Why would anyone not want a Fireview by the Woodstock stove company?

Backwoods Savage said:

burningbill said:

BrotherBart said:

burningbill said:

No ash pan, small fire view, small fire box, stone cracks. Just my experience.

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Do you actually own one?

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Yes I do own one. Mine developed two large cracks on the top stones. I think the cracks developed because of the stress between where the heat shield is under the stone. Both cracks in both stones developed about a half inch from where the heat shield ends. They are semi circular and carry into the middle frame. To wood stocks credit they did say they would review pictures of the stone and if it is faulty stone they will replace it. I haven't sent in the pictures yet so I do not know what the outcome will be yet i.e. how much I will have to pay.

About the small fire box, I can load up to 20" long logs, however they have to be right in the middle of the stove. The inside of the stove tapers in on either side of the stove. I just wish it were bigger all around, the length of the wood part I am ok with.

The fireviewing glass is small compared to others like the Jotul castine etc

My biggest complaint is no ash pan. It is hard to shovel the ash out without the fine ash getting kicked up into the air when scooping the ash into a bucket.

Would I buy it again? Probably. I have realized wood stoves are much more work than other wood burning devices, i.e. wood boilers. I recently bought an EKO 40 and will use the wood stock just for back up.

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I'd be interested to know how long you've had the stove and also interested in Woodstock's response after you send in the pictures.

I thought the lack of ash pan would be a problem but it has not proved to be so for us.


This also is interesting and speaks well for Woodstock in that you would be willing to buy another one from this company. I think this reflects well on the company and its product.

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I have had the stove since 2005, the cracks occurred in the first years use. I called woodstock then but stopped using the stove until this year, my wife was nervous with young children around a hot stove. Now the stove is running again and I need to get in touch with woodstock about the cracks. I think woodstock is as good as they get, but all things have week points. There is no perfect product and even the best need constant improvement to stay the best. I am sure if I had any other brand of stove I would find things I don't like about them.

Neither my wife nor I cared for the looks of the Fireview. "Too poochie" in my wife's words, too ornate for my taste, though it would look great in the right type of house, say an old Victorian. We bought a Keystone and except for the small firebox, which necessitates frequent feeding when the temperature dips below the teens, we love it. If Woodstock made a Keystone XL with a 3 cu. ft. firebox, we'd have the checkbook out again.

I hope Woodstock reads all these posts and uses the suggestions in a positive way. There certainly is not a perfect product but at the same time there isn't many things made that can't be improved upon.

Two things that have kept me from buying one of their stoves... The rear exit and small box size. Other than that, I'd love to own one.

daleeper said:

Beautiful stoves, they have a cat and thermostatic control, and glass view of the fire. All features my next stove will have.

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The woodstock stoves do not have a thermostat. That is a disadvantage only when compared to the blazeking since the BK stoves do have a thermostat.

I agree with the above statements that the rear clearance is too huge, more than double the 7" of the heritage and 4x some of the other PE models, and while this stove has the same hearth requirements overall, the stove will be sticking out in the room during the non-burning season and if you had a non-raised hearth you would be able to use the front 16-18" of a normal hearth. Have you ever been down a hallway that was 18" narrower than code? Those 18" can make a comforatable passage into a tight one.

Obviously a larger stove that takes larger splits and simply holds more wood for longer burns is highly desirable. I would like to see one in the 3.5 CF range. We are, after all, competing with blazeking for the "ideal primary heater" market and burn times are majorly important in the ideal section.

I have absolutely no desire or need for an ash pan. Mine does not get used and having one is actually a negative item in my book since there are more seals to leak and latches to break. Wasted weight and height of stove not to mention additional cost for the engineering and construction. My ash bucket holds more than 2 gallons.

The mail order thing is a negative in my book. I need to arrange freight and hae to deal with not being able to see one in person. This is made up for by lower overhead costs and excellent staff/warranty that should be common in the industry but is fairly unique to WS.

They have a smokin half off deal this spring and if the woodstock was that much better than the heritage I would have bought one.

HB, you sound just like me... everything gets compared to the BK and I ultimately find that nothing else can stack up. I've decided to quit comparing and just buy what I already believe is the best on the market... It's hard to beat a very proven cat stove with a 4+ cf box, thermastat, and can burn up to 2 days without reloading.

I have been trying to conceive how a thermostatic control would work on a soapstone stove, and keep ending up against the soapstone lag in heat output. The thermostat would always be behind the curve as the soapstone warms up or cools down. If engineering can place the bimetallic element exposed to direct heat, as on a piece of cast iron, inside the firebox, then it could work. However, I'm not an engineering type and am probably missing something simple.

Has anyone ever seen a thermostatic air control on a soapstone stove?

I echo your feelings about the ash pan. My old VC Encore pan worked well, but we always had to fuss with the gasketing. The newer QuadraFire Cumberland Gap ash pan was a small tray behind an ill-fitting door and a leaky gasket--it caused more than one stove runaway in the middle of the night. Both ash pans spread much more ashes around than shoveling out the inside of the Fireview does.

herb

tsalagi777 said:

I echo your feelings about the ash pan. My old VC Encore pan worked well, but we always had to fuss with the gasketing. The newer QuadraFire Cumberland Gap ash pan was a small tray behind an ill-fitting door and a leaky gasket--it caused more than one stove runaway in the middle of the night. Both ash pans spread much more ashes around than shoveling out the inside of the Fireview does.

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Interesting. In 23 years of burning a VC Encore, we never had an ash door leak, and ash removal was always neat and clean. So far with 5 total burn days and one ash pan operation, our new Oslo is also very clean with ash pan operation. Why was it so messy to use the ash pan? Other than waiting too long to empty it so that it was overflowing, I can't see why it would be messy.

After my experiences with ash pans, that was a must-have feature for any new stove.

Highbeam said:

daleeper said:

Beautiful stoves, they have a cat and thermostatic control, and glass view of the fire. All features my next stove will have.

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The woodstock stoves do not have a thermostat. That is a disadvantage only when compared to the blazeking since the BK stoves do have a thermostat.

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Oops, you are exactly right. I went back and edited the original post, to prevent misleading others in the future.

Thanks Highbeam, for setting me straight.

The Fireview has good looks and great peformance. If I could change one thing about the stove it would become a top-loader. Walk up, lift, drop, done. No more bending over and sticking your arm into the firebox when loading.

grommal said:

tsalagi777 said:

I echo your feelings about the ash pan. My old VC Encore pan worked well, but we always had to fuss with the gasketing. The newer QuadraFire Cumberland Gap ash pan was a small tray behind an ill-fitting door and a leaky gasket--it caused more than one stove runaway in the middle of the night. Both ash pans spread much more ashes around than shoveling out the inside of the Fireview does.

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Interesting. In 23 years of burning a VC Encore, we never had an ash door leak, and ash removal was always neat and clean. So far with 5 total burn days and one ash pan operation, our new Oslo is also very clean with ash pan operation. Why was it so messy to use the ash pan? Other than waiting too long to empty it so that it was overflowing, I can't see why it would be messy.

After my experiences with ash pans, that was a must-have feature for any new stove.

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We burn 24/7 all winter, so emptying the ash pan became an ordeal--it had to be done with the coals at lowest level, open the door and slide the hot pan out, dump smoking ashes into the ash bucket, try to keep the ash pan door closed to keep from a roaring coal bed and hot coals dropping down. And we usually let it go too long, so it was overflowing, and ash would scrape out into the ash pan enclosure and have to be scraped out under a hot coal bed. We got used to it with the Encore, but the smaller ash pan on the Cumbie was much worse.

But I really do miss the top-load feature and the thermostatic control of the Encore, though.....

herb

Another nice feature of the BK, you only have to empty ashes about once every cord or so. :cheese:

I'm looking at stoves right now and my biggest hang up is the rear clearance, also not a fan of the side loading. The lopi endeavor is leading the way right now due to it's 4 1/2" rear clearance and my wife likes the looks of it.

My issues would be the style, size, and the side loading, the biggest of these being the side load. While I do like the classical Cast Iron look on a stove, something about the fireview's high contrast with the iron and the stones, as well as the lack of decoration on the front glass just doesn't match my style. I love the Cat and the fact that for a soapstone stove almost no one mentions any cracking. I think their double layer engineering is an excellent innovation.

As posted elsewhere...

First year burning my Keystone...

• Cemented crumbling in rear firebox stone slab
• Rebuilt the awkward latch
• Broken damper plate and arm

The ash pan is something I wouldn't want to do without. Not sure why the fireview doesn't have one as well.