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

It should work but may be slightly delayed depending on coal temperatures.

I wonder if they will open and close again throughout the cycle. That's what is hard to determine.

 

Has anyone else looked and felt around the cat air tube area yet? This is our second year with the IS. With a cold stove the radiator, cat and sled are removed (all simple). Then you can see with a mirror and feel the tube which has holes (about 1/4" diameter) facing the rear. I find creosote buildup mostly on the right (air entrance) end of the tube and on the stove body cavity around the tube. Sorry - no pictures because I dropped the smart phone into the firebox trying.
So far, the supply holes on the tube all feel open but I wonder if eventually it will buildup bad enough to clog those holes. The creosote appears to be normal creo condensation mixed with fly ash. I don't think this is a problem but just keeping an eye on things. Anyone?

 

That is one part of the stove I have not yet seen Gark. Thanks for bringing it up, next time the stove is cold I'll check it out. I've never had an issue with any kind of fresh air port clogging in any of my stoves, but this is the first that has operated as a cat stove and when I do run it that way it tends to coat everything on the inside in black.

 

I had a very successful run last night with my new bimetallic controls. It gave me a very nice low end cat burn at the beginning and opened things up as the stove cooled. I have not had to touch the air control once since I loaded around 11 last night.

The glass was dark last night and the coals are glowing now. I may still do a little tweaking to the strips, but it is already in the ballpark of where I want to be.

 

Wow that is great news JA, pretty cool you got decent results with little fuss! Is it still going, or was this intended to be just an overnight burn?

 

Can anyone tell me a good place to get one of these?

 

I got mine right off of condars website. I think Woodstock sells one now too.

 

EBay or condar website. The eBay one comes from condar anyway

 

We ended up ordering our stove today, Woodstock had an answering service and I ask why, woman said they were so busy at the showroom and don't have time to answer, they called me after closing time!

 

Welcome to the club. First time stove user or are you upgrading?

 

First time in 25 years

 

So I just found out from the Absolute Steel stove thread that the Absolute stove uses the same grate as the Ideal Steel stove but has wider slots. I have one on order now although as they are not in production on the new stove yet it may be a while. Will report on new grate when I get it.

Also ordered another complete door for my IS. What's up with that, why would anyone do that? So I can clean the glass and tighten the gasket on the (one of) door in the middle of winter easily; my plan is to just swap the doors, wait until the hot one cools and then clean the glass and on occasion, re- caulk the back of the door gasket to maintain a tight seal. This stove radiates a LOT of heat out of the front and dirty glass really seems to cut down on the burn efficiency so hopefully, a second door will make it much easier to keep the glass clean and save me from having to use some of the worst words I know while cleaning hot glass in leather gloves.

Also have a new combustor on the way. The current combustor still works but performance has fallen off considerably, especially when the firebox is coming up to temperature. I used to be able to get the combustor to light when the firebox hit 500F, now I have to hold the firebox at 700 - 800F, and do so for at least 30 minutes before the combustor will light off.

Now to modify the andirons.... they need to be taller, closer to the glass and I have to figure out how to put the andiron lock back in the stove as it fell out a month ago and the stove has been far too hot to re- install that thing.

Brian

 

I wonder if this is typical and stands out for you only because you have better instrumentation than most. What is the plan for the old combustor?

 

I may have missed something, why a new door? New combustor too? Is this under warranty? Are they taking care of you?

 

Perhaps on the instrumentation but it used to be almost impossible to stall this stove and now I do it fairly routinely. Using the same wood as last year too, so it is at least as dry if not a little more seasoned than last year's splits were.

What my data gathering allows me to do is 1) watch it deteriorate and 2) quantify, at least somewhat, the difference in stove performance as the combustor changes. Last year I could load the stove and keep the stove top temps. at and above 350F overnight (call it 9 hours). This year the stove top temps. drop below 300F after 5 hours, which makes an overnight burn much less effective.

This has been my experience with other combustors in other stoves: about a year and a half and they stop working well enough to be useful. They still work, they just require more and more heat to have them reach 'light off' temps. and especially, to hold them there.

The combustor is being swapped out under warranty, and I have to return the old one to them.

Brian

What would be fantastic, especially given the new stainless steel foil combustors, would be if the original mfg. could 're- wash' the combustor in the catalytic materials and restore them. It should be less expensive than a whole new combustor. Then again, perhaps they could not get them clean enough and certainly their equipment is built around treating a ribbon of foil that is folded to shape afterward, not various size finished combustors.

 

I explained why a new door in the post. From the previous post:

"Also ordered another complete door for my IS. What's up with that, why would anyone do that? So I can clean the glass and tighten the gasket on the (one of) door in the middle of winter easily; my plan is to just swap the doors, wait until the hot one cools and then clean the glass and on occasion, re- caulk the back of the door gasket to maintain a tight seal. This stove radiates a LOT of heat out of the front and dirty glass really seems to cut down on the burn efficiency so hopefully, a second door will make it much easier to keep the glass clean and save me from having to use some of the worst words I know while cleaning hot glass in leather gloves. "

As far as Woodstock, yep, they are doing fine as far as I am concerned: new door, complete, was $208 shipped, which I think is a fair price. New combustor is under warranty and there is no charge. Not sure what the grate will cost but it was estimated in the $25 - $30 range, which again I find quite reasonable. Woodstock service is outstanding and their parts prices seem to be reasonable, especially when compared with some other stove company's' parts.

 

I've noticed too that my cat is a lot more finicky to get lit this year. It does go, but as you said 800 degrees is what it takes. It still glows bright red when it is lit. I never thought about the fact that it may drop off earlier but it makes sense.

 

Sorry about that..I totally misunderstood your post to say that there was something wrong with the door or gasket material. Makes sense now.

 

I've noticed the same in the PH. I've done the vinegar spray method of cleaning the PH cat and felt it helped a lot.

 

I'm so new to cat stoves I really don't even know how to tell if the cat is properly lit off or not. I can't see any glow until it gets somewhere between 800-1000ºF iirc. But if its at 600 and I go out and look at the stack I don't see any smoke so figure it is doing what it is suppose too. I suppose with a thermocouple upstream of the cat and one downstream would be easy to tell, but not sure about the rest of us that just have the standard probe or just exterior mag mount might be hard to tell.

BDF - wow I've heard of folks buying a second ash pan or combustor to 'hot swap' em, but your the first I have heard about buying a second door! Nice