirons etc). While the new stove will again be picked up at an ABF terminal, let's just say there will be extra vigilance during the loading process. Now, what do do with a $300 borescope? I could use it to look inside my beer cans and see how much is left, which will provide extra precision for when to head to the fridge for a reload. I can now lie in bed and look at the alarm clock without having to raise my head. The possibilities are endless.....

 

I am glad it is resolved.... Did it take a few phone calls?

 

Glad they took care of it!

You could offer endoscopy at discount prices? Or colonoscopies??

 

Excellent. Still I have to ask, did you ever call them?

And frankly, you scared me a little bit when you were thinking of thing to do with the bore scope and started a sentence with: "I can now lie in bed and look....." shiver me timbers! Discount colonoscopies is a good idea, just be sure to rinse it off in the shower between suckers ..... I mean patients.

Brian

 

Discount my, uh......well, you know. I'm either gettin' the big bucks for that or I'm not .....never mind, I'm not doin' that for any kinda' money.
Put the bore scope on the Bay or send it back for a refund (just don't do any colonoscopies first).

 

I've been communicating with Rich via email recently and you'll find Tom's emailed response from last evening below. Once we get the stove back (should be towards the end of April) we'll do a thorough dissection and we'll then post photographs and finding here on FWH. If we find the issue to be a defective weld, we will have no problems admitting the error and will make any necessary corrections. -Lorin Day


Rich,

Your emails got caught in my spam folder!

We’ll take your stove back, take it apart, and let you know what we find.
From our perspective, we always like to look at stoves that have been in the field,
particularly if the owner has had difficulty with the stove. In my 37 years in this business I have
seen absolutely everything – it’s hard to judge until I actually see the stove or installation.
Often the problem is not what I thought it would be – we need to inspect first.

Having said that, here are a few of my thoughts.
What you describe as creosote is probably moisture/water vapor that has flowed
across soot. It is not creosote, nor it is flammable. If my theory is right,
what you are referring to as “creosote” should be very liquid, and not at all
tacky or sticky, but dirty enough to easily leave a stain on the hearth.

The only realistic way that you can get moisture and soot in the rear secondary
air passage is (a) through the secondary chamber, or (b) through a defective
weld where the chamber is connected to the stove body.

The moisture comes from the wood, and the soot from burning the wood. It is quite
easy to get backflow through the perforated fireback, through the secondary
chamber, and into the secondary air passage - especially at startup. We can
do it here, in the lab, and careless customers have reported doing it by
accident. The other way to get moisture/soot into the secondary air
passage is through a bad weld where the secondary chamber is connected to the stove body. The
reason that we don’t think this is the case is that if there was a break or a
void in the weld between the secondary chamber and stove body, you would get ignition at the point of the break, and the ignition would be obvious and become more pronounced over time. To the best of my knowledge, you haven’t reported this symptom.

It will be pretty easy to diagnose by removing the perforated fireback and
following traces of soot/moisture. We can easily access all of the relevant welds with a plasma torch, and test them as needed.

I will do the stove dissection personally. It won’t take long to find out whether
The problem is (a) or (b) above, and I will let you know the results. Our welders
have been put on notice, and they are anxious to see the stove. The welders sign
off on each stage of the welding, and we have had zero weld defects/failures
with this product since it was launched. The welders take this stuff
seriously, and they want to get to the bottom of it as badly as you.

Sincerely,

Tom Morrissey, President
Woodstock Soapstone Company

 

Fantastic customer service! I'll be putting my deposit down next week. Not that I was on the fence, but if I had been, Lorin's reply would have cinched it.

 

This happens to me for a few places I get mail from, even though I've told the filter they're not spam. It'll be fine for a bit, then show up in the spam folder a while later.

 

I love a story with a happy ending.

(Colonoscopies don't count.)

 

Happy Easter, Lorin and crew at Woodstock!

 

Which is exactly why I asked several different times, in several different places, if the OP had actually called Woodstock or not. Just my opinion but e-mail is not an adequate form of communication with an issue such as this regarding customer service and a possibly defective product. The basic problem is that e-mail (or any non- immediate form of communication such as letters, voice mail, etc., etc.) is not in real time and one party never knows what the other party knows, when they knew it or what their response is. A phone call has no such problem and I believe an issue like this should always be followed up fairly soon (say, a week) with a phone call directly to the manufacturer or vendor if the issue is not 100% solved in that time via e-mail.

Brian

 

Got an update golf66 ?

 

Great timing.....I picked up the new stove body and dropped off the old one at the ABF terminal a few days ago. The forklift driver was a master....he got it onto the trailer and then used an empty pallet to push it forward. It was strapped down tight as a drum. I had two buddies waiting for me at home to help move the stove and we got it onto the hearth pad without so much as a tap. Woodstock will get the old stove in a day or so and will do some destructive testing. We shall see.....

 

Yep, I'm in for several bags of popcorn on this one.
VERY curious to know what they discover.
I'm glad you got the new body.....so when you put it all together, will you have some fire to see what happens?