Feels great to be back to burning. Early fall started like any other, I had two wood stove chores to do so I did them in late Sept. One was to sweep the chimney, done easily enough. The second chore was to replace a warped bypass frame in my Woodstock Fireview. It's just two bolt how hard could that be, I thought. As I was tightening the two bolts on the new frame, I hear a loud "CRACK" from inside the stove and felt that sick feeling in my gut. I had cracked the internal combustor pan, and it looked awful to replace, and to buy. A call to the fine folks at Woodstock confirmed one of my suspicions...the part is a real chore to replace, but the cost is much less that I thought...only $100. Since I'm in NH, I was able to get one of their guys to come down and replace the part and anything else the stove may need. The man did a wonderful job, and basically replaced everything in the stove...with a few newly redesigned parts...every gasket the stove has. He even changed the andirons for me! The stove is 13 years old, and now has a new lease on life for another 13 plus years at least.
While having the stove disconnected, I was able to really inspect the liner and found a bunch of cracked tiles. There must have been flame riding up the pipe and hitting the clay liner because there was damage so I began calling to get quotes on repairs. For years I've wanted a stainless liner installed just for safety reasons, and now was the time to do it. After speaking with a few outfits...some never called back, some swore up and down that all I needed was a liner installed with no insulation, others wanted to ovalize the pipe and use a pour in insulation I finally had a really nice outfit come in and they spec'd exactly what my gut said I needed...break out the 7X11 clay flu liner and install a new 6" stainless titanium liner, wrapped with 1" insulation with a chimney cap. The price was higher than I wanted, but it was the right thing to do and these guys just made me feel right about their work...and their references raved about them so I signed off and it's done too. They did a wonderful job, and were very neat and clean the whole time. Very professional!
So now I'm running a freshly rebuilt Woodstock Fireview, hooked up to a properly installed stainless insulated liner and it feels great!! It was unplanned spending, but the right thing to do and with a young son sleeping in his room at night I feel it's safer so I sleep better too. Some things to note is, with the liner I'm getting better draft making relights easier. Also, and some of this could be the wood I'm into right now but, I can go from a cold stove to having the bypass closed and the cat ignited in about 10 minutes! This was never possible before, it was more like 20 minutes to half hour. I'm also easily getting higher stove temps to the point where now I only fill the stove half full so it's quite a bit more efficient with the wood I'm using. I figured there would be some change in performance but this setup is like a whole new experience and I'm having to learn the behavior all over again. Between the late start I got to burning because of all the work that went in, and the reduced wood loads this thing is using I should have a surplus of wood this spring, at least I hope. I am very happy with the new setup and it's performance, and am happy to have had two positive experiences with the guy from Woodstock, and the chimney company I used. Here's a video of the burn last night. Outside temps were in the mid 20's, stove top temp was 600 and the air was turned up all the way to zero (off). Look at the catalytic action in that thing!! It never behaved quite like this before.
While having the stove disconnected, I was able to really inspect the liner and found a bunch of cracked tiles. There must have been flame riding up the pipe and hitting the clay liner because there was damage so I began calling to get quotes on repairs. For years I've wanted a stainless liner installed just for safety reasons, and now was the time to do it. After speaking with a few outfits...some never called back, some swore up and down that all I needed was a liner installed with no insulation, others wanted to ovalize the pipe and use a pour in insulation I finally had a really nice outfit come in and they spec'd exactly what my gut said I needed...break out the 7X11 clay flu liner and install a new 6" stainless titanium liner, wrapped with 1" insulation with a chimney cap. The price was higher than I wanted, but it was the right thing to do and these guys just made me feel right about their work...and their references raved about them so I signed off and it's done too. They did a wonderful job, and were very neat and clean the whole time. Very professional!
So now I'm running a freshly rebuilt Woodstock Fireview, hooked up to a properly installed stainless insulated liner and it feels great!! It was unplanned spending, but the right thing to do and with a young son sleeping in his room at night I feel it's safer so I sleep better too. Some things to note is, with the liner I'm getting better draft making relights easier. Also, and some of this could be the wood I'm into right now but, I can go from a cold stove to having the bypass closed and the cat ignited in about 10 minutes! This was never possible before, it was more like 20 minutes to half hour. I'm also easily getting higher stove temps to the point where now I only fill the stove half full so it's quite a bit more efficient with the wood I'm using. I figured there would be some change in performance but this setup is like a whole new experience and I'm having to learn the behavior all over again. Between the late start I got to burning because of all the work that went in, and the reduced wood loads this thing is using I should have a surplus of wood this spring, at least I hope. I am very happy with the new setup and it's performance, and am happy to have had two positive experiences with the guy from Woodstock, and the chimney company I used. Here's a video of the burn last night. Outside temps were in the mid 20's, stove top temp was 600 and the air was turned up all the way to zero (off). Look at the catalytic action in that thing!! It never behaved quite like this before.
But, man, that thing is blazing! I trust you did some break-in fires on the new cast parts. Going to a full-length liner no doubt increased the draw, probably quite a bit according to your description. How tall is your chimney? If it's tall, I'd consider installing a flue damper. With the air cut all the way, I wouldn't want it running that hot (unless required to maintain house temp, in which case I'd be considering tightening the air-sealing of my house, adding insulation, or going to a PH.) Consistently running that kind of flame (plus cat heat) up through the top of the stove could result in eventual warping, I would think. Or maybe I just baby my stoves too much... 
Also, in my experience, the Fireview and Keystone (and probably most cat stoves except hybrids) burn cleanest at lower output. When I had much flame in the box, seemed like I usually got some smoke out of the stack.
