When it slows down again.. lol depending on the age of the cat, the older it is the more baths it will require. Also depends on the type of wood I would think. I don't clean mine very often. On average twice a season?? New cats are funner, they burn all season without fuss
The last month has been a good continuation of all things normal with the stove, but with somewhat warmer temps for the winter. This coming weekend the forecast has 3 consecutive nights in the single digits and daytime highs that don't get out of the 20's. Within the last couple of weeks my MIL gifted me a "kindling cracker" tool and I've been using it to cut down my normal splits that I had in my stacks into thirds and quarters. The benefit I'm finding is that that stove gets up and running to temp quicker, and I'm able to get just a little bit more wood in the stove with the smaller burn chamber, and as a result I can keep the air basically all the way closed with a little better burn time. This weekend should be instructive, and I'll post an update if anything interesting crops up.
Before the temps dropped to single digits and the snow flakes flew I emptied the ash pan, pulled the catalyst and cleaned it out. I'd say I'm getting a pretty regular 5 day stretch out of the ash pan before I go to empty it. I'm also noticing that different woods produce different amounts of ash for me. Pine seems to produce more ash and oak seems to produce less. [But, like with most things- I could be wrong!] One thing I have been doing is narrowing the wood splits to about the width of a beer bottle. It's much smaller than I split them initially, but the combination of getting more surface area exposed on my wood rack in the house next to the stove to evaporate off just a little bit more moisture and the ability to get - I don't know- call it 15-20% more wood by weight into the stove due to the narrow chamber / irregularly shaped splits has been getting me visibly more productive fires / longer burn times and a much nicer morning when I come down to get the stove going again. While I'm very obviously fawning over this stove in my posts I think I'll speak to some of the limitations I experienced over the previous few days. In no particular order; 1) When the temps got down into the single digits, this stove did a really good job of keeping the house at about 69 F. Struggled to get to 70 with any regularity. - The house is drafty. Doesn't have insulation. It was pretty windy. But still, some of you guys talk about homes in the 80's and this wasn't happening. Granted, the thermostat is around the corner from the living room just before the staircase up to the bedroom, but it's a small house. It's not that far away. 2) The time between loading the stove can be stretched to 8 hours without needing to add kindling, but that's really about all it will do. After that the coals / embers are there, but they need to be coaxed back to life. 3) Getting splits down in diameter / width - whatever the better term is- has really been beneficial, but I don't know how many people would be willing to go down this route regularly. 4) Maybe someone can speak to this- but reloads aren't really that fast. If I get up in the middle of the night to let the dogs out, or.... join them... It's not as easy to throw a few pieces of wood in and clamp the stove back down- it takes a bit of time to get it back up to temp before I'm ready to re-engage the cat and adjust the air- so I'll either leave it as it is and just reload fresh in the morning and spend the time to get it roaring again, or I'll throw a single split in and not put the cat on to keep it creeping along and again deal with it in the morning when I want to be up for a good 25 min or so. 5) I'm going to lean heavy into this again and say that I do use Bio Bricks with my wood supply. Probably an 90/10 ratio. I use roughly 1 pallet every 2 years. So I spend perhaps $165 or something a year on them, give or take. Reversing that trend- I paid I think $1300 or so on the stove. My furnace hasn't turned on once this heating season. I love the look of the stove / I look forward to using it / splitting wood / I've been cooking on it this year. It allows me to keep my drafty as heck home much warmer than I'd ever consider with the gas furnace. It gives me a sense of pride to be able to do this for my family, and lastly, I travel back in time to my family's farm up in PEI to a time I never saw and imagine my great-grandfather and often have imaginary conversations with him where I tell him about how this little stove heats the whole house with such little wood and sometimes imagine him being confounded that it's possible for a stove to burn this way with a cat and all that, and on the other end imagine the advice he'd be able to give me and talk about different types of wood and all that. It's been a great week and I was looking forward to updating this. Hope it helps anyone who reads it / entertains any of you folks like your reports hit the spot for me.
Happy to oblige. We had some snow, but it wasn't all that very much and it didn't last too terribly long. My approach was to fill the rack inside, and I have one of those circular wood racks (two large metal hoops with a square base- no clue of the name but I'm sure it has one) and filled that. I've been spending the time and effort to split down the wood to about the width of a beer bottle so I can get a full load in the stove and get it to burn through the night. It's been pretty mild with the exception of last night where it got into the teens and it's 16F or so at the moment. I don't have a whole lot to add that I can think of at the moment but I would reflect as well as I could on anyone's questions if they had any. This is a really well built stove by a company that appears to have earned its reputation by building quality stoves and providing exceptional customer service. If not this model I'd recommend this brand for sure, depending on location / climate. Edit: I will add that if I had the choice, Cherry is my favorite wood to burn.
Thaanks RGrant, glad the stove is still working well for you. Im curious about the size splits...have you ever loaded with bigger pueces of wood, and then filled in with the beer bottle sized splits to make a full load? The basis of my question is....I understand that smaller pieces allow a tighter packing of spaces and voids, but I would think larger pieces of wood would burn longer. Wondring what a mix of the two size classes of wood would do for burns? Or maybe it's more than just the size/mass behind the science....
The stuff I'm burning now is from a year and a half ago- so it isn't as dry as I'd like it, that's one reason I'm splitting it smaller. An additional reason stems around the wood being from the beggars can't be choosers wood supply chain. I got this stuff off the side of the road and from people I know who had trees / branches come down. Some of it is really knotty and crooked, not much was nice straight grained. If I don't split it down I can't get much in the burn chamber. I also didn't really find that bigger splits burned any better or worse on their own, but I did notice that I got better heat production out of a stuffed firebox. With my new little hydraulic splitter it isn't much of an effort to run some pieces through and get them more finely split. When I get the stove stuffed and have the fire really producing a full burn, when I set the catalyst engaged and cut the air way back it seems to be at its most efficient. I'm getting stove top temps up in the upper 400's / low 500's and it lasts for a good while. I also enjoy tinkering with the wood so, it's kind of fun. My inlaws on the other hand have a NC30 englander ... or 30NC - I forget which way the letters and numbers go. In any event their stove has the huge firebox with the reburn tubes- so that thing loves the big splits of wood and I think is a great stove. Their house is literally 3 times the size of my home- so they can make use of the bigger firebox.
Makes sense. I guess, like everything else, it depends on stove and setup too. I've just heard people comment before about "overnight pieces", usually bigger and/or gnarly pieces. I may hit you up sometime with a pm to pick your brain a bit if that's ok...
Just cleaned the chimney after the using the stove since last September: I'd prefer to be more specific with actual numbers but I just don't have them so I'm going to estimate I used somewhere between 2.25 and 2.75 cords. I'd wager most of the wood was at 20% moisture. Some under, some above. Through wall thimble then up about 13 feet. I don't know if it is technically creosote or if its ash or what the right term for it is now that I'm thinking as I'm writing this- but it was very little. I'd be measuring the amount in tablespoons.
Somehow I had missed the vid RGrant, thanks for that. Looks like your stove area is fairly open to the rest of the house for good heat flow. I know what you mean regarding your comments on the size of the stove in your space vs the other WS stoves. I keep thinking the same, but then I sit here looking at this Buck stove copy that looks to be the size of the front end of a vw bug in the room and wonder.
Woodstock went ahead and updated the make of their website. I like the looks of it- www.woodstove.com
Ordered a new catalyst some time ago, still have it in the box and figured I might be getting near ready to replace the one I have- and if not, wanted to have a spare on hand especially if the supply chain stuff persists. So I gave the old one a bath after getting some compressed air through it. Got a fire going in it tonight and this thing took right off. I didn’t really put much the stove and the STT was reading just shy of 680F after a little bit and the air was cut down to nothing. Disengaged the cat for a bit to let the temps drop and get it at a temp I was more comfortable with. All in all still really pleased with this stove.
Stove top 680? Is that normal? I'm guessing not since you wanted something you were more comfortable with! Do you have a cat probe thermometer? I don't remember from your stove thread...
Temps spiking towards 700 aren't unheard of, but that's usually with the air control on the highest setting and all I have to do is cut the air back. This time it was on the lowest setting. I don't have a cat probe therm and I don't really anticipate I will. I've been getting by pretty good without that info. I was mostly remarking my surprise at how productive the catalyst was after a bit of air blown through it and a quick bath of distilled water and vinegar.
We did have a wind advisory, 25-50 mph. That’s a good point and there could be something to it. I hadn’t considered that.
