Production Woodstock IS

Yes, that is what causes the more violent back- puffs (what you are calling an explosion). You got a big percentage of the wood engaged and hot, then cut the air supply way back, creating a huge amount of fuel (smoke) without enough oxygen. The wood continues to generate smoke as it smolders and the stove collects oxygen until the mix reaches the ignition point, then it all burns quite quickly. If that situation is not addressed, it can and will happen several times right in a row.

I am a big fan of under- grate air supply but it does have its risks, a serious back- puff being one of them. Top drafting stoves are far less prone to this situation, and that is what an I.S. is.... until we crack the ash pan door.

Glad to hear nothing particularly bad happened so this becomes a pretty easy lesson I believe. I have had it happen with a Tempwood in the past and that lifted the 12" cast iron top disc (the loading door, the ash- cleanout door, and basically the only way into the inside of the stove) high enough to make a pretty serious 'clang' when it landed again. Not good but basically harmless as long as the disc sets back where it belongs and not off to the side.

Brian

 

I just put in an order for a new cat, radiator and gasket set for the Ideal Steel. We've got a few days of warmer weather so it's a good time to give it a good cleaning, check the chimney, touch up the paint etc.

 

Just installed my new cat. this morning and as always, the stove is responding much faster, the top running hotter and the exhaust temps. down. All good.

The old one was not 'dead' and actually worked OK during these last few weeks of unusual cold and hard burning but the new cat. lights much faster and will allow the stove to be used quite a bit slower, at least at the start of the burn. After the volitiles are gone and it is basically down to coals, the cat. does not make much of any difference of course (no fuel for it to burn).

Brian

 

Today I ordered new glass gaskets as well as new screws that hold the glass (and glass frame) to the door 'cause the old ones are full of glue. So I just posted to day that if Woodstock is hoping to make a killing on gouging customers on parts, they are not going about it the right way.

Penny charged me something like $8 for the two (2!) gaskets, 8$ for shipping and threw the screws in. So a little glass re-seating kit, along with the pleasant phone call, for $16. As always, Woodstock Soapstone continues to be an outstanding vendor as far as I am concerned.

Not to imply it is a perfect company (though as close as any other I think) nor do they make a perfect product. Merely saying that being a customer of Woodstock has always been and remains a very pleasant experience. Now if they had charged me a bit more or even a bit too much for these parts, I would still have purchased them and moved forward but it is great to give them a call and have 100% confidence that they will act in MY best interest, make more than a honest effort to help me out in whatever way they can, and for dessert, not even gouge me on the parts prices.

We humans often reach right out in anger with any slights or bad behavior on the part of companies, I just wanted to throw out a thought about a company that does exactly the opposite of bad or less than desirable behavior.

Brian

 

I stopped in there a few weeks ago to return a pipe I didn't need, and to buy a cat probe for my AS. They gave me the probe and told me that they have since started including it with the AS. So I grabbed a few things out of the showroom to make up the difference and not take a credit back.

 

Hey Fellas, been reading thru this entire post for a couple of weeks now and am finally caught up! I’m currently heating a 2500 sqft 2 story with a Qaudrafire Isle Royale but am looking into getting the IS. I have lots of questions so I’ll just start off slow and ask this, can it be burned in non cat mode with the bypass opened? Reason I ask is my wife normally adds a few pieces during the day and to not have her worry about the bypass and timing of it all would make things a little easier. I load the stove every night and every morning so that will not be an issue, just making sure it would be able to be something similar to my secondary stove for her to operate when I’m not at home.

 

You could do that but there is no need. If you load it up she won’t have to add any wood. Even if she does want to add logs, on a hot stove she can just add a log and close the cat.

 

Ok that would be nice. Most days I’m sure 2 loads will be enough and she won’t even have to mess with it but when it gets down to teens and below we need a lot of heat and 3 loads a day is required just to maintain.

 

Just curious but why are you looking at a stove to replace the Quadrafire? The reasons might help us give sensible guidance toward something that might be better suited to your needs if we knew the 'why'.

Brian

 

My Quad IR is a nice big stove but being a secondary only stove it belches lots of heat all at once. For a 3.0 Cu ft stove I feel like I should be getting better use out of it. It gives about 3-4 hours of usable heat then quickly cools after that. Our House was built in the mid 90’s and is reasonably insulated so it holds the heat ok. With reloading often to keep temp we run our downstairs where the stove is at 80-85F on cold days just to keep our upstairs above 65. I have installed ceiling to floor tjunderland register blowers to push the heat from the stove room to the upstairs rooms but we still struggle. The IR has a blower on it so it puts out very intense heat for the first couple hours but falls on its face after that. I can load the stove up and go to bed at 11 with the stove room at 80 and by 6am it’s down to 68 and the stove is 200-250F with just coals left. I have 1-2 year CSS ash wood that’s covered so my wood is always below 20% Mc. I’m really looking at the IS to have a stove I can run low during moderate weather and still run hard on frigid days and keep the house warm without overheating us while doing it. If the IS can keep my downstairs at 75 for 8 hours I feel like that would be more useful than running it up to 85 for 2-3 hours then gradually cooling after that.

 

Here is my house I’m heating

 

Here is the downstairs

 

Gotcha'. Yes, it would seem that a cat. bases stove (pure cat. or hybrid is not really important here IMO) would be better at providing a longer, more even burn than what you describe.

I have gathered a bunch of data from my Ideal Steel and can show how it runs on a full load of hardwood.

The four temperatures recorded are:
1) Combustor (blue line): this is measured with a thermocouple directly above and w/in 1/4" of the top / center of the combustor output.
2) Flue exit (red line): this is the flue gas temperature, measured with a thermocouple inside the stove pipe just before it enters the chimney. Please note that this is not the outside of the pipe temp., which would be about half of what is shown here but the actual flue gas temperature measured with a probe inside the pipe.
3) Firebox (green line): this is the inside of the firebox, measured with a probe inserted (Easy Boys!) into the firebox on the top / front / left side of the stove. It is the hottest place in the firebox before the catalyst.
4) Stovetop (purple line): this is the hottest part of the stovetop, measured on the outside surface of the stove, which happens to be at the back of my I.S., very close to the stove pipe flange.




A bit of explanation makes it make a little more sense: Reload occurs just after 22:00, and shows as a large spike in the combustor and firebox temps. After the volatiles burn off, a long burn of the wood follows and these are the relatively flat portions of the curve between 23:30 and 4:50. Notice how stable the flue and stove top temperatures are in this period. Then the wood is gone and the coals are burning down until about 8:54, when I opened the draft to burn the coals down faster. Finally, the burn never really ends but the stove is burned down far enough that it requires a reload at around 11:18 at which time both the firebox and combustor temps. spike.

What cannot be told from this graph is how much heat the stove actually produced and whether or not it would be enough to heat your house. ?? That is always the magic question- how big a stove do you need? The I.S. has a firebox listed at 3.4 cu. ft. but in my experience, is tough to load fully due to the front loading door and sloped firebox top (inside). The I.S. is considered a 'large' stove, and it is but there are a few out there even bigger and so of course would provide more total heat output per loading. But as you specify you are looking for somewhere around a 7 hour burn time, I suspect the I.S. would do a fine job on a fairly tight, modern house of the size you mention. My house is smaller, about 1,400 sq. ft. two levels, much older and for almost all of the walls, not insulated at all (built in 1905) and the stove will keep my house warm to our satisfaction on all but the coldest days (-9F since we installed this stove), and even then it is merely chilly in the morning, not 'cold' or unacceptable in any way.

Brian

 

Thanks Brian. I’ve read thru and seen your charts before so I am familiar with them. Stove actual load size compared to measured stove size is another reason I am looking hard at the IS. Although my stove is rated at 3.0 Cu Ft the back 6-7” of my stove are only about 16” wide so I struggle to fully pack my stove. It can fit a 22” log but only 2 of the 3 rows when loaded E/W. N/S loading in mine is hardly an option bc it’s only 16” deep. My wood is all about 18-22” with the exception of short end pieces that might be around 12-15” long. In reality I would guess I’m actually only using about 2.5 or less of the 3 Cu Ft mine is rated at. If I can get 3.0ish of the 3.4 the IS is rated at I would be ahead.

 

Thanks- glad to be of help if and when I can be.

Fully loading any stove is usually a challenge but some are more difficult than others. I think end- loading stoves are the easiest to load as close to full as possible, most often. Front loading stoves have the general problem of having hot coals / engaged wood fall out (if loading a stove with a lot of fuel in it) and also loading the stove all the way to the top without the last one or two splits falling out before you can shut the door. Top loading stoves are the easiest to load IMO but also difficult to fully fill unless the loading door is very wide and fairly deep, and then they tend to smoke when opened.

Another consideration is always a Blaze King King or a Regency F5100, both around 4 1/2 cu. ft., cat.- based stoves. Unfortunately, both use an 8" flue and neither one has a grate to sift ashes through. Both also have very expensive combustors which require replacement to maintain very high efficiency. That said, they are huge stoves and to a certain degree, bigger is always better if you have the room and can afford the stove (both are expensive). This is not really any kind of scientific or even 'guesstimate' of what you may need for your house and your requirements, just that they are the biggest stoves commonly available and nothing exceeds like excess. I considered both stoves but eventually settled on the I.S. due to its design, features, and far less expensive cat. but I still believe either one of those two mentioned would have served very well. And the Blaze King series, at least the ones I looked at, have a temperature activated draft control which most users claim works very well, and that too is a plus IMO. Value wise- how much stove you get for what price, the I.S. is hard to beat or even equal IME; it is a lot of stove with some really excellent features, from an outstanding company, for the price. Actually for any price, but the lesser price is another positive selling point I think.

Best of luck with whatever you decide and by all mean, continue to ask questions. Lots of different stove owners here and no bashing or brand extremism so you will get some excellent info. / answers I think.

Brian

 

Trilifter7 I wish I could say more to help but looks like Brian's got you covered. His colds are probably more in line with yours anyway. At 30 below about same size house iS needs to be fed every 6 hours to keep stove top above 550 burning ash if that helps

 

Every 6 hours to keep above 500 would be a dream! Currently my IR would have to be fed every 3 hours to maintain above 500 STT and that’s not even possible bc most of the wood would still be coaling for another 3 hours before I could have space in the stove to fit more wood in.

 

Last weeks of December my stove top temp stayed above 500 and Below 700 with a geriatric catalytic converter that was replaced as soon as the temperature went normal and that's not using good wood that ash cherry soft maple

 

This is exactly what I was hoping to hear. How many splits were you able to reload with each time? Did you keep it in cat only through out or did you have any secondary help during that time?

 

Probably 12 splits at a time, my splits are small, loaded front to back I can fit more in that way. Cat was engaged when it hit 800 degrees or 400 thermometer on single wall pipe. Air set to half, no coals developed as I was running it hard. The secondaries on the stove are automatic you can see them burning down from the top. Yes I burned a lot of wood but average temperatures for 2 weeks were double digits below zero, with wind. My house is a tiered house and my backup oil furnace only kicked on to get the level below the one the wood stove is on up to 55 to protect water lines.