Strongly Considering the Ideal Steel - Input Appreciated!

Hey BeantownBurner I see you've gotten some good advice so far, I hope it helps ya to make your decision.

You mentioned weight, and yes, it listed as 740# for shipping and I have no way of weighing it after uncrating and installing it, but it is a heavy stove to move around.

As to clearances, I have mine set right on the outside of the clearances with wood paneling near it as well as TV cable, and none of it gets hot at all. I was worried about the heat output as well when I installed it, but after running it quite hot, I realized I didn't have to worry about that at all.

Also, by my original post, I was not trying to deter you from purchasing an IS, it is a wonderful stove.
I just don't know how I'd appreciate it standing out so far from that wonderful mantle. The best part is that it's your house and you get to make that decision.

As long as you can live with the installation limitations, I think you'll be quite happy with the stove itself.

So.. have you picked out a color pattern and theme yet??

Oh, and it's good that you were planning on going full soapstone with it. I can't say what the stove is like without the soapstone, but I don't regret going with the soapstone.

 

Thanks Chaz! I appreciate all input, so I didn't take it as trying to deter me, just help me think this through. It's great to hear that none of the area you have around the stove set right on the outside of clearances gets hot.

I called Woodstock yesterday and they said that with all the soapstone the stove weighs about 640 (she actually said she could remember if it was 620 or 640, but in that ballpark!). I'd still love to know if anyone here has any thoughts about my floor and if I should be concerned at all about this weight (plus hearthpad, plus full load of wood), and if so if anyone has any advice on if I can do anything about it.

In terms of design, I haven't yet. I'm about two hours from Woodstock's factory, and I have the day off next Friday, so I'm planning on taking a trip up there (turning it into a mini family road trip!). I'm excited to see them in person! I'm kind of leaning towards the charcoal with metallic blue accents. That said, I like a lot of the colors. I also like your colors, which I think is the charcoal with copper accents, and that might be my wildcard last minute move! I hope they have different ones on display so I can see in person. I am a musician, so I'm thinking perhaps treble clefs for the andirons, and I'm still thinking through designs for the sides and top.

 

BeantownBurner, my only piece of advice and see if you can get the ash pan, trust me you want it makes cleaning out the stove a piece of cake I just don't know if it's available on a shortened leg system. I also have the full soapstone package and it radiates heat nicely even after the fire goes out a day later.
I'd like to help you out with the construction portion, I've seen the pics, but I really need to know what sit on or if they've been cut what their dimensional sizes before I can give an accurate statement I don't want to mislead anybody on a safety issue

 

Thanks Canadian border VT! I am trying to do the ashpan! You can use the ashpan at all the settings except the very lowest, and I am trying to do this at the second to lowest setting.

I appreciate that you nor anyone can give me accurate advice on the construction portion without seeing it in person. D you know who would I speak to about this kind of thing? A carpenter? The chimney company that will do the install (they did my liner install and are very experienced)? Someone else?

 

Ok, thinking about it, this is an old fireplace right? If so what is the chimney in your pic it's covered in sheetrock. But if it's a brick chimney that goes up through the house that weighs a lot more than anything else you're ever going to put in it. If you have a long level and you can put it on those beans if they're still not dropping then you should be fine.
Think about it three by three Hearth size is 9 square feet 800 lb is less than 100 pounds per square foot.

 

Yes, I assume the chimney was built when the house was built around the 1890s. It's a full brick chimney on the inside of and outside wall of the house, but within the envelop of the house for all but the last ten feet or so where it comes of the roof. Most of the chimney is behind horsehair plaster walls, about 6 feet or so of it goes through an attic space, and the foundation of the chimney is in the basement, fully exposed and is all brick to the foundation of the basement, which is concrete. I believe the last few feet of the chimney at the top were rebuilt at some point before I bought the house, but other than that I don't think it's been touched other than me having it lined (prior to which it had no liner, not even terra cotta, just plain brick). I would have the stove sitting partially on the existing chimney hearth and partially on a hearth extension pad in front of that over the wood floor.

I'm not sure what you mean by if I have a long level and can put it on those beams and they're still not dropping I should be fine. Can you elaborate/clarify? I'm not totally following.

Thanks!

 

If any structural part in an old house is overloaded by weight, the beams will sag overtime, because of the lathe and Plaster in your house I'm assuming it's at least 120 years old. Ok re read above post.. 1890..Therefore, if you put a level on the joists in the basement and they are not noticeably sagging in the middle you should be fine because the amount of weight you're adding is negligible per square foot

 

Above assume that none of the joists have been cut for the addition of Plumbing electrical excetera

 

Gotcha now. Well, as this is a house that is 120 years old, things are not totally plumb nor level, and if you put a marble on the floor in certain parts of the house, it may roll, but I don't think there is any significant (or perhaps any) sagging in the beams/joists. That said, I will take a level and check around the basement. This is very helpful! Thanks!

 

I will look into this as well. I had a very thorough home inspector when I purchased the house 7 years ago, who was very knowledgable of old houses. She said the house had very good bones and didn't point out anything like this. That said, I did have an electrician run a line and saw him drilling a hole through some of the joists to run the wire. I asked him about this and he said it was code, you just had to drill at a certain place in the joist. I think I looked it up and found he was correct. I don't think there's a lot of this going on in my basement, but I'll double check.

 

As you are replacing another woodstove, you should be quite familiar with the temp. differences between rooms and between floors; that will not change much, if at all, with a larger stove.

It also sounds like you can squeak the I.S. into the space you have and you have checked with a great source of info. for that. The only other thing you might consider is an insurance co. and / or fire marshall inspection just to be 100% sure there is nothing a little too much for an I.S. install in your home.

You should be aware that the I.S. is an extremely heavy stove and so may want to consider that for installation into an older home to make sure the structure is up to it.

A cat. based or hybrid stove will deliver heat more evenly and longer than most if not all non- cat. stoves. So the size of the stove should not be much of a problem because you can throttle this stove down to a crawl and it will still burn cleanly with a decent cat., and have the added benefit of putting out that lower heat for a much longer time.

Moving from a non- cat. stove to a cat. stove you should be aware of the on- going expense of maintaining a catalytic combustor. I am a bit south of you in RI, normally burn 24 /7 and can only get about 2 years out of a cat. They are $175 and are gauranteed for three years and three more pro- rated, so basically you have to work out what buying a cat. every three or four years (the one in-between is covered by the gaurantee, as long as they continue with that gaurantee in the future). It is not terribly expensive, and will easily pay you back with more heat produced from less word but I think you should at least be aware of this on- going expense. And while some stove companies claim up to 10 years cat. life, I have never seen a cat. last anywhere near that long.

Best of luck with whatever you go with.

Brian

 

BeantownBurner just thought you'd appreciate some measurements with the ashpan.

Our stove is on the next to last hole on height adjust, can't go any lower. The bottom of the ashpan sits around 1.25 inches off the floor, and the lip of the stovetop sits 30.75 inches above the floor.
You can't go to the very bottom setting or the ashpan door handle can't open, it seems that the ashpan would still be above the floor, but barely.

Just some info I thought you might find useful.

I love what you were thinking with the design with the music theme, very cool.
We went with the charcoal/copper as it's the closest to black/gold. I'm a Pitt Steeler fan and she an Iowa Hawkeye fan. It was a no brainer for us.

As to the structural, most everything can be reinforced if necessary, the only concern I'd have there is that I believe I saw your circuit breaker box in that area. You likely will have to consult someone on code if you have to do structural reinforcement in that area.

Enjoy the road trip to the Woodstock company. I wish they were closer so I could visit.

 

Great info Chaz! You have the stove at the height I am hoping/planning to have it at. As you are top venting (I believe), how come you decided to have it so low? Do you love the ash pan, as others have commented they do?

Does the stove appear huge too you in your home? When I started this thread, I wrote that it seemed really big with my cardboard mockup, but these things are funny, a big ugly cardboard box might seem a lot bigger than a beautiful stove with a cool design! I guess I'll have a better sense of this when I see the stoves in person.

As mentioned, I like the colors you went with! I also like your bear designs! I've been going to the Catskills in the summers since I was born and there are quite a few black bears in the area - do you have bears in your part of NY too and is that why you went with that? Do you have any other pics of your stove? I'd love to see your set up and stove more than I can see from your avatar. Post some pics here, please!

 

The most accurate way to describe size of this stove IMO is slightly smaller than kitchen stove, about 20%

 

Chaz, in reading another thread on the site I saw you wrote that you had a wolf theme on your stove! Sorry about the mixup with bears! Apparently I need to work on my claw identifying skills (as well as my tree species identifying skills!). I'd still love to see more pics of your stove (I tried to find them in your profile and threads but couldn't) and am curious as to your thoughts on why you went with the low height, what you think of the ashpan, and the overall thoughts on the size of the stove (aesthetically) in your home.

 

I have a pretty large six burner kitchen stove (not huge industrial style, but on the large side for regular kitchen stoves). I hope the IS isn't only 20% smaller or the wifey is going to take some extra convincing! I guess we'll find out next Friday when we head to the Woodstock factory!

 

Hey BeantownBurner I wouldn't worry about the bear thing much at all.
Wife and I both like (ie respect) wolves, so once again it was an easy decision for us when it came to the theme of the stove.

You are not alone at all when it comes to learning more on tree identification, just one of the many things I am trying to learn better these days.

I went with the low height on our stove as it allowed me to use the existing stack without any modification. I wasn't sure if I could get away with it or not, but things went quite favorably for me during the install. I did have to take the sawsall to the stovepipe bottom to fit properly into the flue exit. (Flue exit wanted to mate up to a male end of pipe, and our pipe was configured as a female end.
A few vertical slices with the sawsall, and some plier work made everything fit fine, then used the stove putty to seal everything up)

I love having the ashpan, it makes it WAY easier to get rid of ash without having to either:
1.. let the stove go cold to shovel out the ash OR
2.. shovel the ash out of a very hot stove, while worrying about taking out a lot of the coals.

I am actually thinking of purchasing a second one so I can just swap out the pan and take the other outside and let cool. Right now I just remove the ashpan (close ashpan door) and take it outside quickly and dump it into the ashbucket. If I remember correctly BDF did so for his stove, and found it to be beneficial.

I have some pics in the thread..Warning.. Link will open in existing window Newbie here.. could use advice.

I was kind of shocked at the size of the stove when we first got it, in the pics you can see the old stove sitting near the new one. However, I find that I love the aesthetics of the stove, and the size of it does not bother us one bit. It's pretty much the centerpiece of the room.

I will be working on resizing and putting tile down to finalize a proper hearth for it soon (I hope) once the weather warms up and the stove isn't needed.

If you want some other pics as well, just ask.

One more thing, a word of advice. In the one pic you'll see that I had the ashpan door open to help get the fire going strong. I found out rather quickly that if you do that, you MUST leave the main door cracked open, otherwise the gasification will build up gasses which WILL flare up rather dramatically in the secondaries.

It did that to us, blowing ash and some very small embers out the bottom, scared the heck out of everyone in the room.

 

Wow Chaz, that is a great looking setup! The copper really pops! Nice!

Did you do the install yourself or hire someone? How did you move and maneuver the stove around? I'm wondering how one goes about this with such a heavy stove. Are you planning on moving it out of the way to tile the heath pad? If so, again, how will you go about moving it?

 

I do not have to go up a set of stairs, so install was pull the side panels off the legs, pull the cat and accessories, take off the door put it on a heavy duty Dolly and roll it in. Stove's at that point probably less than 500 pounds.

 

Does all that stuff come off easily? Did you put the legs back on while it was still on the dolly in the place you were putting it? I have four stairs up to my first floor and then a pretty straight shot.