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

Just started the morning fire. I'm going to let it hang out at 50% air for a half hour or so. Maybe that will clean it up a bit.

 

Yep, that happens when running the stove very low and slow. I think Gark has a great idea to leave a layer of ash to kind of seal off the ash pan when the stove is running. The first time my ash pan door filled up with creosote, it was so bad the door stuck closed and when I opened it, there were strings of creosote between the door and the ash pan body- it looked like black taffy.

A few people have had these stoves leak creosote out the back of the stove and onto the floor; the cause is again, running very low and slow and filling the firebox with all that crud. Because these are cat. based stoves, they can actually run like that and do so efficiently and cleanly because the combustor cleans up all the creosote that would normally go up the chimney. Still, it does make a mess of the inside of the firebox.... and sometimes, the ash pan door too.

Brian

 

We got negatives coming monday.. So I am gonna pull some dry sugar maple and put this girl threw her paces...

 

What you mentioned about the ash, I never rake that clean. I always leave a good bit in there and cover the grate. Never had any issues.

 

That stove was built for those weather conditions. Time to rock and roll. Send some of that cold down to PA.

 

Just an FYI on the reports about creosote leaking from the rear of the stove. After going to the open house at WS this past fall, both Lorin and Tom showed me a dissected 1yr old IS (golf's returned stove). They were able to determine that the leaking fluid was found to be collected moisture trapped in the air intake at the rear of the stove and after enough water had collected it would find its way out. The moisture would mix with the byproducts of the manufacturing process creating the black soot like liquid, it's not creosote.

 

Thanks for sharing that My IS heats my home first time I saw the explanation.. was their a discussion on causes of moisture? high humidity, wet wood, chimney etc., just want to learn from others mistakes, as am now convinced I will not live long enough to make them all myself! but I was trying!

 

My chimney is 2 feet short of the minimum. I'm sure that's contributing. I've got the braces and just need the 2 foot section which I can pick up any day. However I have to find where the roof joists are in order to screw them in solidly. You can't use a stud finder thru shingles. I don't want to end up going thru the sheathing only. The roof is a year old ! Don't need extra holes in a new roof. Plus it's a cathedral ceiling so I can't go in the attic to check from below. This is why I've been putting it off.

 

So after a fashion, the liquid dripping out the back would be clean water?

That info. is still a little disconcerting to me: wood stoves should leak absolutely nothing onto the floor from any type of normal operation, even if that operation is outside the zone of what was intended, 'good efficiency', etc. And frankly, I am dubious of that explanation (their explanation, not addressing anything you said here) because I am having trouble imagining a situation where the water in air coming into a wood stove could possible condense into water. ?? The only place I can think of that would actually produce water would be the firebox; water is a by- product of all combustion.

Not sure what happened there but I would really like to see the 'innards' of that stove with some arrows and a few lines of explanation of exactly where the water came from.

Brian

 

s file this one under "Exactly what NOT to do with a wood stove."

Last night I was feeling pretty lazy (way overfull of food) so I just stuffed a bunch of wood into my I.S., closed the bypass, and left the draft set to the third notch, which is a slow burn setting for overnight.... once the fuel has been charred and the stove is hot. But the stove was not hot and I really knew better but did it anyway. This morning, the house was cool and the firebox and glass were coated with all that black tar (creosote) from a smoldering, dirty burn. I have not looked but I am sure the chimney is full of it also :-( This is the data from that burn:



You can see exactly where I loaded the stove- the temps. of the flue and stove top never really broke 200F. The entirely load of wood just pyrolized (glowed but showed no flame, like a cigarette), produced very little heat and made a pretty large mess. This is exactly what the EPA is trying to prevent but as you can see, improper operation will still carry the day and defeat the best intentions and designs of wood stove manufacturers. Just like driving a car into a tree I suppose.....

Brian

 

Cause and effect.
Do you dare burn a hot fire to clean up the firebox and flue, or will you check the flue first?

 

This may be where BK's thermostat could have helped. Where maybe an auto function would open the air back up to revive the dead horse.

 

Thanks for sharing this. I appreciate your honesty and it helps me realize I need to be prudent about both closing the bypass immediately (making sure stove is hot enough) and getting sufficient char time before closing down the stove. This is probably what Backwoods Savage was cautioning me about in the other thread where we talked about reload technique for cat stoves. I've listened to both what you and Dennis had to say about it and will likely be pretty conservative going forward as to avoid what your graph shows.

 

A stove is like a diesel engine. You provide it with air and fuel and it gives you combustion. But you have to play by its rules.

Any kind of combustion needs heat to be sustained. If also needs the right mixture of fuel and air at a given internal temperature to stay running. If you provide too little of the ingredients combustion will cease.

For a stove, your chimney draft is responsible for pulling air through the combustion chamber. If you have a cold chimney that hasn't established a good draft yet and you choke it, combustion will cease.

Air, fuel, and internal temperature.

That is why I have started burning hot at the beginning. Hotter then I need to. It brings the internal temperature into its parameter, the chimney draft (air) is established in its parameter, and the fuel is within its parameter of off gassing it's volatile gasses.

Otherwise, it is simply guess work. Maybe the cat will stall maybe it won't.
There is no computer to ensure the parameters are set before it is ready to cruise.

Running a woodstove is kind of like running my dad's old Farmall F-20 where you adjust the idle, choke, and spark. You adjust it based off of what you see and hear.

 

With the old, masonry chimney, I would have taken a look and probably done a cleaning (I could clean it from the basement). With the new SS Class A chimney, I just sort of forged ahead and started burning again, banking on the fact that the chimeny is not over- loaded with creosote. That plus the fact that I just do not ever let the flue temps. rise above 700F; I believe it will take substantially higher temps. to set creosote on fire. I may well be deluding myself but I think that is the case..... so I am hoping that further correct and clean running will be fine with the chimney as it is. I will check it in a month or so just to be sure though.

I did burn the stove a bit on the hard side, with flue temps. staying around 650F, to clean up the firebox and glass, which worked very well.

Brian

 

I do not know if I am doing it right. but since I only have 2 magnetic thermostats. I put 1 10 inches up single wall pipe. one stove top.. Do not engage cat until on SWP Stat reads above 325. So far so good. Daughter did put in 2 small splits and drop cat immediately while I was snow blowing. cat was obviously stalled. put split in snow bank checked cat and flue. looked OK reload half full let go to 500 dropped cat ran full air for 2 hours seems fine.

 

Yes, it would be clean water. I was able to see the water stains inside the dissected air intake myself. After enough water collects it looks for a way out and it eventually seeps through the rear seal. Both Lorin and Tom didn't have a reasonable answer for why it collects but after doing some testing with loads with different moisture contents all of them did it, didn't matter if it was 4% or 19%, the water would collect.
I would think with high enough temps the water would eventually turn to steam and exit through normal means.

This happened to me once last year towards the end of the heating season, never during the cold months. I can't speak for Golf, not sure when he was affected by the leaking water.

 

I had a really nice all day burn here. Reloaded on minimal coals with maple as the base layer, a piece of locust in the back and then mixed some oak, locust, and maple to around 75% full. Kept the house between 73 and 74. Outside temperature got to about 36 today. I opened up the air a bit now around 515 to get a little more heat out and to burn the coals down a bit. It's 540 right now and the stovetop is showing 260. I'm shooting for a 630 reload.

I know my friends and family get tired of hearing it but I love this stove. Coming from a wood/coal stove that lasted 4 hours between reloads at best this thing absolutely kills it.

 

I have never noticed such a distinct burn hole on the front right. I assume this is where air is entering the stove based upon how coals glow on that side at the end of a burn.

 

Does it on mine too. Also the left side is where the glass tends to get dirty.