Production Woodstock IS

Did you guys have the creosote build up on that gasket?

I had some last year with less then perfect wood. I am not getting it this year with better wood. It also happened more in the shoulder seasons due to the lower burns.

 

I'm still getting crap on the lower left corner of the ash pan gasket with my sub par wood I'm struggling with right now

 

I just finished installing my IS, and thought I'd check the gasket before lighting it. The lower right side of the ash pan gasket feels hard and smooth for 2-3 inches. The top of it feels soft and flexible like the other gaskets. Is that something I should call Woodstock about right away, or burn for a month and see what it looks like then?

 

I gave the inards a look over on a semi cool stove this evening after approx 2 1/2 weeks of burning.
Anybody noticed if their secondary baffle plate is warping? Mine looks warped/bowed up on the left, and maybe a slight sag on the right.

My radiator looks like new still (to be expected). Just lots of fly ash up there. Is that normal? I do have a fairly strong draft when air and pipe damper are full open when burning down coals, so I'm thinking that may be the cause, especially from raking coals around?

Other than that this thing is just out right a beast!!! Keeping my 3000ish sq ft (semi finished basement) 2 story nice and comfortable at 70-73 in the main living area and 68ish in the bedrooms. Running a fan at the bottom of the stairs to keep a great convection current going. I'm burning just short of a 1/4 cord a week though (2 pretty full loads a day)..... is that a lot or is that going to be my norm?

I don't have it quite perfected yet but a notch above 1/4 and pipe damper a hair over 3/4 closed seem to be my go to settings. Temps are cat = 1200-1400 peak, stove face = 575-650, and top near flue exit = 400-450.

 

Sconnie Burner, every time stove cools (once a month) I open rad and vacuum up fly ash usally a dusting... yup got good draft too.. a cord a month is my normal if cold.. real cold load 3 times a day but I bet your house is better insulated than mine... my baffle plate flexes there is a pin in top and it moves on it so I never really worry about it..

 

I got my new cat and ash pan gasket yesterday. I cleaned everything out and installed the new parts. I had some buildup in my chimney which I blame on the weak cat. They are calling for it to get cold again tonight with snow so I'll fire it up when I get off work.

 

If it's brand new I'm not sure how it can get "bad". It doesn't sound like an installation error or anything. I don't think I would be too worried but maybe get some incense and wave near that part when the stove is running hard to see if it gets pulled in. Either way it isn't going to hurt to run it.

 

That secondary plate is designed to flex and move. My beta stove wasn't and it broke the hardware holding it in. Really smart solution.
That sounds like a normal amount of wood for this time of year- at least in VT.

 

I just reached out to Woodstock and as a courtesy, they are sending me the updated radiator with the ss shield. Great customer service over and over again.

Here's my current one:

 

Brad mine did same thing.. yes Woodstock sent me a new one.. I consider them like ball joints or tire on a vehicle ... something that needs to be replaced every few years...

 

I agree! I'm more interested to see what kind of difference the ss makes in keeping all the metal flakes off of the cat.

 

my upgraded one seems to keep 90% of the flakes off the cat.. let me know you results...

 

It's probably fine. If you haven't read the thread back from the beginning you may not know but one of the common traits of this stove is that it will leave a lot of coals. BDF (and maybe others?) have actually cut a hole into their ashpan door to allow more air in under the coals to help burn them down. I've experimented this year with leaving the ash pan door loose, like with the handle at a 45 angle instead of tight straight down to allow some air to enter, and it does seem to help. I wouldn't worry too much about a tiny bit of air leakage if the gasket isn't really bad, but of course everyone's setup and burning characteristics will be a little different

Yeah that SS baffle is very thin and flexes and contorts like crazy. It's designed to do that, like Unh said there is a bolt in the center and the baffle floats on it, sometimes it looks like the bolt is sticking out and other times it looks tight against it, just the plate moving up and down and normal.

 

Finally let my stove cool down today for some cat / radiator maintenance. My radiator looks like that but is more deeply pitted, and all of the scale was sitting on top of the cat. of course. And the radiator has sagged enough to be rubbing on my thermocouple [insert joke here] and actually bent it down a bit..... though I am told this is normal for aging probes anyway. Maybe some Probeagra is in order here?



Took the radiator out to the garage and 'had at it' with a 3 lb. hand sledge and I gotta' say, the radiator was not impressed in the least. No movement at all that I could see. Lots of scale shook loose though. So I guess it is time to have a chat with the good folks at W.S. and see about one 'o 'dem new- fangled radiators (the old radiator wearing a new stainless steel sock really). The cat. is soaking in the vinegar solution while it is snowing outside; the plan is to get the stove together and re- lit before having to blow snow (Easy Boys!) later tonight.

We are expecting another 5" to 8" today, on top of the foot or a little more on Thurs. Winter is coming late but it certainly has arrived!

Brian

 

Just a thought here but I would be extremely cautious about leaving the ash pan door 'cracked' while running the stove- it takes almost no movement at the latch to yield a LARGE air path all around the ash pan door. Put another way, the door goes from shut to [way too far open] extremely quickly and it is difficult (I found it impossible) to know how much the door was actually open.

I do have an opening in my ash pan door with a flap cover over it so I can open or close it any amount and I have to say after two years of using it this way, it really does not take much air at all under the grate to really help burn down the coals. My opening (Boys!) is probably about 1" round in area (it is triangular in shape) and I will say that that is far too much draft; the stove generates far too much smoke, and it tends to back- puff pretty violently (which of course blows ash out of the ash pan door hole.... the punishment fits the crime). If anyone is interested in doing this I would suggest either drilling a modest size hole, starting with 1/4" dia., and trying that before going any further. Also, slightly opening up the bottom vents in the piece of angle steel at the front / bottom of the stove would also be quite effective I think, and would work on I.S. stoves that have no ash pan but I find those vents, at least on my stove, are clogged by coals / ash / wood more often than not so that might not be a reliable solution.

Brian

 

Still waiting for mine, said they're out.

 

Well, then I guess my name will just go on the list.... not THAT list (already there) but the one for radiators.

Got the stove back together and up and running with almost unbelievable results; I really have not used the stove in a clean condition with the new, much taller chimney until today. Now I am running on the third notch (third small notch from -zero-), the combustor is running right around 1,150, firebox in the ~650 range, stovetop at 450 and flue temps just below 350. Very impressive burn and much, much slower than it was before. I do not think it was so much that the cat. was dirty or coated but rather about 1/2 closed off due to all the scale sitting on it that fell off the radiator. So what I think is now happening, as compared to before the cleaning, is that much less gas is flowing through the stove and using a LOT more of the cat. area to burn all the smoke. Overall, I think efficiency is way up although the firebox and door glass are entirely black...... can not have everything, at least not all at once.

Brian

 

BDF I've met ya trust me when I say your on a Lotta lists

 

Yeah, I just got pee- pee slap from the moderator of a section of a different forum for using the ole' 'Easy Boys!'. I do not use the forum much anyway and the future is not looking like I am going to have any big urges (Easy Boys!) to go back there.... I do not think she like it when I said "All my life I have felt like a lesbian trapped in the body of a man" either but what with the list of guffaws that followed, she would have been hard pressed (Boys!) to pick on that one.

I like humor, even if I have to make my own. Offense is not the objective but honestly it is amazing how much is found anyway. I think it was Mark Twain who said something like 'Offense should be in short supply as so much more is taken than given'.

And then my all- time favorite: Written by the composer Max Reger in response to an unkind review by Rudolph Louis (this is an English translation as the original was in German): "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me!" He should have put an Easy Boys in there too I think. THAT is how one offends another in the written form....

Back on topic: Ideal Steel is running hot, straight and normal. But I am running out of wood on the porch in my trailer and there is something like 18" or 20" of snow between the trailer and any of the wood piles. I am going to have to either run the snowblower and a shovel or convince my wife there are small gold bars mixed in with the firewood. I assume I am going to have to do the former 'cause the latter never worked with my kids.... but then again, as my wife and I age, some really bad ideas may start gaining traction?

Brian

 

I've also thought about enlarging the EPA holes in the angle iron. I'll probably try that in a month. I bet it yields the best results during shoulder season.