Production Woodstock IS

OMG, the wife says "I'm cold". I look at the room thermometer and it says 73. I thought that was ok for a black stove.

 

Experiment day. Bottom pic, coals raked forward from a 7 am reload. Used only 4 splits and got a decent 6.5 hrs from it (air damper 1/4 plus 1 notch). Top pic is my reload just now, again only using 4 splits. At best, this mid day load gets me two things; 1. 2 reloads within a 12 hr period, getting two hot reloads is nice vs. a long 12 hr burn. and 2. Using the same number of splits of a single reload I get an additional 1 hr (13 hrs vs 12) burning both the same way. Instead of having coals on the last 3 (or so) hrs of a 12 hr burn, the stove is much hotter into a 6.5 hr burn. I think this may be a weekends only kind of thing if I decide to do it.

 

I am doing the same thing for the 2nd day in a row. Fortunately my wife is home during the days and can tend the stove. She finds 2 smaller reloads easier to control than 1 FULL stove

 

So far I have to agree. Two smaller loads in a 12 hr day get you a little more heat and more control of the heat from the early stages of the reload. I'm going to try this again tomorrow and then go back to normal on monday. Although they are calling for low 50's monday. Could be back to shoulder burns then.

 

The afternoon load of 4 splits is lasting much longer than anticipated. Still have two logs going and a bunch of coals, I may get another 1.5 hrs out of this.

 

Happy day!

 

Congratulations, Happy Day indeed...

 

Great looking stove, and that's one of the nicest hearths I've seen. First burn?

 

IS obsessed , thats the hearth you did and took pics of the build?

 

Thanks burndatwood. This is the first burn for the IS (or any stove in our house). The living room is at 75, stove front by the probe port is 650 with a nice load of BL. I was amazed this afternoon when I engaged the cat for the first time and all traces of smoke coming out the top of the chimney completely disappeared.

 

Right. Pics are on my other computer...

 

Last loaded the stove last night at 5 pm, 2/3 full. I was raking the ash bed, getting them into the pan, when I was surprised to find hot coals still in the stove at 7 pm tonight, enough to get it started. Granted, there was a deep ash bed in there, but the Vermont Castings I ran when younger would have been dead cold by the morning. This stove continues to impress.

 

5pm to 7pm on 2/3's of a load? That's only two hours
Nice burn.

 

I let the ash build up some in the shoulder season to hold the coals and stretch out small loads without having to relight.

 

Feels good doesn't it IS? I remember that hearth build, looks really good with the stove doing its thing on it.

 

I found what looked to be 'layered' coals when I first started burning without raking the coals forward.
When I started raking I saw coals way down towards the firebrick and then a thin layer of ash, the bigger coals were on top. Your right, this stove continues to impress.

 

The mail man just showed up. Here is the condar 6.5" catalytic thermometer with a s/s 3/16" probe. The dial face is 2". It also came with a 1/4" sleeve which IS owners shouldn't need.

 

An Allen wrench and a little bit of penetrating oil will help get the screw out of the tapped stove face. Not sure of the wrench size.

 

This is two pics of wishful thinking hard at work. The probe therm is dry fit in the probe port only. The carriage bar rests on the probe as it comes out of the port and the probe lays flat against the upper part of the firebox for exactly 2". The 6.5" probe is touching the center of the cat in both of these pics.

 

View attachment 37894
Here is a finished pic of the probe with its bends. At 4" the bar would touch the probe when the bypass was opened. Just after the first bend going down the probe was straightened out and ran even with the top of the cat. At 4" I was only able to get the probe over the cat 3/8". If I ran it out any longer the carriage bar would push it down and into the cat, at exactly 4" the passes over the probe tip without touching.

One note: I know we talked a lot about placing a magnet over the probe shaft to help secure the dial face in place without moving too much. The bad news is the probe runs flat against the firebox top and theres no way to secure a magnet like we talked about.