Getting acquainted with the Fireview

So, it has now been a few weeks that we've had the Fireview in the living room. Being shoulder season and living in New England, it has been cold enough a few mornings for me to get the stove going but not build a big fire.

What I've learned so far:

• It takes it's time to get to 250 on the gauge which is when the manual says to engage the cat. it's not a PH, but there is enough mass in this stove and I think soapstone has this characteristic of capturing the heat. So it takes it's sweet time getting up to cat ready heat, and probably more so as I'm only putting in a few splits.
• Once it gets to cat temp and I engage the cat, it climbs more rapidly to higher temps and doesn't really jump to 400'F but does a fairly quick climb up to that range. This being shoulder season, that's enough for me and I move the damper from 2. to 1 to get to a steady state burn.
• It's so damm pretty watching the pretty fire that I sometimes let it run a little more open than I need to just for the ambiance of having such a beautiful stove and fire on the hearth. (previous stove was a big black box with no fire window) Now I get the fire going, and turn on the tunes and either do some reading, or cruise the internet in blissful beauty.
• There's plenty of room in the box for a way big enough load for me. I haven't started to try and get long burns yet. Tonight it is now down to 29'F here on the Mass/NH border and it will be my first overnight burn.
  • I went out tonight at 5:30 and I had an afternoon fire, but it was down to just big chunks of coals when I left. I came home at 9:45 PM and the stove was still hot, and there were smaller but still plenty of coals in the stove to just open it up, throw in a few splits, and she fired right back up. Sweet!
• Once it gets up to temp, you are going to live with the heat for a while, so don't light it if you don't need it, as it takes it's damm sweet time coming back down to room temperature. This is only an issue as we've been having chilled mornings but then by late morning or early afternoon it's been in the mild 50s'F.
• This stove drives itself. It's so easy to manage, it is ridiculous. My old steel box was all over the map.. running too low, and then add some air and ut-oh.. too hot, not over-firing but just big sways in temp. The Fireview is so easy to get to a preferred temp and just close it down and cruise. I haven't yet tried bringing it down to completely closed yet like Charlie is doing in his PH, but that will come as I begin to get into 24X7 burns.

Let me just close by saying I am soooo impressed by this stove. I know the ornate style isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it is such a beautiful addition to our main living area, which otherwise is rustic 70's rough sawn pine panels, lots of hanging plants and Joni Mitchell on the stereo. Besides that, I can already tell that my wood consumption is going to be way down from last year. Where last year I was heating a lot from the family room downstairs as the smoke dragon in the living room would blast us out of the house unless it was a very cold day.

I'm sure I'm just getting started, but I am looking forward to sharing many a cold winter morning with myself, the Fireview and some great coffee and pastry. Bring her on, Old Man Winter!

 

That's how the old Vigilant was. Smolder or inferno. Nothing in between. When I started bringing in modern stoves it seemed ridiculously easy.

 

Solid post Oldhippie, and thanks for taking the time. While I don't have a cat stove, some of your learning resonates with me, like leaving 'er more open than I should just to see those gorgeous flames.

Did you just throw the splits on top of the coals, or did you rake them forward first? Some here recommend doing that.

Court and Spark?

 

It's so pretty!

Nah...I didn't need the room and wasn't trying to stuff the stove.

Blue! Oh, and this one too.

 

Great post hippie I love these stoves too and am constantly amazed at how well, easily, efficiently this thing runs. I lit the stove Thursday morning at about 0500 and went to work when I got home 12 hours later there were still coals inside and the stove was hot to the touch that soapstone really holds onto the heat. When we started looking for a woodstove my wife was against it because of the big black metal box thing I told her hey some of them have gold colored trim she thought that was even worse. We finally found one that she approved of and were going to buy it when I found out about woodstock and lets just say it was done after that.

 

Glad you're loving the new stove.
This is only my second year with the Keystone but here's my $.02

Yes, there is a long lag between firebox temp and stove top temp. The heat has to penetrate the air scoop, cat housing and stone. Do you have a pipe thermo? It is much more responsive. I can light a cold stove and have 600F single wall pipe surface temp in ~15 min with less than 100F STT. I use the pipe thermo to control the burn rate durning cold starts. I hold the pipe between 300-500 for about 20 min to char the wood good and then engage the cat (STT usually still under 100F). As you said, the STT will start to climb in a hurry with an active cat. I spoke to Jamie at WS about this and he agreed that waiting on the STT is a waist of BTU's. I'm surprised they don't send a pipe thermo along with the stove top thermo, too many variables with the install/pipe types I guess.

Once you get out of the shoulder season its easier. Stove will stay hot- reload, char, burn.

To avoid a hot house during the day in the early shoulder season, I wait until night to build a fire. I can put enough wood in the stove and slow the burn enough to have a warm stove and house it the morning without overheating at night (I set the draft to 0-.5)(u may want to experiment with setting the draft to 0 while you can watch the stove, Dennis' wife has had a 700F STT from doing this. I think it was a full reload in a hot stove. Raising the draft to 1 resolved the issue by increasing flames in the firebox which burned the smoke up and radiated the heat out of the sides of the stove and decreasing cat activity.) Dennis tells it so much better than me. The point is the stove will stretch the load out for a nice low burn.

As you said the stove is a breeze to operate. Within a month you'll be down to perfecting your new skills

 

Thanks Dennis, I hadn't read the story of your wife, I may have joined after that.

I am going to go back and reread your input a couple times and then may have questions.

I just returned from a couple hundred mile ride on the scooter and am setting up for the 3rd world series game right now.

 

I do have a single wall pipe, and I have a simple magnetic thermometer there and a accurate IR thermometer so I can use the flue temp as opposed to the STT if that is a possibility. Sounds like it is? I may try it.

Agreed

Got it.

I am definitely still learning this baby.. but it's fun. Had lots of ghost flames and rolling flames today.

 

When I had my Fireview, I found .75 or just under 1 , was a nice all around draft setting.. No doubt a fine stove and fun to run! Simplicity! I can say the Fireview is a stove that doesn't run your life for the winter.. Load it, char it, close the bypass, and adjust the air setting,, your free of the stove for the day.. Glad your enjoying your stove Old Hippie! I knew you'd love it! It's a fun stove to get to know as well.. Yes it's amazing how much heat and burn time you get from a small load... One thing, never rush the start up heat...I believe doing so is hard on the stone, cement and cast iron.. I think if you follow that , you'll have a long lived stove.. Talking to Ron at Woodstock, he has a 30 year old non cat Fireview that he won't give up, he loves it that much... Says a lot about the service life of these stoves.

 

Last night it was 28'F here after the Red Sox win. So I started with my first overnight load. Since it was past midnight and the wife gets up at 5:30 and I'm pretty much up by 6:00. so I wasn't feeling the need to put in a full load, but I put in 5 smallish splits. So lit the stove, charred the wood, watched the after game analysis and then hit the sack about 12:30AM. I set the draft at 1. Just really looking for some warmth for the main living area for the AM.

Got up at 6 and still had a lot of glowing coals and slightly below 400'F (like 380'F) on the stove top temp gauge. Nice and warm. It's such sweet heat. Warms my toes!

So, since it was hovering around 30'F I let the stove continue to run down. Somewhere I read last year to just let the stove get down to minimal coals before stuffing the stove again. There's still plenty of good heat there.

So I was going to stack another cord this morning then go for a ride on the scooter to meet an old friend for lunch. So I figured "hey, just let this thing burn down, and I'll keep an eye on it and load it after I get the cord stacked. So I finished up around 11:00 and come in and sure enough the stove is still hot coals and still above the 300 mark on the gauge. ...and the room/house is still totally comfy warm. It's 76 in the far wall in the stove room, and it's 69 on the far wall of the rooms on the opposite side of the house. I've got a short hallway to the two rear rooms on the first floor. I use a little vornado fan on the floor to push cold air into the stove room from the hallway and it seems to do the job, even though those rear two rooms are above a cold garage where the scooters live.

So by now it's warmed up nice outside and is closing in on 50'F, so I figure let the stove die out. I leave the house at noon, and I have lunch and go for a nice ride into southern NH out towards Keene. There's a Harley shop out there, that the "Gear Consultant" is very cute, and she keeps a decent pot of fresh coffee going for old codgers like me that come in and don't spend a nickle but put our dirty fingers all over the shiny new bikes.

I get home at 4:30, the wife is home from school, the house is still comfortably warm, and that stove is still 200F' on the gauge. This is from a less than full load I put in at Midnight and it is now 5:00 PM. I'm not sure I had any hot enough spark in there to start a raw wood fire, but I'll bet a chunk of Supercedar and some kindling and I'd have had it started. I'm not sure... but I am sure that soapstone sure does hold the heat and gives back as warmth.

Earlier in the day I did some minor maintenance on the Resolute in the family room/laundry room finished basement, I gave it a sponge bath with used Harley soapy water and then rinsed it and the hearth off of 8 months worth of dust. So I figured I'd light that one and just let the warm air float up the stairs. it actually does a pretty good job of that this time of year.

I've actually got this thing working pretty damm well. But there's no way it'll have warm coals very long into the AM. If I jump up at 5:30AM and race down stairs and have really good kindling and a chunk of supercedar then I'll get it going again. ..but only because I've got the routine down to a science.
..and sometimes not, if it's really cold.

Well Red Sox won again. That's pretty cool stuff right there. I'll say this though, those Cardinal pitchers are great.

 

Thanks Steve - that was a good read.

 

Sounds like a good ~11 hr burn on a partial load first try. Its so easy....
Do you have a max temp indicator on your thermo? Easy to make out of a paper clip and lets you know what the stove did at night. My wife thinks its to keep tabs on her while I work 24 hr shifts

 

I don't. But, I do have one of those new fangled LL Bean thermometers that reads inside temp, and outside temp and also records lowest and highest temp. I guess I could put it close to the stove, but not sure that's the same concept? I think it did get warmer during the burn, I've notices as the cat settles in and the flames die out as I set it to 1 on the draft it slowly works up towards 500'F on the top of stove gauge. Might even go past it.. the wife and I sleep upstairs in the loft master bedroom and even with the ceiling fan and all that it's always warmer up there.

Tell me more about this paper clip thermometer?

 

The other thing I'm learning with this new stove is that I think timing is more important that ye' olde smoke dragon. With ye olde' smoke dragon I simply load it up at night before I went to bed and not worry about charring the new wood or any real impact a partial load might make to get it to full load before hitting the sack.

With the Fv I noticed last night (it got mid 20s here fairly early last night) I was running along at a nice cruise with the temp gauge steady state about 500'F, no flames in the firebox, and the cat glowing a nice bright orange square, but now I'm thinking it's time to load it up. But wait, if I disturb this nice cruise to put wood in to a full box, then the temp will decrease.. I'll need to char the new wood, that means leave it open another 10~15mins, before I close it down again. Maybe that's not that big a deal, do I really need to worry the charring? the wood is about 18~22%MC, some lower, but it's a mix of New England hardwoods, Maple and Oak mainly. I've been going for the maples and a little birch this time of year just because I think they burn a little easier/quicker and I've got plenty of it.

Anyway.. I'm getting used to the Fireview and can tell it's going to be a nice winter, as sit here at 8:30AM, realize I have zero conference calls to make, airplanes to catch or reports to write, and my biggest gig all day is stack more wood and clean up the yard a bit before we really get any of that snow that can come anytime now. I gotta' cut and sweep the lawn one more time too.

I'm liking this retirement gig!

 

Scotty if you have a pic of your hearth in the high resolution format and send it to me, I'll do one up of your hearth. It's not time consuming and one of my "mental health" hobbies.

 

Steve, I really like reading your posts.
You picked a great time to get the Fireview, so you have time to relearn how to burn.
The retirement thing is definitely a transition. I'm still busy most days, but it's so nice to be able to sit in front of the fire in the morning instead of getting ready for work.
Don't miss the 12 hr. workdays either, although they occasionally happen in the summer.
Besides, I get to bug Scotty now.