Production Woodstock IS

Thanks for the kind words but I had to go look. The only thing you get off the top of my head are jokes and some really really strange facts; so odd they are not even useful in playing at a Trivial based game). Like the gestation period of a Yak..... and so forth. Probably good to know but I have not had the opportunity to insert (Boys!) that fact anywhere I have been so far. Of course should I find myself on a Yak breeding farm and happen to be watching two Yaks..... well, you know, I could then inform the farm owners exactly how long it will be before they are the proud owners of a little Yak. Well, not the exact date due to biological variances, exactly when the female Yak ovulated and so forth. Come to think of it, that might not be useful information at all! And it has probably pushed some useful information aside that I really could have used! Like where raisins come from.... I was in my 30's before I found out raisins are really old, dehydrated grapes. Seriously. My kids knew this before I did. Of course I did not have any opinion on where raisins really did come from but if I had to guess, I would probably have said 'Raisin bushes' or something. Let me know if I wander off- topic....

ROFLMAO two times.

Brian

 

I was just wondering what the gestational period of a yak was!

 

If you worked on a yak farm you would probably already know, so even there the farmer wouldn't need to hear it.

 

154 days. And frankly, this is the first time I have ever been able to use this information- thanks! Well, there was this other time in a meeting with a particular company's department heads but that did not go so well.... everybody just laughed a lot instead of being impressed. Very disappointing.

Brian

 

Sorry to break away from the Yak stuff but just received the new radiator from W.S.

Those clever folks changed the S.S. shield from the first ones that I had seen; they were originally smaller and mated (Easy Boys!) directly to the steel radiator. The one I just got has a much larger shield and it is stamped and folded such that it hangs down (Boys!) from the radiator by a considerable amount, maybe 3/16" to 1/4". This may well make a big difference in how hot the radiator itself gets as the radiator shield will have an air gap to transfer heat, and maybe a considerable amount of heat, from the SS cat shield to the air moving between it and the radiator. All of which is to say that in addition to catching the scale falling off the cat., it may well reduce or even eliminate the scaling from happening in the first place, and may cause the radiator to run enough lower in temperature to prevent the sagging also. Not sure if it will work that way but it was a great idea certainly- relatively inexpensive and very easy to change the stove design and older stoves can be retrofitted to the newer radiator design.

Nice job Woodstock Soapstone, as usual!

Brian

 

You poo pooed my idea about an air space between the shield and radiator. I think it was you anyway. Lol

Maybe Woodstock was listening. Be curious to see how it works.

 

I do not remember but it may have been me. ??

At any rate, the original S.S. cover was basically a piece of sheet metal bent into a "U" shape and placed on the radiator. That design would not benefit from an airspace IMO because there would be nowhere for the heat to go but through the <dead> airspace and again, into the radiator. In other words, just a gap would not have allowed any appreciable drop in temperature as the heat had nowhere to go anyway but into the radiator.

But this new design is different and is only on the bottom of the radiator, with the gap at the front being open, at least partially open. What this should do is allow cooler air to pass in-between the S.S. shield and the radiator to draw off some of the heat of the shield and give it somewhere else to go other than 100% into the radiator. If that was your idea and I said I did not think it would work, then I was mistaken or did not understand your idea because this design absolutely has potential, again IMO, to actually lessen the basic problem instead of just catching the flaking radiator. So if this current design with the gap in the front was your idea, my compliments 'cause I think it is a really simple, inexpensive method that may work well enough to reduce or even eliminate the problem. And if that sounds like a lousy, limited compliment, it is not because all designs have restrictions on cost, manufacturing ability, etc., etc., or at least all designs in the real world. Lots of companies could make a one billion dollar self- driving car..... the real trick is to make one a significant number of people can actually afford to buy and still works well enough to be useful.

Brian

 

Well, this is almost as interesting as yak stuff...almost.

I didn't realize there was a radiator 3.0. What you're describing is the one I received last week. The airspace between does make a lot of sense. Same principle as insulation in a house. We'll see! We have 4 more days well into the 70's here, then the stove will be going again with the new radiator, ash door gasket, and cat cleaned using the vinegar bath.

 

I just remember someone saying it probably wouldn't work. I just remember that the answer was very wordy so it may have been you. Lol. Or Brian K?

It's not even a big deal and I'm actually happy to see the air space between the shield and radiator. As to the effectiveness? We shall see.

As far as I can figure the radiator is there to disrupt the flow of hot air and keep it in the stove longer. It would be interesting to have a few different radiations with some different shapes to see how it would affect the stove.

 

Yeah, it was probably Brian K. ..... that no- goodnik!

What the radiator seems to be doing in my stove is allowing the stove top itself to survive. The stainless steel plate on the bottom of my stove top is pretty seriously warped and sticking up into the 'pot holder' area about 1/8" to 3/16" of an inch and is dark purple in color; I believe if the radiator was not present, the top plate would have warped into an unusable (would not seal on the rope gasket) shape by now. Again, the basic problem is having so little area to have to absorb both huge amounts of heat and extremely high temps. directly above the cat. and very close to the cat.

A general solution would be to provide more volume above the combustor; in the Ideal Steel, that could be, say, a 8" or so extension or box that sat exactly where the stove top sits now but would put much more distance between the cat. and the new stove top (much higher), and also provide a huge increase in area to radiate the cat.'s heat so it was not concentrated in so small an area. The cat. is capable of bringing the radiator to excessive temperatures only because it is so close- backing the radiator (or stove top) away would serve to provide far more area to absorb the same heat, and would have to result in a lower surface temperature.

Look at a pot belly stove or an old OAK wood burner; the tops of those stoves are not larger in diameter than the stove body for no reason, they are larger to prevent a smaller stove top from reaching higher temperatures.

I apologize in advance if this post is wordy but please believe that I chose the words with care and did try to align them as well as I could (grammar). I just do not have the time to condense the thoughts.

Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.
-Blaise Pascal
It loosely translates into: 'I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.' But over time has morphed into the English saying: "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter."

Brian

 

I agree on the extra height of the stove. Right after I got the stove I wondered why they jammed everything into such a tight area and that another inch or two in height would help tremendously. However all that extra empty space in there might wreak havoc on how well the stove drafts. Instead of a 15 foot chimney as their minimum it might end up 20. That wouldn't be so.....ideal.

 

I didn't say wordy was bad either. It just happens to be some people's style is all.

 

I can see how you would think that but it would not make any difference in draft requirements or behavior; look up a "Russian wood stove" or "Russian heater" to see how the flue gas path can run both up and down w/in the burning device and draft perfectly. Another example is siphoning a liquid from a higher point (such as auto gas tank) to lower point (such as the lawn mower)- it does not matter what path the fluid follows, only the entry and exit heights. The liquid can readily be made to go up several feet (and actually further) and still siphon the same other than losses from a longer fluid path.

If there was a box where the I.S. stove top is now, the radiator could be eliminated and the stove would radiate more heat into the room, or put another way, be more efficient, with no loss of performance other than possibly a very slight drop in draft due to a drop in flue gas temperature in the chimney.

Again, look at old Vermont Casting designs where there is an iron by-pass plate that forces all of the flue gas from the stove DOWN to the bottom of the stove and then back up and out the chimney; the only effect in actual use is a significant increase in efficiency because the flue gas path is longer.

I just started my first fire with the new radiator and S.S. shield installed stock to see how it runs. I did not install a baffle plate behind the cat. combustor as I normally did; I will collect data to see what changes occur.

Brian

 

I look at it the other way. If you cool the flue gasses too much you will lose draft for the less than optimal chimney heights. And for those with less than optimal wood, would have a horrible time with cat stalls, and gunky post cat box area and really gunky flue.

Also remember that the cat needs to be near 500 to start working effectively. If the air in the "box" and the surrounding stove keep sucking up the heat it will quite possibly take some time to reach the almighty cat engagement temp. Or possibly by not confining the heat to near the cat to sustain the magic temp, it may stall itself due to eating the smoke fast enough that it looses its heat build up?

With the amount of time and testing put into the stove there has to be a viable reason, weather it creates epa efficiency issues, asthetics, etc. The raised height would make it less versatile for lower clearance installs, and they would most definitely loose the rear exit crowd.

 

Yep, making the stove bigger would make it less able to fit in some places and that is not desirable from W.S.'s point of view (or any manufacturer).

Interesting thought about the cat. not heating up as quickly or stay as hot using the stove at very low settings- you may well be right. It is something that would have to be tested.

Cooling the exhaust 'too much' might be a problem for outside chimney installs but I kind of doubt it given double wall insulated chimney. I also never considered it because I have an indoor chimney that generates more than adequate draft.

When I mention these things of course I am only considering my own installation, not the broader market or use. I am also not really suggesting W.S. change the design as I still believe it is a great stove as sold, and some of the thoughts about modification would not be practical especially when the customers would have to pay for them. Mostly I just enjoy tinkering to increase efficiency in most all areas, not just woodstoves or woodburning. I have made a few changes with very positive results and will continue to tinker, always looking for 'more' (efficiency, longer burns, easier loading, etc.).

Brian

 

Here is what mine looks like. Is this the same?

 

Very disappointed fellas, all this talk about radiator 3.0 and awesomeness ideas and not a single megapixel of jpeg of a visual indication or anything

 

I could not wait and popped mine in as soon as I could (Easy Boys!). But mine does look like the photos Hollywood posted, at least as far as I can tell.

Now that we humans have been so extremely successful in overpopulating and warming Terra up a bit, I have not had but two small fires since getting the new radiator- it has been close to 70F here, shattering all previous temperature records. Now I did just put the new radiator in the stove without the shield both Hollywood and I have been running previously, and I noticed immediately that there was an increase in exhaust temp. a drop in stove top temp., and a definite increase in airflow through the stove. So while I would like to put the damper back in behind the radiator, I am also seriously thinking about modifying the entire stove top to 1) give the flue gasses a longer path, 2) tend to stratify the fuel gasses with the hottest on top, where they will radiate more heat into the room and 3) still allow a large air flow through the stove to help during start- up. Unfortunately my current house situation and project is killing all of my time and most of my general resources; I am just about ready to put down another sub- floor over the sub- floor the contractors put down 1/2" out of level and more importantly, 1/2" out of flat making two planes of the floor. Sheesh! After spending two days shimming the first 3/4" deck, I can now install ANOTHER 3/4" deck above that one.... but I digress: just not much time to tinker with the woodstove and frankly, with the house so poorly insulated or even closed in, it is impossible to tell how the stove is doing relative to previous years anyway. And on top of that, I need more wood or I am going to be burning the damp stuff two years from now.

I think there are still a couple of tweaks left in this stove though that will make a considerable difference in performance (and that to me is efficiency and a long, even burn, not max. heat output).

Brian

 

For now my stock radiator is scaling some but not tooooo much, and only slightly warping so far as well. I'm going to put more effort into dry wood for the next three years as well as sealing the crawl space. The stove in its current form does a very good job at keeping the house in the mid 70's to low 90's if I so desire. I'm planning on changing my flue setup to do away with the masonry flue running straight up through the roof with dbl to class a. Even at the minimum height, the elimination of 2 90's and 2 ft of horizontal pipe will have to have a considerable effect on how low I can run the stove (at least I presume so anyway). If running the stove lower causes the stove to go into "cat mode" more, I will worry about upgrading the radiator then.