Keystone 18 hour "burn"

A sample for future prospective Keystone buyers. There is a 1/2 piece of charred wood flaming and plenty of coals for a reload. I do 14 hours burns almost daily but have never really tried to stretch it out and see how long it will go. I'll do a 24 hr burn soon and post the results, I expect an easy light off with a reload, dependably. Pretty good for a 1.4 cuft stove, but not practical for many people- not enough BTU's to meet the heating needs.

It has been mild here. 26F for a low last night and 48F at the noon reload with the house at 70F. Burning 3 or 4 year old red oak, got some of both on the porch.

 

Ive seen 16 hours with my stove once. It is pretty impressive for such a small fire box. 12 hours is pretty standard for me with warmer outside temps. Where was you air set at? I get cat stalls when I go less than .5

 

I've been leaving to draft open a hair this winter, kind of experimenting. It was at about .3 or so. I don't see much difference in draft settings o to .5

 

Also, I'm using the term "burn" loosely. My personal definition- Can light off a reload and maintains the house temp. 18 hour reloads would leave my house cold if I tried to maintain them. And the big chunk that started flaming was not expected or typical. Hectic day today got me wondering if I could get a 24 hour burn, weather cooperating.

 

I forget, how tall is your stack? I'm really wanting to get my Keystone back in there but don't want to bug the Woodstock folks right now for info about tearing it down, seeing as how busy they are. The Dutchwest is doing OK but I have to fire up the blower to hold 70* when it's down in the mid-teens at night. Any time I switch between blower and no blower, I have to back out or tighten down 2 bolts that hold 2 convection block-off plates. It's a pain because I've got the short-leg kit on the Dw. I need a system where I can just snap those plates in to cover and uncover the convection ports. Maybe magnets, even. But dammit, I want the big-window, higher-output Keystove back in there! I could just put it back in, slather that leaking seam with some sealer, then tear it down and do it right this summer...Hmmm....
Got my SIL's Dw 2460 apart for new gaskets and seam-sealing, so it'll be fun to fire that stove back up and see how it does. The hack sweep that replaced her cat a few years back didn't put the interam gasket in. Blowing a ton of smoke (potential heat) up the stack and gunking the chimney every few months. What a clown. There was a lot more smoke getting to the stack due to other leaks and bad gaskets, though. I'm hoping for a 5* increase in room temp. Stove is in a big open room, bedroom and bath are left cooler, but the big room has a vaulted ceiling (with fans, thankfully.) I'm guessing like 1400-1500 sq. ft. total for the house, so she may still be under-stoved when it's all said and done...we'll see. Blower would help there....it gives me another 3-4 degrees room temp here.

 

8' of single wall and 8' of class A, straight up.

 

I've got 16' as well, rear-vented into a tee, then insulate liner up an exterior masonry chimney, and run about the same air settings as you do...

 

What are the lowest stove top temps you can run when you cut the air way back?

 

The highest peak temp it usually 350-400F on the high temp indicator, when ran low.

 

I have a hard time keeping my peak temps under 500. In fact usually I run the stove top up to 450-500 before I turn it down to a low burn and she'll climb a 100 or so more degrees before falling.

Maybe I need to turn it down sooner but it seems i get stalls or smoke if I do. This is with a full load, half loads I peak out less.

 

I need to pay more attention to my stove. This winter, I usually just load it and let it do its thing. I don't want to post any inaccuracies.

This mornings load peaked at 450F. I'm home today with time, so I engaged the cat early (by stove top and cat probe temps) and set the draft at 2 to maintain flames and get the temps up for about 30 min.? I didn't pay attention to when the stove top peaked.
The 350F peak that I quoted maybe rare or inaccurate.

 

Woody,
If you want I can send you full instructions on how to build a Keystone I received from WS. Its a nice illustration with step by step instructions. Just PM me your email if you want it.

 

Todd does that cover the Palladian as well? If so I'd be interested.

 

Yes

 

Last night's full load peaked at 375F. Cat peaked at 1100F. I engaged the cat early, stove top at about 225F, and set the draft at 0.

 

Seems a bit low of a stove top temp for a full load? Did you check or smell outside to see if there was smoke out of the stack? With 16 feet of stack I am surprised you can run at O. I do not have as much single wall pipe on my stack but I find that the single wall cools the temps pretty good before running into the main stack. The majority of the soot that comes out from cleaning is in the single wall pipe.

 

So when you engage you immediately set the draft at 0 or do you go down in stages?

I reinstalled my cat probe and I'll have to play around and see if I can get similar results without stalling.

 

No I didn't, the cat probe showed that it was active. It peaked at 1100F last night.

Normally I don't go down in stages, only if I want the stove to get hot in a hurry. Then I'll leave it set higher for awhile.