Ideal Steel Season #2 Tips, Tricks, and Improvements.

A safety TIP for IS owners: remember to remove the center burner (it's loose) before you remove the top cover. Else it can slide off and boink your toe or worse yet, scratch the paint. Helping hand for that... heheh.

 

I ordered the condar 3-12-1 catalytic temperature probe. According to my dimensions it should work. I also got confirmation from another owner who has done it already.

 

Stove is ordered. Should be done around October 9.

My setup now is around 6 feet of single wall to the support box and then 8 feet of class a Excel pipe to the cap.

Is this amount of chimney ok? Suggestions as to should I add a 2 foot section of class A up top or switch to double wall in the actual house?

 

Adding to the top will probably be more inexpensive as well. It might not be needed in the dead of winter but maybe on the shoulder seasons?

 

OK a dummy tip with new IS, remember to let your smoke guard down.. I got great draft but smoke guard can be locked up.. the path of the smoke brings it to front so smoke lip on top of door opening is a good thing..

 

There you have it folks. The Condar catalytic probe. It looks a little funny with the lid down. You can tell that Woodstock did not put much effort into this part of the design. It should work though.

 

What if you turned out upside down?

 

Well you could. ...

 

Looks like the stainless steel port liner they ship with the probe is not in the probe port, but inside the stove in the middle picture.

 

Wouldn't that make it easier to read from across the room

 

You don't need it for this stove. So I put a pinch on it and slid it over the probe. It helps steady it.

 

Makes sense now. Looks like it is snug against that black metal piece in the picture; that should help it from moving. The Condar probe I had in my old stove was fairly snug, but it would rotate over time: I tried to keep the 500 degree mark at 12 o'clock so that I could easily read it. Now that I have a Fireview the cat probe isn't an option; probably just as well, one less thing for me to think about.

 

Sorry Coach, but it seems like a lot of work for a newer stove

 

I wasn't real happy with needing to repaint the flaking paint, but Woodstock sent out the paint no charge. I knew I would need to redo the bottom stovepipe portion - it was a temporary fix when I installed the new stove. The other touch up paint was due to my error and OCD wanting it to look nice. The stove is still a lot less work than the old stove

 

Hey coach! In regards to "your error" with the paint-would you mind sharing? Doing my 1st break in fire soon, and was curious if you might be referring to that. I want to do it right, but the manual from WS and Stove Brite is not extremely clear. "Small to moderate fires" is pretty subjective. Especially from someone lacking experience like myself.

 

My error is that I set some rusty, rough stuff on the stovetop burners. It also had some grease spatter. I sanded those off and re-painted. The flaking paint near the cat was an unknown. I would suggest having a small fire with kindling and maybe one split. Then let it cool down. Later, get the fire a little hotter with more fuel. You will want to have a few fires before you get it up to top temp. This is just what I have been reading on the forum. Anybody else feel free to chime in.

 

Great tip! I like how you gave an amount for the first fire. Thanks, that helps.

 

I found with the Progress it's actually More Important to keep the air control at a higher setting immediately after closing the bypass for a short time than to run the stove up to a higher initial temperature and close down too quickly. I got better light-offs and cleaner flue when I did this.

 

OK that's a good tip I haven't let thermostat above 350 outside or 700 inside yet. so what seems to be happening.. I fill 3/4 full get to temp about half an hour full air....now about half full throw cat and air down.. it goes dark for 20 minutes then light show..

Maybe try keep air high until engagement?