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

My handle has worked perfect so far & when I first assembled my stove I noticed the lock nut not wanting to fit in the recess real good but I made it work.
every thing else seems to be working really good. We enjoy it very much. If woodstock would put an auto air control on this stove it would be Great & if Blaze king would use a grated ash removal system I would try one. You would think that some one some day would get it all right.

 

I haven't had any issues with my door handle loosening yet.. fingers crossed. I did have to wedge a flat screwdriver between the nut and the recess to install it though, the nut-shaped recess was far to big to do any good and the nut just spun within. But the screwdriver worked fine to get it locked in position.

I am doing another big load combo of Ecobricks and ash and shooting for a low and slow burn since it got into the 40's today and is suppose to stay in the upper 30's overnight. It's been calm but of course wind forecast for tomorrow is 15-25 mph. Anyhow I got the low settled out much better this time. In fact that brings up a question... I've never really cruised at a low cat burn before. I know by the book the cat works down to 500F, is that accurate in real life too? I guess I got concerned when the cat came down to 600F. I popped the lid a little but saw no glow from the cat. I checked outside and saw no smoke. I bumped it up a little 2 1/2 hours in to get the cat cruising around 700 now. I still see no glow, and it's dark out so can't check the chimney. Still a safe bet the cat is working? Back corner of stovetop is at 260F, center burner is at 460.

 

The Bellville does not provide significant resistance to rotation of the nut when the surface the Bellville is shouldered against (on the non-nut side) is rotating in normal use. In fact, the Bellville will often help the nut rotate a bit, though it usually tends to be symmetric in travel.

 

I have not had a issue with my Handel at all. My stove is very new but mine came with a wave washer I am sure if some of you who have issues contact Woodstock they would send you the wave washer

 

I only got my stove a few months ago, it has the wave washer. It's still constantly coming loose.

 

Finally, all is right in my wood- burning world again. My old I.S. is back....

Put a damper in the stove pipe just above the stove outlet last night. Got a fire going and started tinkering around with the damper; it works best when fully closed (such as 'closed' is with a damper full of holes). The flue temps. went down, the stove top temps. went up and the flames got lazy and wispy inside the stove as they had been before. The chimney still pulls a bit harder than the old one, even with the damper shut, but it is now close enough to get a long, medium, overnight burn again.

Brian

 

Wow. I always questioned the "no need for key damper with epa stove" mantra; perhaps it makes sense for those that have 25 feet or less, but I have 28 and need to figure out the best way to use mine after my little over-draft fun a few days ago. What kind of outside temps did you have when doing this test?

 

I don't know, I only have ~22' (duravent rigid insulated liner) and my Jotul would run like a raped ape. Other than during startup, it was very rare that I wouldn't run it with the air control fully closed, and I plugged the doghouse air ports as well. With a full load of good wood, cruising at 700-800F stovetop was normal. I'd have tried a damper for sure had it not been an insert and inaccessible. The IS on the same flue plus now a tee and horizontal 2' draws hard too, both my last long burn and the current one I'm doing now have been at minimum throttle as well. I'm 22 hours in though and still a good mass of coals in the stove and plenty enough heat, so not sure if I need to mess with any other damper, it's just I don't like the feeling of being bottomed out and temps still pretty high or increasing. Going to milk this one as long as I can, taking off to the grocery store and a haircut and I'll see how it looks when I get back.

 

Probably should have said for the majority of installs, have no idea what height causes problems. And as far as that ape goes, I'm guessing that is one angry fire you had going.

Hoping BDF can give us some numbers/charts to show us a measured impact of the key damper.

 

Last night got to around 24F. But the draft with the new SS chimney has been too much all year, all the way up into the 50's F.

Brian

 

Well, going to the grocery store for a haircut is almost bound to look bad, even before you get back. I suggest going to a hair cutting specialist instead.

Hey, somebody had to say it....

Brian

 

"Cleanup of bad hair cut on aisle 3"

 

I have an initial graph, and it does show the stove burning longer but at the same time, the data is all over the place 'cause I was tinkering with the draft and short- loading the stove by throwing in 3, 4 splits a couple of times. Let me settle in with the stove, load it at the usual 10:00 PM and I will graph the results in a few days after I learn (yet again) how to run the stove with a damper.

To be honest, my initial reaction is that the damper could use just a bit more damping; there is of course a gap between the damper plate and the stove pipe all the way around, plus there are four holes in the plate. I would like to try closing off at least two of those holes and trying that as I think it would work even better.

By the way, while I had the stove pipe open last evening, this is the first time I have looked into the thimble this year and it was as clean as the proverbial whistle. A bit of brown, fine powder inside but no creosote whatsoever- it might have been burning a bit too fast and hot for me but I have to say, it sure is burning clean. Best guess is that I am into my second cord of wood this year (unusually warm fall and winter so far though).

Brian

 

I talk at length with a guy at Woodstock about my setup when we put our order in and he told me to add the key damper to my 27 foot super vent setup. Been learning a lot from everyone thanks!

 

Well technically they are in the same building, though yeah separate places. I didn't say I was going to the grocery store FOR a haircut at least, but I admit my grammar and English skills are not my strong point. I'm back now, shorter hair and a well stocked fridge... closing in on 26 hours. I opened up the draft to 50% and have flames

 

How is the house temp holding? What kind of STT are you seeing?

It was warmer here last night so I dialed down the stove for a low burn. This morning the house was holding fine, tonight it was chilly in here after work.(temps dropped all day) I opened the tstat and turned the blower on, a lot easier to recover when it only low 30s outside.

 

So ecobrick test #2 complete. I tried a few more this time, and *attempted* to learn from my mistakes last time about not letting it burn to high. Well... it was looking good for a little while then same thing happened. it was cruising a bit low... I'm still not 100% sure when I should be concerned about a cat stall, but I bumped it up a notch. Then I was on the phone for about an hour and when I got off the phone it was like 1100F and climbing. Well there goes the low burn. But all was not lost, it still burned a long time. But it held CAT temp over 1000F for 6 1/2 hours, and over 1200F for most of that. I did not have any secondaries after it originally settled down into a full cat burn after about an hour or so, but late that night when I was getting ready for bed the wind picked up and there was some intermittent wooshing secondaries in conjunction with the wind. Forecast was 15-25 mph.

Temps started out at load time (3:45PM) @ 44F, about the same when I went to bed, and slowly declined throughout the day to about 31F at reload. My pellet stove on the other side of house was set at minimum (1) though it was off while I cleaned it out in afternoon yesterday, and didn't turn back on until late in the evening. At bed time, which was soon after the stove peaked, I was sweating, the bedroom was 78F, great room (stove room) 75. At reload the great room is still a bit warm from me at 71. Got to get the hang of getting this thing shut down better.

So here is the data I recorded. CAT = cat probe, CB = center burner, STT = magnetic thermometer on back corner of stovetop. Throttle 1 (fully closed) to 15 (fully open).


I'm not sure how to display the total elapsed time in hrs:min format without it starting over at 24:00, but you get the idea. Total burn time was about 27:15. Also from about 10:00-16:00 hrs I was asleep and didn't record the temps so that is why the lines are so flat. I could have left it go just a tad longer but had some things I got to get doing so went ahead and reloaded. You can see where I thought I was stalling it and opened the air back up 1 notch a bit over 2 hrs in, but then temps took off. I closed it down a half of a notch hoping to find the sweet spot, but the load had some momentum at that point and climbed even faster and I wasn't paying attention. When i finally caught it I just shut the thing to minimum. About 7.5 hrs in the CAT peaked at 1275, and center burner 750. Back corner STT peaked 450. At about 25 hrs I opened the throttle back up to 50%, and had some gentle blue flames from the chunks still in there. I started measuring temps 5 minutes before reload to capture the initial conditions, which is why the graph starts before 00:00, and everything took a sharp dive (door open for a while).

The load:


4 medium/small pieces of ash, 16 ecobricks. Note, I put 2 more bricks in during loading, that pic shows 14. I also swapped out the larges of the ash splits for a smaller one. I did not load the pooches in the woodstove either.

Packed in tight on the bottom this time. Left a couple inches on the left and right sides, but as tight to one another as I could get:



First time opening the door, about 25 1/2 hours:


Stirred up the coals, closed door, throttled up to notch 10, and left bypass open.

End of burn about 27hrs 15 min:


Even though it burned much to hot for a while I am still very happy finally hitting the 24 hour mark. First time I ever had a woodstove that would do that. I ran my Jotul on 100% ecobricks, 12 of them, and best I ever got was 12 hours and had less coals than this. Still I think the same load could have went longer had I kept temps down better, but I am still pretty new to this stove and learning and I get distracted easily. In any case, I'd say this burn would probably work for me with outside temps around freezing, starting in the mid 40's like I did it was far too hot, walking around the house in just boxers lol.

I could fit quite a few more bricks in there (8-12 more, instead of the few pieces of cordwood), but don't want to push my luck any more until I get the hang of getting this down low and cruising. Then again having the two different types of fuel in there might be part of why I am seeing a second surge later, maybe the fuel outgassing is different between the two.

 

Looks like a bunch of heat was still in it when you reloaded!

 

That is a good way to save money on those bricks.

 

Got out of work early today 11 am and just did a reload after I dumped the ash pan. I haven't filled the stove since 3 pm yesterday. I go to work at 4am and occasionally don't wake up in time to reload the stove.

There was only a small amount of coals left but I raked them forward, split some kindling small and put it on there. Sometimes I'll blow on it but smoke tends to come out so I left the door ajar on the latch and kneeled there and opened the ash door. Within 10 seconds my kindling was lit. Gave it 10 more and closed the ash door. I would suggest to never do this if you plan on walking away from the stove for even 2 minutes. It was like a blast furnace.

Long story short I'm reloaded and just waiting to pull that lever. Kinda reminds me of a slot machine. One armed bandit! Except this one armed bandit pays you back with every pull of the handle. Just got my gas bill and it's half it was last year. Yeah its been a little warmer this year but I've got an extra person here vs last year so double the showers, double the laundy....etc