FHC Exclusive! Long low oak burn in the new Ideal Steel stove

I'm guessing the house temps may creep up a bit since the stove is warmer.

I'm interested in Fox's idea about closing off that last 10% when you give this a go again on a milder day.

 

The weather might just cooperate for that soon with the locust.

 

How does this coming Friday look? The forecast for us is a high of 51 with a low of 43. Perfect for a 100% closed, low burn with locust.

 

Thursday into Friday looks promising.

 

Yep. That looks like the day to do it, if your schedule allows for it. I guess load it up before you head out in the morning and then try for a 24 hour burn?

 

At just shy of 10 hours into the burn, stove top temps settled down to 305, room temps holding at 69, outside temps holding at 19, here's a quick video of the firebox, and I'm going to bed.

 

You're going to bed?! where's the dedication?

Seriously, though, that's holding together pretty well. I wouldn't be surprised if the stove top is at, or near, 300 at 7AM.

 

There seems to be one missing piece of data. What is the moisture content of the wood? You said seasoned almost 2 years, but that doesn't tell us if it's 25% or 10%. An educated burner would guess somewhere right in the middle, but if you have a moisture meter, it would be nice to know what you get on a couple of fresh splits of that oak. Thanks.

 

Well its 8:00, 17 hours into this burn cycle. I slept longer than planned and therefore expected to come downstairs to a cold stove and a firebox full of ash. But stove top temp is 225 and the hot spot on the front of the stove is 300. The firebox looks like its still a third to half full of wood. I wasn't sure if it was just coals ready to collapse into a heap of ash so I opened up the air to 100%. In the past when I've done that on a bed of coals the coals glowed and got hotter but I've never gotten flames. I took photos before and after opening the air as well as a quick video about 5 minutes after opening the air to 100%. To say I'm surprised is an understatement.

 

Wow. Looking at these results with 10% air, I can't wait to see what this animal does with a 0% air setting and full length locust splits. Could very well blow past 20+ hours.

 

After about 20 minutes on full air, stove top temps are back up to 350, hot spot temp is at 420, so there is obviously lots of fuel left in this firebox. I'm shutting it back down to 10% air and heading up to the office to see a patient. I'll check back in when I get home later.

I had the house furnace thermostat set on 65. With a low of 19 last night, it was too cold for a long low burn to keep inside temps where we like them, and the furnace kicked on sometime after 6:00am this morning. So current inside temps don't mean anything at this point.

 

This burn went better than I expected. At this point, if kept low, it looks like it could have gone 20-24 hours.

With big solid splits of hard wood, it seems 24-30 hours would be possible. Very nice.

 

Brian, those are some very nice results... Thanks for keeping us posted.... How do you like that flue probe ?

 

And you expected better than I did. Now I'm feeling kind of foolish.

 

This also shows that with hard wood this stove should be able to produce 15+ hours of usable heat at a higher output level.

Essentially, this should be on par with the princess, but a little more powerful... I think.

 

Now, here's my challenge to you; load up the progress full and tight and burn it low. I still think longer burns are capable from the Progress if you shut it down before the secondaries grab hold.

 

Give it a shot Charlie and teach this new stove a lesson. Well, on second thought, just try not to embarrass us Progress owners too much.......

 

I just split two pieces. One was 14%, one was 10%.

 

Wood splits I have are 16's and split small... That wouldn't really give me true test of what the PH can do... That thing can take 22 in long splits.. Staggering them would still leave too much unused space... Only thing I could do would be to make a bunch of 11 in pieces and pack them in.. I'm very happy with my burns, always have coals, so I'm not chasing the stove even with a partially full firebox.. 8-12 burns work out fine for me...plus the stone throws out extended heat as well... I'm sure packed full the PH could go 18 hrs, to me it's just makes life easy throwing in 6 -8 pieces of wood and let her burn... I'm really not pressed for extended burn time.. I'm always warm and always have coals... Even my Esse still has coals after 12 hrs, so I'm not chasing that either.. But I would be interesting to see what the PH does sometime packed full.