Production Woodstock IS

Sometimes it seems the problem with this stove is too long of a burn! For those short burns just 'overnight' I have to use a strategy and be really careful about loading. I suppose it's a good problem to have though.

I can't remember if we discussed this earlier, what are you burning, Redstone Ecobrick/envirobricks? That is all I know is around here, if there are others I'd be interested to know. I've got a dozen of em in as we speak.

 

Yeah, the stuff TSC sells that is made here in Ohio and has ENVIRO stamped on the side. We got a hell of a deal and bought a full pallet (ton) of them. I've come to realize that that's waaaay too much for us to burn this year and I want to sell off at least a 3rd of it but I'm not sure how.

The load I've been using is 6 ENVIRO bricks flat on the bottom and then filled to the top with split hardwood. Last night was 8 bricks flat on the bottom and then filled to the top. There's no way the 2 extra bricks carried another 12 hours of heat. Air control setting was the same as most nights: one small tick under the first big tick.

 

I was going to say don't get them at TSC they mark it WAY up but seems like you got a good deal on em. I Bought 3 tons of them 2 winters ago (or was it 4, I can't remember), burned all but most of the last ton that year (I didn't have much good firewood at the time) and since then just used em sparingly for the long burns. Now down to the last 1/2 ton. I wouldn't get rid of them, I think they burn pretty well in the IS. And under cover mine have lasted ok for 2 years.

As far as why your last burn was different, well one thing if you really did add a couple more bricks where they packed in there tighter? I've found since they swell a bit during the burn if you don't leave some space on the sides at least they will choke themselves off from air flow. I've knocked over the stack of mostly burnt bricks after 1-2 days and revealed light tan colored wood on the sides that wasn't even charred yet, still fresh wood. If you had a couple more that burn maybe it wasn't the more fuel that carried it 12 more hours, perhaps those two somehow restricted the air flow. But that is just a thought, without knowing how they were packed in there.

 

yup I call these really problems stove went too long house got to hot... Just teasing had same problem last friday.. got house to over 90

 

I don't have good enough insulation to get my house over 90. Lol

 

Well Alex, I will take "I bet the outside temperature was warmer" for $2,000.

Which is my rapier- sharp, witty way of saying..... I bet it was warmer outside over those 31 hours and so the chimney was less effective, thereby causing less air to flow through the stove, which in turn burned the wood significantly slower. Or at least that is how it works around my house.

What the world really needs is not a good 5 cent cigar but rather a way of regulating the burn in a woodstove based on conditions, heating needs and so forth. Someone started working on one of those one time but he seems to have de- railed on the entire project....

Brian

P.S. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year and so forth to all my friends on the firewood forum!

 

The temperature was maybe 5F warmer than the average for the last month, so not that different.

More tellingly, we had secondary flames all the way until it dropped into the coaling stage just like every fire this month. It didn't appear to be burning any less intensely than normal.

We rarely get cat-only burns. There's a thin, fine line with our setup between cat-only and dying out. Since cleaning the cat, it does do cat-only a little more readily, but that means that there's about a 3/4 of a small tick range where it'll burn without secondaries but not go out. Prior to cleaning the cat, there was no range at all where you could get it to run cat-only. 60% of our burns are secondary-only all the way to the point it starts to burn down to coals after 10-12 hours, then there's a 40-ish minute cat only burn, then nothing but coals. That's based on looking at the logs of temperature from the thermocouples. The next 35% of burns rock back and forth on a quick cycle (maybe 10-12 minute cycle) between secondary-only and cat-only after the first 2 hours until the fire dies down to just coals. The remaining 5% of burns are cat-only after the first 2 hours and are always an accident. We can't figure out how to do that on purpose yet.

 

Thats a great looking stove Will. Love the color combo and the hearth pad, very nice. She's wired for sound too!

 

I'm running two cats so when one is out being cleaned the 2nd one is making heat. To comment on your loose metal sounds, can't say I've ever heard anything like you mentioned.
I need to sit down and order a second ash pan, I like Brians idea with 2 ash pans and two doors.

 

Agreed, frame is fixed. Maybe Oldhippie has something irregular?

 

Great shot of your stove and the hearth

 

My female boxer does the same thing and then after a couple hours I hear her panting but she's so stubborn to want to move and cool off.

 

Our stoves look very similar. Hard working beasts, simple looking and super functional.

 

Well, I don't think we'll be having another miracle burn tonight. Snow squalls are blowing through and I do mean blowing! I've got a 40" DBH aspen right beside the driveway and you could see movement in the trunk down to about chest high. When it hit peak gusts, the stove actually was whistling like a flute. I'm not sure if it was from the little hole in the OAK where the control rod comes through or from the little vent hole behind the bottom of the door, but something was singing.

 

The winds are just beginning here, I hear the same kind of stove noises too. The secondaries will do an odd kind of dance from the normal secondary burn.
My overnight load went in at 8:30, I'll be up at 5:30 to give it a look. warm house at 74 tonight

 

I am surprised you got that long of a burn with secondary flames going through the whole off gassing period, nice. My last couple loads that were half ecobrick half ash were pretty much cat only and still only around 24hrs.
Yesterdays load I left on notch 1 (calling lowest setting as 0) with flue damper shut then when I got home in the morning (15hrs) it appeared to be mostly coaling I turned it up to the first big notch and went to bed. When I got up in the afternoon (22hrs) many of the bricks were still 3/4 their original size - probably could have got another 6hrs or so of mild heat but I stirred them up, turned up throttle to half, and reloaded 2 hrs later. Tonight's load I bumped up to notch 1.5 just for maybe a bit more heat with the big wind chill... 4pm I loaded 4 medium ash splits across the bottom then a dozen bricks on top and one more small piece of ash in a remaining gap by the door. I throttled it down to cat only after 30 minutes or so. It's odd to me yours wont sustain a cat burn a little better especially with the bricks. If I have a load that is at least 1/2 bricks I can usually run this thing with the throttle at 0 and it probably wouldn't stall. With a full load of bricks even at 0 air it will still have secondaries going lol

 

I picked up some compressed oak bricks yesterday to experiment. With six bricks as a base and some aspen splits on top. Getting around 6-7 hours of catalytic burn before the catalyst drops off. i was hoping for a longer catalytic burn. Maybe I need to stuff some more bricks in?

 

The bricks do seem to be exponential. 2+2 equals about 16 with them. For my stove, 8 bricks seem to be the tipping point. 10 bricks loaded E-W in the bottom and then the rest Tetrised full of hardwood loaded N-S and I can only run a fire about every other day due to the burn length and heat output. On the other hand, putting just 6 bricks on the bottom and loading the same seems to make the fire shorter.

 

Ok. Good to know. Maybe I'll try and load it with 10 or so bricks. And see what happens. With 6 bricks I'm getting a good 8 hrs of usable heat so really no complaints. I should also clean the CAT. See if that helps as well.