Ideal Steel Season #2 Tips, Tricks, and Improvements.

Ohh yea... When it's really cold, mine will operate just fine with the air completely closed. Depends on where I'm at with the burn cycle a bit though. Works best when it's hot and gassin off and the additional air is coming from the bi-metallic coil being fully open. Stove pipe is 23' straight up double wall insulated.

Suspect it all depends on how much draft you have.

 

actually my glass stays really clean, I guess because it's burning so hot. I've been thinking about opening up the primary air holes just a little to see if it will respond quicker. All in all it does great.

 

It's funny I noticed too that my glass was clean after. I closed it after it ran hot for an hour though so it wasn't a full burn and the off gassing was slowing down. With the coals.. I have been cycling it open and back closed again. This seems to really extend it's burn.

 

I wonder what the factory setting is when the lever is completely closed?? There must be some air making it's way in, no?

 

You can lay a mirror on the floor under the stove bottom west side (left side if looking at the stove front). Then watch the two sliding valves as you slide the intake lever open & closed. The rear sliding plate still leaves some air in when the lever is closed. Add to that the bit of unregulated air going into the firebox via a hole below the door opening (the hole can only be seen when the door is open).

 

Yep, the manual says that even with air closed, they still built it to allow air in.

 

I ran it closed last night about 3/4 full of mixed wood. I lifted the lid after an hour to make sure the cat was still lit. It was. So I went to bed. I woke up this morning to about 250 stove top. I opened the air and it went to 350 stove top with lots of red coals. So I closed it back off again. Haha I'm going to milk this one out. Temps are in the high 50s today.

 

Is that bad for the cat to be opening the lid?
I had a FV 201 last year that I would crack the lid on just to see. The cat on that stove was directly connected to the firebox so opening the lid did not pull the air through it. I think my PH and IS will pull room air through the cat if the lid is lifted. I could be wrong on that and am too worried to try.

 

I just opened mine a few mins to check the cat and theres no problem opening the lids on the IS as long as the fire isn't smokey and the cat is lit.

 

The lid is on the top side of the cat. There is no reason it would pull air through it. I've done it many times in the last year. No issues.

 

Ok thanks guys. I didn't know which direction the flow goes. Gotta admit I haven't fully investigated all the internals. The old 201 was so simple even I could figure it out.

 

I like to trust my gauges , but sometimes if I'm in a hurry and don't want to wait for the gauges to catch up I just take a peek. If I see red I know I'm good and can leave.

 

Yeah my PH is running pretty darn good. Occasionally I'll see smoke from the chimney when all indicators say it should be active. That always stirs my old desire to take a peek.
My moms IS is more troublesome. In large part because of the 8x8 masonry flue instead of a liner. That and trying to convince an 80 year old woman she can't just do anything she wants to it like the old smoke dragon.
A liner is going in soon. Now I need to convince her to rake ashes into the pan. Took 5 gallons of ashes and red coals out of the firebox yesterday and all of a sudden the stove began burning,,,,,clean.
It's a work in progress.

 

3:25 pm. I'm still on the same load of wood from my overnight burn. I opened the air up for 10 minutes and found lots of hot coals. Then I closed it again haha. Later tonight I plan on using them for a reload.

 

What specie of wood?

 

Just some nice secondary action tonight before it went into cat only mode.

 

Box elder, Mulberry, and 2 small locust splits.

 

I'm still waiting to break into the "good wood" Still working on my cedar and pine. So I'm not experiencing quite the burn times you are

 

Myself still burning popular with some apple uglies tossed in at night! 3/4 load at 3 pm yesterday at 1/4 air and I fell asleep early. It was still 80 this morning so i just opened air. it was down to 75 an hour ago so I figured I would give it a clean out. it's supposed to be 20 or so tonight.. Raked it around still a bed of coals on junk popular added more splits were back up to 80. that over 24 hours on popular

 

Bab, have you seen the effect the secondaries has on splits close to the secondary burn plate?