Woodstock's new steel stove

Don' forget the steel is lined with Soap inside, and the outside has those large looking cast iron or steel "legs", they look large and thick (aka heavy!). Soapstone is amazingly heavy by itself. I have a little 4" peice (scrap) I got from a stone shop I used when shopping for matching tile, you would not beleive how heavy the dang thing is. Feels like lead or a gold bar.

 

They mentioned their name, but I do not remember it.[/quote]

They mentioned their name, but I do not remember it.[/quote]
I think that maybe the fact that the stove is lined with soapstone, will make it heavy... For sure the Progress won't burn totally as blacked out as the Fireview , but even the Fireview get's those nice secondary ghost flames as well.. Plus the PH has a air inlet hole in the front that is always feeding air even with the draft 100% closed , that being where I like to run my PH.. I think you would be amazed at the heat the comes off the PH.. Maybe the Union with all the inside soapstone will pump out that nice heat as well .. I think the big glass door on the Union will throw out some massive heat .. I know a lot of heat comes from the big glass front on the PH.

 

Which wouldn't be much different than a normal steel stove lined with firebrick. It would be heavier, but not by a huge amount.

The legs are steel. I would have thought they would be about the same weight as normal sized cast iron legs on my 30. But, clearly their is a lot of weight on this stove, so it has to be somewhere. I was just surprised by how heavy t was. The 30NC weighs about 200 lbs less.

I owned and moved a Hearthstone Heritage. Yeah, soapstone is not the most forgiving material in the world when it comes to lifting and moving it.

 

There is an option to have soapstone behind the designs cut on the sides of the legs. I don't know if they're doing that on all the stoves or just if requested but that will add to weight also.

 

I kinda know how you operate (24x7 hot stoves...), so I'll try to explain what I see in that type of scenario, always loading with a hot stove, on a normal cold day (upper 20's). First, I found it madea HUGE difference with the PH when packing it full, if the splits were big thick splits. Being an in-experienced EPA stove burner last year, I was used to feeding the old fireplace, and the smaller splits of course burned faster (which is kinda better in a fireplace), so most of my wood last year was waaaaaaay to small/split too much. So if I would pack the stove with all small splits, on a hot coal bed that I raked forward, the fire would take off in 1 to 3 minutes and I would start shutting the air down 1/2 way after about 5 minutes, at 10 minutes it would be going full blast, most of the visible wood (front of box and top) would be burning and/or charred a bit. So at 10 minutes, I would turn the air all the way down, and just crack it about 1/8th(the least amount you can open it), and close the bypass (activate the cat). The stove pipe would be between 250 and 300, and would immediately drop 25 to 50 degrees within 1 minute (indicating the cat lit up nicely). The firebox would immediately slow down from lack of air, and turn to a very lazy flame coming off some of the wood, and sometimes going completely black with only some glowing red coals. After 20 minutes to 1 hour, about 2/3 of the time (2 out of 3 times doing this) the secondaries would start up, sometimes pretty heavily almost looking like a propane gas grill at the top. The one time it doesn't start secondarys so much, it would just go mostly black with just a few lazy colorful flames jumping around. The secondaries would last for anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 or 4 hours. The secondaries would then fade away, only whispering up every now and then, I guess as a new piece of wood decides to outgass a bit. From this point on, the bottom of the box would be glowing red with super hot coals and only whispers of flame every now and then. Sometimes you get that one spot between a few oddball splits that continues to have a very light flame whispering that goes for an hour or something... This is now where the stove releases the peak of its heat output, and it stays here for a very long time(+/-6 hours), with nothing but hot coals burning and a whisper of fames. So you are now 4 hours into the burn and you get about 4 to 6 hours of peak heat before it starts to very very slowly diminish heat output. I think at 10 hours the firebox is not producing much heat at all, the CAT is still producing some, but most of the heat is now coming from the mass of the soapstone and iron, it takes many hours (I'd guess 2 to 4 hours) to release all that heat which it stole from the beginning of the fire. So although not much is going on in the stove, it still feels like it heat wise. With this "small split full load", at about 10 hours your down to only enough coal to easily relight without kindling. Rake what little coal is left, and re-load.

Now take the same scenario above except use BIG beefy splits, and you can almost litterally simply take each of the above times, and add 20 or 30% or so, which extends it out to 12 to 16 hours intead of ~10 hours.

Footnotes:
-All this is on a fairly cold day with a really good draft (I have a strong draft, plus my house gets strong winds against my vacu-cap which I think adds to the draft).
-You can also shut the air down 100% instead of leaving the air open 1/8th with a full load which will likely get you more burn time. BUT, the few times I tried this on slow or normal draft days (not super cold out), the stove would cycle with firebox flashes/puffs. Where the stove goes black, builds up gasses and then lights it up, then slowly goes out again.... and repeats... these are never very big puffs, no smoke comes out of the stove or anything, but you can hear a light "puuuuuff" when the stove lights up. So I rarely shut it completely down to avoid this.
-I have never tried to fully load the stove when it's not cold out (like now, in 40's in eve, 60's in day), and see if I can shut the air all the way down for super slow burn. Shoulder season (now and last spring) I simply built smaller fires, 1/4 load, slow burn.
-If you do NOT fully load the stove, just put in 2 or 3 small splits, you can shut the stove all the way down, and you will get a black (no flame) slow burn of 6 or 8 hours with just a little heat. But the glass turns black, so you get now "show".
-At any time during the slow burns, you can crank the air up to 1/4 or 1/2 or more, and in 30 seconds to 1 minute you will have a full blast fire show with secondaries. You can then turn it back off, and within 30 seconds to 1 minute the fire will normally go back out. So you do have really good controll of the stove, which is kinda cool.

Hope this helps with basic expectations...

 

I'd really like to take some 6 inch standing dead elm or ash rounds I have standing check them with a moisture meter right after I block them up , and then see how they burn in the PH.. My wood two years from now that I'll be working on next will all be split once and left big.. Example just split a 6-8 inch round in half, not 4 pieces. I think the PH would burn a long time with wicked heat output... That's one thing with the PH,,, it's always throwing out some really nice heat , to the point 3 -4 splits are good at times.

 

What I am looking for is a large stove that I can run at 40-50% of it's potential so I can get the burn times I need. I just can't tell if the Progress or the Union will meet those needs.

 

When I was talking to Woodstock recently,, I mentioned about the Union pricing... I said how nice will that be if your biggest stove is your least expensive of your wood stove line... I think that will catch people off guard.... clever! and they're not getting just a steel box.. I'm thinking they're going to sell quite a few Union stoves, and I think they are gearing up for that, by buying their own water jet machine... Big demand , it will all be kept in house.. any updates and changes,, again it will all be kept in house . Having total control is what has enabled Woodstock to ship out free updates to any former stove owners... Gives one a nice peace of mind owning one of their stoves...

 

I hear ya...I thought the Fireview would fit my needs, even though it was not rated to heat my farmhouse by 300 sq ft.. I was pushing it.. I didn't want to run the stove continually at it's upper end.. I did love the stove, simple , easy to service the cat, etc. So now with the PH , I'm heating my place at an idle so to speak.. Stove will; never have to be burned hot.. for me it was the right stove... I felt running the Fireview hard I would just be going through wood, and the stove would have worked here, but I wanted a big stove I could go easy on...I totally understand what your looking for BB, then you'll use less wood as well along with longer burn times... Makes sense.. Not trying to sell you on Woodstock, but as long as others would give you a way out if burn times and heat output weren't up to par, at least you'd have a way out from shelling out a bunch of money for more then one stove... That's something to consider not knowing until the stoves are in place and up and running.. Hope you first choice is a good one, moving heavy stoves is not something you want to do a bunch of times..

 

Progress Hybrid Burn time updates for moderate temperatures (upper 30's and 40's):

Part 1. Last night I loaded 6 REALLY small splits, more like kindling into the stove, which was warm with just a few hot coals left in it. So it filled the PH about 1/4 or maybe 1/3, full. They were short pieces, 14 or 16 inches long, and realy small. Time was exactly 12:00am(midnight), Temp was exactly 40 outside and only supposed to drop to 38 with light winds. It took 12 minutes to light up and get some strong flames going, and the pipe reached 250 so I closeed the bypass, shut the air to 1/2, and waited 3 minutes, then shut air completely closed. So it was 12:15am, and I went to bed. At exactly 8am I checked the stove, my ECO fan was still spinning hard, which means the stove top was above 200. There was still a whisper of flames coming off some chunks of wood, and about 4 or 5 inches of hot coals and ash. Stove room (1200' room with cathedral ceilings) was 82 degrees, boiling, I had to open a few windows to make coffee. AT 9am I opened the bypass, cracked the air open to about 1/4 and put in two baking potatoes wrapped in foil and salted. At 10am (now 10 hours into the burn), the stove top was 192 degree's, the stove room was still 74 and I had 2 windows open (6 inches each). Temperature outside at 10am in the SUN was 48 degree's, the sun was strong. I removed the baked potatoes and they were DELICIOUS, crispy and salty. At 11am, the stove had very little left burning inside, just 2 or 3 inches of hot ashes with small chunks of coals still glowing. You can easily do a reload and re-start with no problem. Stove soapstone still emmitting lots of heat, I shut windows now, and room staying comfortable but on warm side.

Summary:
-12:00am Load into warm stove 1/4 to 1/3rd load of very small splits (mix of Oak, Maple), 40 degree's out, dropping to 38
-12:12am Shut air 1/2 way, close bypass
-12:15am Shut down air 100%
-8:00am Stove room was 82 degrees (1200 sq ft), flames in firebox, 4 or 5 inches of red hot coals
-9:00am opened bypass, opened air to 1/4, added two potatoes to bake
-10:00am Stove top 192 degree's, baked potatoes done and delicious! 48 degrees outside and sunny
-11:00am 2 or 3 inches of ash and glowing coals, perfect for a re-load. Soapstone emmiting lots of heat, but not roasting anymore

 

I'm still amazed at this number. I was wondering if the new stove would not have the "soft heat" of our Fireview and other soapstone stoves because of the steel outer shell. And I still wonder if this stove will be radiant as well as convective with the new steel design, if it will heat up faster/cool off quicker/ feel hotter in the room etc.

But 650lbs is a huge mass whether its iron, steel or stone!

 

EPA results came back for the steel stove:
http://blog.woodstove.com/2013/10/under-hood-10-record-epa-efficiency.html

 

Those are impressive numbers. Briank must be wetting himself in anticipation.

 

Soapstone involved, you'll be fine

 

BrianK feels like a 5 yo waiting for Santa.

 

I hear

Can you imagine when you strike the first match to light that bad boy! I'd like to see your expression doing that

 

Are there any options to have those legs painted a different color than the sea-foam green?

 

Here's the numbers from the EPA website for the Progress Hybrid (Firebox: 2.8 Cu.ft.):
EmissionRate G/H: 1.33
Heat Output btu/hr: 12,538 - 73,171
Actual Measured Efficiency: 81

And according to the blog today, for the Union/Steel Hybrid (Firebox 3.2 Cu.Ft.):
EmissionRate G/H: 1.2 gm/hr
Heat Output btu/hr: 13,241 to 60,145
Actual Measured Efficiency: over 82%

On their website they rate the Progress Hybrid as Max Heat Output: 80,000 BTUs /hr.

Wonder what that number will be for the Union/Steel Hybrid?

For comparison from the EPA list (I have no idea whether these are apples to oranges comparisons):

 

Yes, you can ask for any combination of their standard colors. See http://www.woodstove.com/standard-stove-colors

 

Thank jebus.