ws absolute steel hybrid, a few questions

I have read a few post's on the as hybrid, how are they doing in terms of burn time
and overall performance. Hoping to back to wood since installing a pellet stove two
yrs ago in our basement. Small home about 1000 sq ft., will install in our basement.
rather then a full soapstone model I think for shoulder seasons the hybrid would serve
the purpose. And yes I am trying to heat the whole house.

 

Packed full with oak and throttled all the way down I've seen 24 hr burns. Normal winter operations I load at 12 hr intervals.

 

Being a new AS owner I can not speak from much experience yet. Still learning the stove.
From what I have experienced so far it is very stingy on wood usage.
I have been getting 10 to 12 hours burn when set for long burn. Last night's low was about 37 degrees and very windy. Last load in stove was 8pm. I ran the air intake on 2 after the stove got up to temp. Throttle it back to 1.5 at about midnight and went to bed. Temp was 70 in the adjacent room. Came down stairs at 9 temp was 65. Stove still had enough coals to hot start and stove top thermometer read 150.
Still learning what settings the stove likes for max heat or max burn. Heating around 800 square feet down stairs with the door open to the 800 square upstairs. House is a '20s farm house and not well insulated.

 

That's good info guys, thanks......

 

vtktm802 , you know that you'll have to put up some pics when that goes in, right?
Well, you don't HAVE to, but we DO love pics roun' heah'.
Our house is only slightly larger at about 1200 sq ft, and we use an Englander 30NC (pretty large stove). I think one of the hybrids will serve you well, and obviously, Woodstock is one of the best out there.

 

10/4 on that, if it goes in this yr, Seasoned wood will very soon become hard to find.
At least I have my stove selections down to woodstock and a few others.

 

vtktm802 .. Hello neighbor, I have the IS and the stove does 95% of the heating and on a 2200 square square foot house. I imagine the smaller stove wood handle your square footage perfectly. I just went with a bigger one because of the bigger space to heat and you know those Arctic snaps we tend to get up here

The IS is fantastic at running low and slow around a 350 degree stove top for 20 hours.. Woodstock is a great company.

 

I'd also think the AS would handle 1000 sq.ft. in most cases, but I guess that worst-case, with an unfinished walk-out basement where bare concrete blocks are pulling heat directly to the great outdoors, and an upstairs with a lot of air leaks and poor insulation, it could still be a struggle to heat. And how does the heat get upstairs? Is the stairway from the basement in the center of the layout upstairs? Is the upstairs floor plan a relatively open space, or cut up into several small rooms?
But as far as the stove brand? Yeah, I'm a Woodstock fanboy. I've seen the quality under the hood on their straight-cat soapstone stoves, and I assume that the hybrids have the same build quality, as well as ease of operation. I might like to put an AS in here at some point, if I can get it to fit somehow. Fireplace lintel is only 28-3/4"...

 

I heat approximately 1500sf with my AS. First & second floor. First floor is fairly open, so the heat can hit the stairs quite well. Step daughters room is the last one at the end of the hall, and she complains her room is always cold....yet hers has the door that is most often shut too.

Only time I've not been able to keep up in the bedrooms is when its 10 below or colder. Then I wish the stove in the basement was operational.

For 1000SF an AS would be awesome

 

We heated for yrs with a Jotul #8, the AS should perform well. Basement walls are insulated and sheet rocked and I am going to be adding blue board in a few areas.
Temperatures here have been in the low 30's and lower this week. Pellet stoves give a different heat then wood. Will be interesting to see actual length of burn times
the AS can get.

 

Heating from the basement can be difficult. Cold air return can be tricky. (You might want to look at the Ideal Steel also.)

 

I have owned my AS since the were released, and did a field test AS the prior year, so I have been burning with the product version of the AS now for 2 full seasons, and a year previous with a Field Test unit, for about a half season. I have a 1600sq New England Chalet (large cape with a cathedral ceiling one side with master bedroom upstairs) which is a fairly open heating area. I have a Fireview in the main first floor living room area and put the AS downstairs in what used to be a family room/home office for me when I was a telecommuter.

The AS is not a 24X7 stove for me until we get into deep winter with temps down in the 20'F and below range. It's just me and my wife now and outside of laundry and maybe I lift a few weights down there once in a while, we don't heat that space except when it gets really cold outside. But when it get's 10'F or below and especially down into the -10'F and below we get both stoves going and we need to be careful that we do run the forced hot water heat sometimes so we don't freeze the pipes due to lack of use.

I am on the 2 year old burn plan with some 3 year old left over hard wood usually also available too. So I've got dry hardwood mostly oak and maybe some locust and birch or elm mixed in. Primarily oak. I do use the AS in shoulder season sometimes when I really don't need high local heat in the main living area. I just crack the central stairway door to the main first floor living area and let the heat rise. My family room is well insulated. walls and ceiling.

AS Stovetop temps run typically in a cruise range of 500'F down to 300'F as there really isn't any main spot, right over the CAT like on a FV to place a thermometer and get an accurate reading. But if you've got a STT of 400'F your getting a good burn. I've also learned that with good wood, I can set the draft setting down to .5 or ven fully closed in really cold weather and still get really hot burning, secondary burning and ghost flames and I really never need to worry about getting downstairs early to feed the stove from hot coals. I can go 24 hours and still have very usable hot coal bed, and 18 hours and still have a very warm family room.

Put an AS in the 1K sq ft home and with some decent insulation in the cellar and get it cranked and you'll be fine. If you have the extra space down there an IS wouldn't hurt, as it's just more capacity for even longer burns, but I find the box of the AS with 2.5cu ft of very usable space to be way more than enough for my needs.

One small hint; no need to crank the door handle lever down with too much force. You'll just flatten the door gasket and potentially start leaking air around the door. The fix is just use your fingers (on a cold stove of course) to reshape the gasket. The door lever is just so big and works so well I think we have a tendency to snug it more than needed.

PS You'll love the ashpan! So much better than the Fireview with no ashpan.

You're big job now is get a good wood supply ready if you're not there with that yet.

PPS we want pics!