Woodstock Progress Hybrid Owners

Good for them trying to give back more control.

 

Before you installed the stove in the house did you have a few fires in it outside first? My stove said to do that 3-5 times before installing it. But, you have used it enough, this shouldn't be the problem. Just trying to eliminate things.

I could tell there was a weird smell coming from mine at first but that went away after a while. The only time I smell it now is in the beginning of each season with the first few fires, then I probably go nose-blind to it after that.

 

OP-
From another wood burning forum I came across this
"Oh, and I forgot to tell you the history of the stove. When it first came out there were some stoves that experienced a smoke smell around the loading door. Woodstock was made aware of the problem and issued a repair kit to the early owners and corrected the manufacturing process. There was also a problem with the secondary burn plate on the top of the firebox warping. This has also been corrected and original owners were offered replacement stoves at no cost. These were problems which did not turn up during the beta testing, and only surfaced after the stove was launched."

Hope this helps / and if you'd like I can send you the link to the rest of the thread in a private message.

 

Hey Lakeside. I'm having lots of similar problems with my Fall 2019 Progress Hybrid. I checked my griddle plate and it was very warped. I tried a dollar bill test and it probably had a 1/16" gap in the griddle gasket on the loading door side. WS send me a new one and I have almost no smell coming out of the corner of the griddle plate anymore. I would get a lot more creosote smell during low burns. But unfortunately the other two main issues are still there. I have smoke right after reloads and then a smoke smell whenever the temp gets above 375 and there is fire burning. I'm basically running the stove on cold starts with maybe 3-4 medium logs and barely able to get any heat for 2400 sq ft. I've ran less than 1/4 cord this whole winter. We bought 2 Austin Air HEPA purifiers which can filter out a lot of it, but not looking forward to replacing the filters once a year at >$250 each.

Are they giving you a replacement for the roll pins? I heard of that issue with early stoves. I don't think my model has them.

It's super busy year and I don't have time to spends full man-days of troubleshooting. I'm similarly frustrated. I went through heaven and hell trying to get a BK Ashford burning clean (creosote smell when the automatic air intake shut down) and I'm not going through that again. WS basically stopped responding by email and every time I call up I basically start from scratch. I've got a few responses of "I've forwarded it to ... our service manager and ... the president and they are aware". One of the calls they even mentioned along the lines of "Well, you can just run it below 400". It was nice of them to send the griddle plate quickly but that obviously didn't solve the main issues. I'm worried about getting dragged through the mud for months of gasket replacements, etc.

Thanks for your post, I feel like with some others to commiserate I have a glimpse of hope we could be able to solve the problems.

tldr: try a dollar bill test on your griddle gasket.

 

Had very Similar problems with my absolute steel, double wall 18ft rear exit, !!!! The factory tried their best but it never resolved the problem, replaced it with a 25year old JOTUL, that burns great and doesn't emit the NOXIOUS fumes into my house, anybody wanna buy a stinky(but fuel efficient and hardly any chimney smoke) Absolute Steel for 50% off?

 

Ever get out to Iowa! I'd take that deal!! In a heartbeat.

 

I’m hearing of different brand name stoves that can stink homes up. I would be torqued if to spend a couple thousand dollars to end up with a boat anchor stinking up my house. Realize these are likely flukes, but with my luck that’s what I’d end up with.

 

I’ve read a bunch of posts where people have a problem with one catalytic stove then switch to another and have the same problem. Wonder if it is house/flue specific.

 

Lakeside if I cut the air off completely on my PH it will backpuff creating an odor in the house, its much worse on a hot reload. Flu damper to reduce draft and allow increased air intake really helps!!! Other people have drilled a small hole in the ash pan loading door then place a magnet to partially cover it

 

BTW, Lakeside. Not sure if you read up on the posts yet, but also wondering. What is the flame activity like? Are you running with low or no flame? With my BK Ashford it had horrible creosote smell in these conditions despite measuring >0.12" W.C draft with 24ft chimney. It seems like the smoke/creosote would get into the gasket and burn. I'm somewhat suspicious it happens on most or all cat stoves running with no flames to burn away the smoke. I get the same think with my PH if I have the stove hot over 400F and try to run at low burn rates.

I specifically got the PH so that I was able to keep a steady flame going. I never adjust the air below 1/4 or so, but mostly running small loads. So I basically get no creosote smell, but I have more of a wood smoke smell when it's hot and when reloading. I would love to run it above 400F and reload it with lots of hot coals, but I stopped when two of us starting getting breathing problems and chronic asthma .

In the interim, I'm wondering if you can try a little bit smaller loads with the air more open... just of course you'll have to sacrifice some burn time.

 

My PH has not had any of the smoke smells. I believe I bought it in 2016. My wife overtired it and I need to replace some warped components. Parts are on order and I’ll do it this summer. The stove is still functional. It is due for new gaskets anyway so I’ll install the parts and replace gaskets and give it some love. It has been a great stove for my house, long burn times and heats my well.

 

Suuuuuuuurrrre she did....... Talk about getting thrown under the buss

Just teasing ya. Just struck me funny!

My wife cleaned our chimney once all by herself. So proud of her. She didn't even need a brush Spooky hot.

 

They provide pretty good instructions for the rebuild. I replaced a bunch of mine a couple of years ago, and found it quite straightforward. We have high draft, and I wasn’t too surprised when I saw some warping. I have smells at times, but believe most if not all of it is door gasket related.

 

Sorry for the late responses guys. Work has been a little crazy lately.

VCSplitter it sounds like we have similar but slightly different problems. I suspected there may be an issue with the cooktop and woodstock sent me a new one but I haven't been able to replace the gasket yet because the one they sent was for a smaller stove and to short. I'm been working directly with Tom the owner of woodstock.

So far under his guidance I've done the following.

• There are two holes under the hinge in the door frame that are drilled all the way through. Woodstock sent me two small tap screws to put in those and then I covered completely with stove cement. Then I sealed all 4 of the screws that hold the stone in the loading door. The theory being that there could be a pressure issue that was pushing smoke out through the threads.
• Woodstock is also sending me a new loading door without a stone. It's a test door that will have all of the holes filled.
• I will be replacing the loading door gasket and cooktop gasket when they arrive.

I typically get more of a smell when I do low CAT burns but the worst smell is when I do a hot reload prior to going to bed at night. With the stove at 400 degrees stovetop I'll bypass the CAT and open the air. After the reload I'll let it catch fire good and then close the CAT while stepping the air down gradually. This will create a smell that will fill the house but nothing visible.

Regarding flame activity it is hands down worse when I have the stove closed off with low burn rate. It's like the CAT can't handle burning all of the smoke and there is back pressure. If makes no difference if I leave a window open near by. This is an internal stove pressure issue, not a house pressure issue. My set up drafts like crazy. If I reduce the fuel load the smoke smell does go down but as you know this drastically affects burn time. If I don't close the air all the way down on a full load then the stove wood over fire so I can't leave it a quarter open when it's loaded up.

I don't have the roll pin issue. My model is too new for that. We have the same year stove and it sounds like we have close to the same problems. I will definitely keep you in the loop as I work through the potential solutions. According to woodstock I should be able to load this thing full, engage the CAT and shut it down without any smell. I assure you that wouldn't happen right now.

I hear you on the responses of woodstock. They are always nice but only a few select people can have a really educated conversation. I will personally only work with Tom going forward because he created the stove and things seem to happen a lot faster once he's involved. I'm going to go through this process of trouble shooting and replacing gaskets but at the end of the day I'll replace the stove if I can't fix the problems. It's disappointing that you couldn't get BK ashford to work with your set up either.

DNH I do have a flew dampener on my stove but I've never considered using it more exclusively and then leaving more air on the stove itself. I will try that this evening. I will get back puffing if the temps are below 400 degrees and I close it done all the way which causes the stove to go black. If I'm above 400 degrees it seems like the secondaries will be going on top and then it doesn't back puff.

At the end of the day I still have the option to return the stove but as you all know it's heavy as hell and I'd like to avoid that. Please keep the ideas coming if you can think of anything that I'm missing.

One last thing I've been considering is the CAT itself. My CAT is only a year and a half old but I do burn 24/7 for the most part. Tom from woodstock has told me that their CATS should last at least 6 years because they use a higher end metal. Have you guys noticed if these problems change when you put a new CAT in? I don't really want to have to replace the CAT every year either.

 

Come to Lake Erie in the spring for some walleye fishing and a stove pickup!

 

My living room is only 20x20, if I had to do it over again I would of put the stove in the basement, too small of a living room for a big steel stove.

 

In the same boat with no basement.

 

That sounds outstanding! When do you chase em in the spring?

 

I received a test door from Woodstock tonight along with some newer types of gaskets. I'll let you know if it changes anything after I get them installed tomorrow.

 

Western Basin, Toledo-Huron is good as soon as the ice comes off, usually about march/april they make a spawning run in the rivers, good fishing but sometimes crowded, can usually catch them good out in the lake drifting a jig.