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

Ok its 10:30, 19 1/2 hours into the burn. Stove top temps are at 225, top front of stove is at 325 and this thing is definitely still throwing usable heat.

Here's a quick video of the firebox with the door open. It started sending up some small flames when I opened the door. Still usable fuel in there.

Edit to ad: With the door open it felt like it was going to melt my iPhone when I went in close! damm, its still very hot in there. The soapstone must be helping in retaining the firebox heat.



I just opened up the air to 100% to see if it would heat up to any extent at this point.

 

Its 20 hours into this burn, and since I opened the air back up to 100% stove top temps climbed back up to 325, front of stove above door is at 350 and there are small flames in the firebox and the soot on the door glass is mostly gone. This oak load ain't done yet.

 

Fantastic. Before I installed it, I checked it on a pot of boiling water. Guess what temp it registered? Yep, you guessed it, right on at 212.

I also checked the Harbor Freight IR thermometer at the same time. It read 213, so I think I can trust the stove temp readings from this IR thermometer. All reported temps on this thread were taken with the IR thermometer.

 

Definitely.

I'm blown away by how much difference there is between the cherry I had been burning and this oak. I like burning the cherry and don't mind more frequent loading, I just didn't realize how big of a difference there was between the two.

 

WOW - that's all I can say............

 

I love the fact that this new stove is capable of achieving long burn times, especially for those that need the extra time. But for me, I completely agree with Charlie. I just need good heat through the night and a few extra hours in the morning so I can relax with a cup of coffee and I'm not rushed to reload the stove. My sweet spot is 9 to 12 hours. Anything longer is usually not needed, but it's nice to know it's possible.

 

Its noon, 21 hours into the burn cycle. I opened up the air to 100% almost an hour ago (once I passed 20 hour mark in this test I figured I accomplished my goal) to burn it down and make some heat. Stove top temp is back up to 330, top front of stove above door is at 390, probe temp on the double wall stove pipe is 500, and its throwing off a lot of heat again.

With some fire in the firebox now, not just coals.

Room temp is back up to 71 with no assist from the natural gas furnace for the last couple hours, outside temp is 30.

 

Brian, From your last post I'm guessing the furnace kicked in during the night at some point? What house temps did the stove maintain during the overnight burn? If you don't know (because of sleeping!), what is your furnace set at? Is the thermostat in the stove room?

I'm guessing having good dry oak, and dimensional lumber that sat tight together without much in the way of air gap/surface area helped get this nice long burn. Probably hard to obtain quite as long a burn with splits and rounds.
Still, an impressively long burn, to put it mildly.

Glad you are getting to test this stove, and are sharing your findings so generously.

 

The thermostat is set around 65-66 degrees. Its in the same room as the stove. Its an old analog style so its not exactly precise.

I know it was not running yet at 6:00am so I don't know when it kicked on except that it was sometime after 6:00am this morning. It got down to 19 last night so I don't think that's bad.

First floor temps are up to 72 now. Outside temps in low 30s.

 

Absolutely.

And at 21.5 hours into the burn, with outside temps up to the mid 30s now, the first floor of the house is back up to 73 since opening up the air to 100% approx 1.75 hours ago.

 

Thanks for the answer. That's great, Brian. An individual without back up heat wouldn't have had any problem with the house getting uncomfortable. Sounds like the furnace kicked on once just before sunrise, likely. Without the furnace, stove would have started to bring temps back up as temp rose outside. Maybe, when you try your next really long burn, put the thermostat just a tad lower?

 

Uh, that could be a problem with the women of the household. They tolerate the mad scientist but they don't want to wake up to a cold house.

By past experience with the Fireview I think the first floor of the house here would have bottomed out between 62 and 64 degrees early this morning without the furnace.

 

22 hours into burn cycle, outside temp 33, first floor 73, second floor 70, stove on 100% air for just over 2 hours. Stove top temp 300, stove front above door 350, still pumping out more than enough heat. Coals are burning down slowly but steadily, no active flames in firebox now.

Edit:
First floor just hit 74 at 12:55.

This stove took the house from 70 to 74 in two hours, from the 20 hour to 22 hour point in a burn cycle. That is simply astounding!

 

How far are you going to let this burn go before you reload? Do you go by wood in the stove, flue temps dropping, stove temps dropping? Looks like you may hit 24 hours. Bet Woodstock is happy. Wonder if the have had these burn times. I do think that really tight, packed load of dimensional kiln dried oak played its part here, but the indications are certainly that, with a good load of high BTU well dried hardwood, one can expect fairly easy 15 to 18 hour burns in a setting of normal winter temps and the stove burning on low. That's impressive, especially for a well built stove at this price point.

 

This wood was not kiln dried (though I have purchased kiln dried ends from a hard wood products manufacturer north of here.) The pallet manufacturer where I bought this wood receives it in 6"x6" lumber and cuts it down to the sizes they need for various products, then puts the cut offs in a pile outside. So it was fairly green when we got it but being relatively short it seasoned well. Its been in my basement for the last 5 months or so.

I'm going to let this load burn until we need more heat. I'm at 23 hours into this burn, stove top has dropped to 290, top front of stove is at 325, outside temp is at 34, and first floor of the house is still holding at 74. We don't need to reload just yet, there's still a lot of usable heat coming off this stove.

Here's the firebox at the 23 hour mark:

 

BB, Since I'm burning standing dead Ash I harvested last year here, that wouldn't give very good long burn results like Oak or locust would... No way your going to burn ash and not have secondaries within 3-4 hours.. Plus in my situation, I think I have a very strong draft.. Neither the Fireview or this PH have ever smoked out the loading door.. no matter what... On both stoves I had forgot at one time to open the bypass and still didn't really get any smoke building until almost completely loaded... I think the PH will burn very marginal wood with ease as well... Woodstock even did a video about burning green wood in the PH..

 

I agree Dave... I'm burning mostly ash and when that's gone I'll be into my 2 year old silver maple... Next year I'll be getting into some oak I have drying, also for the following year I'll be harvesting hopefully soon some Hop hornbeam , hickory and some more oak.. So 2 years from now I should get to see how that burns in my PH..

 

Your family has to be impressed with the new stove... Quite a step up from the Fireview..