Just brought home my new Progress Hybrid

rideau said:

Wolf,

How has the PH been treating you? Are you getting confident enough to leave nice fire in the stove nights? Is your home comfortable? Any problems?

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Sorry for the delay in my response. I lost power in this storm that just blew through here yesterday. Looks like I may be without power for a couple days and I don't have a generator. It was on my list of to-do's,but I just never got around to it.

An update to my experiences so far:

First, this stove is keeping my house quite toasty. I am very pleased with that. My master bedroom which was always in the low 60's or high 50's is now pretty steady between 68-75 I actually have to close my door and turn on my room-to-room transfer fan and it just maintains the temperature so I don't roast while I sleep. The coldest part of the house is the family room, which is on the same level as the stove, without a fan moving the air into it, can stay around 66-69 degrees once everything is up to temp and cruising for a while.

The other day I tried going for a longer burn, so I filled her up about 80% on a bed of hot coals about an inch deep and was able to get about a 12 hour burn. I based my ending burn on a stove top temp of 250 degrees. I am ecstatic about that.

Some things I have learned within this short time of using this stove is that I still have a pretty strong draft. I noticed that as the wood gets burned down more than 60%-ish that it starts flaming and it burns down much faster. I decided to shut my stove pipe damper completely that I left in from the Mansfield and it puts the flames back out and the stove top will burn hotter (I still want to play with this some more to confirm).

I used the cooktop for the first time yesterday since I don't have power and I have an electric stove. This is the only negative comment I have with this stove so far. I absolutely could not get the center burner over 380 degrees. I think that heat shield just blocks the majority of the heat. Can any of the old PH owners notice a significant difference between cooktops? Why did Woodstock do this? The side burners were up to 440, but they are raised off the surface by fractions of an inch so it didn't help.

rideau said:

Tony, I keep my stovetop thermometer on the cast iron deck behind the soapstone, just before the flue collar area. I believe a lot of owners do. It gives a better. quicker read for engaging the cat. I leave the thermometer there. On a hot fire it goes up to 525 or so. I usually run the stove at 425 or 450, temp read there. I believe it gives an accurate understanding of the firebox temp...about twice that on the thermometer. just gets there faster than on the soapstone. I also believe that is where Wolf has he thermometer when he is reading the stated temperature. It's not the exit temp to the flue that he is reading.

Hope Wolf lets us know how he is doing with the stove...

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Yes, that is where my thermo is located. I also use an IR gun for back up

One more thing I learned is when to tell if my Cat lights off. I can tell when it lights off by the sounds my stove makes. I can hear the metal expanding and hear the pinging sounds, that I believe is the heat shield heating up. If I don't hear those sounds within 10 seconds I open the bypass and try again in a little while.

fire_man said:

Wolf:

First of all is sounds like you are getting familiar very quickly with the proper operation of your Progress. The pinging noise is an excellent indication the cat fired off, I use the same method.

Secondly, Woodstock put the heat shield in there because there were problems with the original un-shielded cooktops cracking due to thermal shock. I sill have an original cooktop without the shield and it has not cracked. I never measured the temps but can it you want.

I even have an original single soapstone slab lid!

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Hmmm...Yes I am very curious to know what the old cooktops without the heat shield can get up to. If there is a significant temperature differential then I wonder if there would be a way to slow down the heat transfer to prevent the thermal shock but not halt the max temp. I look forward to your results Tony.

fire_man said:

Wolf

I just measured my unshielded cooktop using my IR gun.

First: the middle of the center stone before lifting it was 430F.

I lifted all three stones and measured the cast iron cooktop.

Left burner 540F
Center Burner 600F Flat - no ridges
Right Burner 570F Thickest ridges

The ridges would not have anything to do with the temps I measured, but would impact a pan resting on the ridges.

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Wow that's a significant difference. Thanks for the update.