Morning folks, This question relates to what steps to take after over-firing the Ideal Steel. I've been sick as a dog lately and started a fire around 5:00 PM yesterday. She came up to cat temp, I engaged the cat with the air lever wide open and went upstairs to get some cough medicine. You know where this is going.....I got distracted and did not turn the air down. This morning the stove was ice-cold and the glass was clean as a whistle, indicating that there had been a fast, raging fire. My first thought is that the cat is probably trashed and I should be looking at a new one. Using a flashlight, I didn't see any warped parts. It has new gaskets and they seem fine. Could I just be looking at a new cat or are there other steps you would recommend? Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.
I don’t have an IS but if you’re not seeing warped parts or bad gaskets I would pull the cat out and clean and inspect it and the surrounding framework for warping. If not I’d fire it up again and see how it goes, with a small fire at first. These stoves are built to take an occasional overfire imho, just not a steady diet of them.
Maina, thanks for your note and advice. I went over the stove, checked the gaskets, looked for warping, cracked soapstone firebricks etc and found nothing out of the ordinary. I got a fire going, engaged the cat and the cat probe went from 400 to 1100 and has been holding at 1100 for over an hour now. The stove is responding instantly to adjustments of the air intake lever so I surmise that I didn't crack the firebox. In some other over-fire threads, some folks suggested that wide-open air actually sends most of the heat up the chimney and that the stove itself doesn't suffer. I've had this thing go raging hot with the air lever on the 3rd notch as the heat was being retained in/by the stove instead of being sent up the chimney. This cat was bought just at the end of last season and I'm hoping to not have to drop $175.00 on a barely-used cat. Perhaps I'll run a few more fires and see how she does, but if it needs a new cat, so be it.
Ditto to this. Not sure I’d even keep the first fire small. They added a lot of shielding to the most vulnerable parts. How’s your chimney? With the pre-EPA stoves this is how to start a chimney fire (first hand experience in the distraction to chimney fire here), but not so easy to do with the clean-burning IS.
Howdy: thanks for your note. The stove pipe is double-wall and the exterior chimney pipe is double wall insulated stainless. There is no evidence of charred/peeling paint on the stove pipe. I thoroughly swept both the stove pipe and the exterior chimney pipe two weeks ago and very little gunk came out. It's reassuring to have cleaning rods and brushes and to be able to DIY sweep the chimney. There are threads where chimney sweep guys try and charge a bleeping fortune.
Agree with Flamestead my IS actually runs hotter STT with air at half than full. Full air will clean your glass nicely.. My guess is temp really depend on wood type..
First, make sure you don't have pneumonia, then deal with the stove. My guess it's OK . I only say this because recently I know 2 people who were diagnosed and let it go too long and took longer than needed to recover.
In my admittedly brief experience with the IS, I'd have to throw in with CBVT here. With the air all the way open, you probably just had a vigorous "primary fire" - as opposed to big secondaries and their associated heat - with the cat gobbling up what it could and the rest of the heat just going up the chimney. No cracked parts, nothing warped, chimney didn't catch fire, and the cat has been verified as operational... I'd say you're good to go! A call to Woodstock wouldn't hurt for peace of mind - I'm sure they'd be happy to run down the list of things to check in this circumstance.. I'm 100% sure you're not the first to have done it!
You are far from being alone on this Best way to clean the glass and stove innards Ive found! Accidently. Not on a Woodstock but my BK cat stove. Looked real nice and clean inside the next morning! Haaaaa. Oops. No harm done.
Gentlemen: thank you for your advice and well-wishes. I'm feeling much better. May all good things come to you and yours in 2019.
Your bk is designed to left at maximum setting on purpose. It automatically closes down the air when at the maximum safe temperature. So a little different. The IS was safety tested at full throttle so the Woodstock guys have done it and know what, if anything, happens. I’d actually guess that due to the safety testing it is actually pretty hard to overfire a steel stove to the point of damage if you use regular fuel and close the door.
It may look ugly when you have a raging flame wall on the glass but you get the real dangerous temps when can't shutdown the fire with air all the way closed. I've had one event like that. Stove was fine afterwards.
Believe it or not a lot of people claim to cool down their runaway hot noncat stoves by flinging open the loading door!
I'm no pyrotechnic engineer, however, this does seem to make sense. Opening the door will allow a rush of cool air in which is promptly sent up the chimney. Traditional "open" fireplaces are known for actually making houses colder as they pull in as much outside air as they send up the chimney without actually throwing much heat into the room. I had a witch of a time trying to explain that to a relative and eventually they grasped the concept of an insert. "Wow, this thing really heats the house!". Back on the recent over-fire, the stove is looking and acting totally normal. I purchased a digital timer and placed it near the stove.....every time I light this thing, the timer gets turned on so I don't get distracted and come back to an inferno...
I had a Garrison 1 for many years. Big black smoke dragon, but made in NH out of cold rolled steel. The only thing a overfire would do would be gray out the paint a bit.
