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

The eco bricks are probably too dry. The firebox temps are too high. I would try mixing it with cordwood.

 

As I showed in the pictures and in my description, I did mix them with 4 splits of ash cordwood, 1 yr seasoned (but cut mostly standing dead EAB trees).

I think next time, assuming I do another mixed big load, I may put the bricks on the bottom instead of the cordwood (and go for minimum air quicker). The ash seemed to get used up much quicker and left big gaps under the Ecos, allowing a lot of air under them and a very strong glowing and occasional wispy blue flame from the bottom.

I was surprised at how much heat it did put out though, especially the first half. Easily a mid winter amount of heat, the coaling phase of course put out much less. The stoves burns clean and efficient either way, but burning slower perhaps allows more time for heat exchange and to put more heat in the room. I did not feel like I gave up much heat running this thing fully closed off.

 

Oh and working today with the new log splitter and around a cord or more of spruce for next years shoulder season. Never would have thought I could actually use spruce in a stove effectively but planning on trying it next year. Got it free off craigslist, its just full of knots, hand splitting would have been miserable and I finally decided to pony up for some hydraulics. Plus I had a pretty huge pile of ash that I couldn't split by hand.

 

I feel the hybrid technology results In a cleaner, yet less controllable burn. I have always struggled to get locked into a slow cat burn without temps shooting up. This is great if you need them, but for true low and slow performance, it's tough to keep secondaries under control.

 

Maybe your chimney is drawing too hard. How tall is your chimney?

 

Definitely not the chimney height as I only have a 15' insulated liner on an external chimney. However, I think it is from having borderline dry enough wood. At first this didnt make sense to me. The more I have thought about it, though, I think have to run the stove wide open, hard in order to get it hot enough to engage the cat. Once engaged and taken off, I have enough of the wood engulfed and the secondaries raging that its hard to slow it down. And if I slam the air shut, the wettish wood doesnt burn hot enough to keep the cat engaged and I stall.

 

Put a magnet over the secondaries intake.

 

Secondary intake is the one towards the back, correct?

 

I assume. I hadn't really tried it yet but have been meaning to.

 

I am also struggling with my IS this year and cannot get the long, slow and steady burns out of it that I did last year. Unfortunately, there have been several changes including a higher, insulated chimney as well as drier wood. I believe the problem is the chimney though because the difference between this new one and the old one is enormous; the original chimney was shorter but more importantly, it was not insulated and had a boiler (inoperative) on the same flue, and the boiler had a barometric damper on it. So the original draw was much less, and it really never did heat up very well, and was apparently immune to wind conditions outside. This year, the new chimney draws strongly initially but really pulls after it is warm, plus if it is windy, I can just about see every single wind gust by looking inside the stove.

I am going to try a key damper located just above the stove in the stove pipe first, and if that is not totally successful, I will install a barometric damper in the stove pipe at the thimble (and there is a collective gasp from the reading crowd- you cannot put a barometric damper on a wood stove, they all yell in chorus ).

Brian

 

I check the wind forecast before loading. Otherwise the secondaries move with the wind. My chimney is unprotected from the gusts. I surrounded by very flat farmland.

 

My problem is that I cannot set the stove for 'windy' because it still burns too fast with the draft completely shut (as far as the design allows). I have gone as far as to block the draft intake completely so the stove is running only on the one hole drilled in the front of it, and of course the combustor is always being fed air via the temperature sensitive flap valve in the back. When it is really cold out, even that is too much- I get shorter burns that are considerably hotter for the first couple of hours, then a long cycle of a stove full of coals that will not put out enough heat to keep the boiler from running before the next morning (I usually load around 10:00 PM and am up by 6:30 AM). Now the stove easily kept the house warm by keeping the stove top temps around 300 / 350F through and past 6:30 AM but this year, the stove top temp. is almost always below 200 F at that time.

Another thing that has changed is that the stove top temp. is now very close to 50F less than the flue temps., while last year, they were always almost exactly 50F above the flue temps. This indicates to me that air is moving through the stove faster and more heat is being carried up the chimney, as well as the entire load of fuel burning faster (overall temps. of the stove are higher than they where last year, especially the firebox temps.).

Brian

 

I'm sure the hybrid stoves have their place somewhere but I would still love to see WS build a 3 cubic' cat stove. That's what I hoped they were building when they built the PH.

 

That has to be frustrating out of a 3+ cubic' stove! Are you sure all the gaskets are good? Seems like a pretty drastic change.

 

Woodstock seems intent on building the cleanest running stove, not necessarily the longest running. For me it's been more than adequate. It burns so long that I have to to wait longer than I'd like to reload.

 

I have a slight bias against the hybrid design as well - likely because I've never owned or used a tube stove and just have more comfort using the cat stove. Additionally, I liked the logic of isolating the high heat to the combustor area. When I read about not being able to control the low burn in these stoves, it is just more ammo for my own personal bias. Like you, I would like a slightly larger cat only stove to be offered by WS. Because of rear center line constraints with my hearth and thimble setup, the only two choices for me were the Fireview and PH. I chose the Fireview as it was cat only - had the PH been the cat only and the Fireview the hybrid I would have gone with the bigger fire box.

All my personal bias aside, I enjoy reading about all wood stoves and especially the WS designs since I own one of their products. Perhaps I will learn to put aside my bias at some point in time. From reading various forums, it is very clear to me that more people seem to need the higher heat output of the tube and hybrid stoves than they need the low burn capabilities of the cat only stoves. Taking this observation and the constant need for lower emissions makes it pretty obvious why WS is heading down the path they are on. The customization features WS is bringing to market appears to be a rather smart move as well; not sure how many NASCAR fans burn wood stoves, but the day WS offers such a theme on an affordable model may be the day they route your phone call to voicemail.

 

The Ashford is cleaner than the IS and PH.

 

I take away the complete opposite from the forums. I have very rarely read about people running their stove wide open in order to heat their houses. The reality is a lot of people are willing to let their furnaces or heat pumps carry them on the warmer days. I have a furnace but it is never used unless we're traveling. I heat with wood, not just when it's cold. I started with a tube stove for 2 seasons and hated the inability to control the burn rate. I hate hearing "just load less wood if you need less heat". My wife and I work full time and I have little interest in tending a stove, it's not a hobby it's my heat source.

 

Not surprising. I have yet to find anyone who sees the world as I see it and I rather like it that way. Just call me negation man.

 

There have been several occasions where I have been thankful for being able to run my IS hard, like a tube stove. Air 2 notches above 1/4 mark and 850 on the front thermometer. Enough air to not have to deal with coals in the AM.