Absolute Steel Hybrid

As noted earlier, the grate in the firebox is the same as the IS. Except they have made the slots a hair wider (I think Ken said 1/16"). I noticed because I rake coals with a simple poker bent into an 'L' shape. It never fit into the IS slots, but does fit into this stove's slots in the grate. I recall working to get ash down through the IS grates, so fell this is a good improvement. We just emptied our second full ash pan - got to love these Woodstock ash pans!

 

Some of us have been begging for wider slots in the IS ash grate for quite a while. Have to drag the coals / ashes over the grate for quite a while to get the majority through the narrow slots.

Brian

 

OK, the mechanical probe may be a bit off, and the damper and probe are pretty close.

My damper is located about 4" above the top of the stove, and the temp. probe is located after a 90 degree elbow and just before the thimble, perhaps 24" or so away from the damper. When the damper is fully closed and the draft closed mostly, such as set for the long, overnight burn, the flue temp. is about 100F below the stove top temp. (in place where I have found to be the warmest on the IS anyway).

Brian

 

Yes, catalytic combustors deteriorate over time and not in big steps. A one- year old cat., while it works fine, is not nearly as quick to light off as a brand new cat. In fact, some say that cats. are hyperactive for the first 100 hours or so and I have found that to be true; a brand new cat will light off with nothing but a couple of pieces of newspaper (no kindling or wood of any size). A one- year old cat. will no longer do that but still work pretty well once it has achieved light off temperature.

Good to hear you like the new stove, thanks for posting about it.

Brian

 

Taken right after the photo above (just posted later).

 

Flamestead , looks like you are into thermometer hoarding too.

When you get a chance, would like to read about your experiences with overnight burns with the AS.
Any chance you will be doing any tests with CWF (eco bricks) like T-Stew has been posting in the IS thread?

 

I've been following T-Stew's experiments with interest. I'm not sure if I can bring myself to buy the bricks, but I'll think about it!

Last night it was 20 degrees outside (and same this morning), with no wind.

Reloaded onto about a 2"-deep coal bed, probably about 85-90% full firebox. A mix of White Ash, Red Maple, and Black Cherry (sounds colorful!).
+ 2 minutes I closed the bypass - flue temp was only 275 at that time. This is quite early (just playing).
+7 minutes flames reaching from bottom to top of firebox on one end of the splits, closest to the glass, and flames along the front. No flame on top or at the back.
+9 minutes first secondaries, just by the the one end of the splits, at the front edge of the fireback, and the flue probe was at 300. At this point I closed the flue's key damper 100%. Most of the flames died. In retrospect I would let it burn hotter a little longer at this point. But I didn't.
+30 minutes The flue was 400, STT 300. Flames from the top front split. No flame on the top/back of the firebox. I moved the stove's damper from wide-open to 2.5 (about mid-point of its range of motion). The flames then died way back.
+40 minutes Flue 400, STT 350, I moved the air to 2.0. Firebox has gone black. This is a point where I would have considered leaving it for the night without worry about it running away on me.
+60 minutes Some creaking sounds as steel expands. Flue 450, STT 400. I think this is probably an over-shot based on the flue temp. I set the stove damper to 1.5.
+66 minutes Flue 500, STT 480. Yup, over-shot. Went to bed. (I left the air alone because I didn't want to wake up to a back-puff. I'll play with setting it lower some weekend during the daytime. (Woodstock did their low-burn EPA test with it set at 0. I'll try that, but not after over-shooting in the same burn cycle.))
+8hr 40 min. Glass black in most of the front (quite unusual for our normal burning style). Flue 200, STT 275. There are a lot of coals and the general form of a couple splits at the back of the firebox. Deepest coals are 8" deep at the back (bad pic, below). I am quite sure I could have left it alone and then re-loaded in the mid afternoon without needing a match, but in my mind the burn ended at 6:30 am when the oil furnace kicked on.

 

If your camera time was set correct that pic was 8:19 am... looks like several hours of heat left there to me! Just depends how much your house needs of course.

Perhaps you have a more locally made product? I'm sure shipping the Eco's causes their price to be higher that far away but I have no idea. If I had my own woods (still hopeful someday) to cut I'd stick to that, but until then if I have to buy wood I'd rather buy the bricks. I do scrounge all I can for free of course.

 

What, no Yellow Poplar and Osage Orange?

Not too bad for lightweight wood. 8" of coals would burn for a while...

 

The camera is an hour fast. Yes, lots of heat left, but the house was pretty cool, so I reloaded.
No issue with the bricks, but I've got 60 acres of hardwoods that need thinning. Bringing coal to Newcastle type of idea.

I'm thinking I need to keep my cat from getting too hot in order to stretch out the burn times. I'm probably reloading onto too many coals for a loooonger burn.

 

Sadly no. I do have 20 acres of oaks, but they are on very steep ground. And quite a few acres of Ironwood, but also semi-inaccessible. I do have half a cord of Red Oak that is aged 2yr (still another 3 to go, right?), and I've got several cords of Sugar Maple that are 1yr aged. The bulk of the piles are the mid-weights (Red Maple, Ash, Cherry -- decent, but not exceptional)

Ken, from Woodstock, was interested in how the stove does with less dry wood, so I brought 4 or 5 reloads of the Sugar Maple to the house porch this afternoon, and will try some of it one of these days. I'm expecting to need a lot more air for those burns.

 

Love Ironwood, sends our fireview to the moon. Load of that would put the test to the absolute!

 

Yeah. But this is the first stove (my IS ) that I can actually use the ash pan effectively. It just does take a lot of back and forth to get it all down... hoping if I get one of their ash rakes it might be a tad quicker and more convenient than using my ash shovel to scoot it all around with, especially since the IS's ash pan covers less than half the width of the stove. But it is so nice for a change to not waste coals, biggest pieces that make it through are less than a pea in size. So just a tad bigger might be good too. I keep a sliver of kindling about the right size to poke through the slots and clear them if they get clogged up.

Using a poker like that seems to me like it would make the whole process a bit longer and less convenient...

 

Making the slots bigger won't be a hard task to accomplish

 

That was some pretty freakn thick steel there... I don't even know if I would say lifting it out of the stove wouldn't be a hard task! lol but what did you have in mind?

 

Agreed, it does work to separate the ash from the coals. It also goes a long way to keep the ash pan cooler; if there were a substantial amount of coals burning down there, the ash pan would probably warp like a pretzel.

Still, I would like to see the slots a but wider- not much but maybe 1/8" or so. I contacted Woodstock today to inquire about the new Absolute grate and they are going to check the slot sizes and get back to me. They did confirm though that the Ideal and Absolute do use the same size (outer dimensions, not the slots) grate, which is smart from a manufacturing and even a consumer point of view- it keeps the number of parts in inventory down and raises the chance the part you want will be in stock.

Brian

 

So brian, if I am reading that correctly it will be possible to put larger slot grate in an IS? I may have to think about that.

But to be honest in the ash pan in mine now is so much better than the hearth stone friend has. But just because something is better do sent mean it still can't be improved.

 

Yes, the grate for the Absolute steel stove is the same one as used in the Ideal Steel except the grate slots are wider. I have a back- order in right now; they are not yet in production but I will take one when available.

Sorry, I know this is OFFTOPIC so I will stop here and post this info. in the Ideal Steel tips..... thread.

Brian

 

Still re-thinking this whole side loading door situation on our end. Wife stayed home from the blizzard today and got burned on the FV side door unloading ash. Makes a guy consider the front load IS, even though I love side loading going from a front load stove.