Soapstone surface temps... am i out in left field here!?

My Fireview will run at 600-650 or more for the first hour or so after a reload on a cold night with good, well seasoned wood then settle in at around 500 for the next 3 or 4 hours. That temp, at least for the Woodstock Soapstone stoves is OK. Not sure about the Hearthstone stoves.

Soapstone does take a while longer to heat up as compared to a cast or steel stove. 600 degrees is about the upper limit you should get the surface temperature to, especially since it may continue rising even after you've shut down the air control. With that said, it's good to burn the stove hot on a regular basis. It helps keep the creosote in the chimney from building up. Soapstone is great because it will even out the heating and cooling cycles a stove goes through as the fuel load burns down and gets reloaded, delivering an even heat to the house.

GDK,
It sounds to me like I was buring my Mansfield the same way your buddy is. If you do a quick search of "Mansfield" from previous posts you'll find a few where I was ranting and raving about the type/lack of heat from the soapstone. I received many responses from mansfield owners who said they regularly hit 600 to 650 with the primary air shut down. I had to keep my air all the way open to reach 600. I don't think there is any concern of the stove top reaching 600+ if he has his air shut down. The way I was burning was wrong and seemed more like a blow torch. Unfortunatley this was the only way I could get high heat. After a while I decided to sell the mansfield because I was not happy. I fixed my buring issue by replacing the soapstone with a Pacific Summit. IMO nothing compares to a steel stove for heating.

Wood Heat Stoves said:

Soapstone does take a while longer to heat up as compared to a cast or steel stove. 600 degrees is about the upper limit you should get the surface temperature to, especially since it may continue rising even after you've shut down the air control. With that said, it's good to burn the stove hot on a regular basis. It helps keep the creosote in the chimney from building up. Soapstone is great because it will even out the heating and cooling cycles a stove goes through as the fuel load burns down and gets reloaded, delivering an even heat to the house.

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That should read, ....for Hearthstone stoves as that is their recommendation. Woodstock says 700 for the top but we know many have been operated at a higher temperature. I think the concern on Woodstock at least is more for the cast rather than the stone. We've had our stove up around the 700 degree mark many, many times and routinely take it to 650 or more with no problem at all other than getting a bit too warm in the house.

The Mansfield manual recommends a high burn once or twice a day, and states that owners can see up to 600 on a high burn, an 300-400 on a low burn. I own a Heritage, the mid-sized version of the Mansfield, and the manual says that high burn temps run up to 500, and low burn temps run about 200-300, and to avoid running the Heritage at sustained temps over 600. I didn't see a specific number in the Mansfield manual for overfiring, nor how running a blower will affect those numbers.

Based on that, I'd say that depending upon how `+' that `600+' gets, then yes, he's running it at the high end of what's recommended, but possibly not in the overfiring range.

I've never lived with a Mansfield, nor known anyone who has, except through this forum. I don't consider the Heritage to be a slow heater for two reasons: first, when I run it for steady heat when it's cold outside (-0F and below), the stove is pretty much warm 24/7. So even when I come home and the fire has been out for awhile, my stove is still warm to the touch. It doesn't take long to get the temps back up from 150-200F.

The second reason is that the large glass front throws off a lot of heat. I come home, start with the fire, and just move between my other chores and tending the fire. By the time I'm ready to pull up a chair in front of the stove (about 20 minutes), it's time to turn the air intake down on my run-up fire. The stove glass is throwing out serious heat at this point--the kind that makes you slide your chair back--and then back--and then back--and the stone top and sides are warming. At this point, the thermometer in the hearth room is starting to push 70 (up from 62-65, usually) and the heat by then is starting to distribute whole-house, so the hearthroom temp doesn't get a lot warmer unless I want it warmer or get lazy in my fire-tending.

I think one thing that helps is that the heat from the stove keeps the walls, floor, and furniture warmer, so that I'm not overcoming that cold-sink sensation. One day my gasket failed and my fire burned out faster than normal, so I came home to a house that was cold to the bones. It took awhile to fix the gasket, with some help and moral support from a forum member, and quite awhile to get the house warmed after that. (Thanks gyrfalcon--you're the man!)

On mild days like it's warmed up to now (0F to 20F), if it's sunny out I only need one fire a day to warm the house, and can anticipate that curve, have a fire laid, and light it off as it starts to chill.

That having been said, this is the Heritage, not the Mansfield, and not Woodstock stoves. The larger Hearthstone may have a much longer warm-up time, and the double-walled soapstone stoves that Woodstock builds, I assume take longer to heat up. Both of these stoves then would take even longer than mine to cool off, thus evening out the temp fluctuations.

The question I'm not seeing asked here, and what puzzles me, is why your friend would need to run the stove that hard.

You say you're in New England, which seems to me to be the high-quality stove wood capital of the universe. Assumption on my part is that he's burning optimal wood. I'm getting the results I described with wood that another poster here dismissed as "garbage": aspen and cottonwood.

Another assumption: he has a very large house, or he wouldn't have picked that stove in the first place. For comparison's sake, I have a modest sized house (thus the Heritage)--about 2000sf--and can heat both floors of my house pretty evenly while running this stove at cruising temps. I don't think I've ever run the stove overnight on anything other than a closed air intake. I do the run-up fires daily, then usually have the air intake shut down for the rest of the burn cycle, even have a stack damper engaged for most of it (not the burn-out fires, obviously).

Assuming a house in the 3000-4000 sf range, he may be wise to consider putting another stove in somewhere on the other end of the house rather than run the Mansfield full-out. Yet another assumption: he's not running anything else for supplemental heat in this house. He could work on other ways to deal with the cold. You mentioned windchill being a problem, which suggests to me that he might benefit from some thoughtful landscaping. Strategic placement of a woodshed, fence, or coniferous trees can help a lot. Also could look at insulation, skirting, new windows, etc. It may even be wise to turn on supplemental heat--boiler, furnace--on the really bitter nights.

There are soapstone stoves still in use that are several decades old--these were the inspiration for Woodstock stoves. I hope my stove will last my lifetime, and beyond, and I use it accordingly.

Dennis has stated that his woodstock heats up quickly. Certainly when the cat engages, the stove top should heat up well.

Redline on the heritage is 600 per the manual. One part of the manual tells you to run at full throttle for 30 minutes a day as a clean out and then another part of the manual tells you that during high burn that you could get 600. I do not believe that the intent of the manual is to direct you to run the stove at 600 AND full throttle for 30 minutes per day. That's a leap. It is good to heat these stoves up occasionaly to burn off deposits but I believe the 30 minute per day bit is more for the flue.

If he is running the stove at 600 on purpose and for any length of time to maintain a house temp then he needs a larger stove. Period. It's one thing to need 100% from the stove when heating a house from 50 -80 but to maintain that heat should be at 50% or so. He needs a bigger stove, a furnace, or another stove along with whatever home improvements he can make to help reduce heat loss.

A mansfield at 600 with blowers running is making some major mojo.

I bought a brand new Mansfield in 1999 and it was my primary heat until I sold the house 3 years ago. I regularly ran it between 600 and 700, like just about every day. It wasn't that hot all the time in mild weather but below zero I kept her cranking. Not sure if it ever hit 800, if it did it wasn't for long. I never had any problems, other than I replaced the baffle once. Also never had any creosote.

My brother in law now owns that stove and it's still going strong. Hearthstone's are very well made stoves.

Highbeam said:

Dennis has stated that his woodstock heats up quickly. Certainly when the cat engages, the stove top should heat up well. Thanks for pointing that out. Of course the top will heat up as soon as the cat engages.

Redline on the heritage is 600 per the manual. Mansfields' operating temps run about 100 degrees higher in the other aspects--possibly this as well. One part of the manual tells you to run at full throttle for 30 minutes a day as a clean out and then another part of the manual tells you that during high burn that you could get 600. I do not believe that the intent of the manual is to direct you to run the stove at 600 AND full throttle for 30 minutes per day. That's a leap. Nor do I. My run-up, which I do daily, is about 450 degrees--somewhere in the clean-burn zone. I've never had my stove up past 550. It is good to heat these stoves up occasionaly to burn off deposits but I believe the 30 minute per day bit is more for the flue. Clean flues are good. That makes it a good enough reason for me. I think this is also intended to keep the secondary burn tubes clean as well.

If he is running the stove at 600 on purpose and for any length of time to maintain a house temp then he needs a larger stove. Yes. Period. It's one thing to need 100% from the stove when heating a house from 50 -80 but to maintain that heat should be at 50% or so. He needs a bigger stove, a furnace, or another stove along with whatever home improvements he can make to help reduce heat loss.
That, too. A mansfield at 600 with blowers running is making some major mojo.

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Once again, here we are at the end of a thread, agreeing with one another's sensible, perceptive points, long after everyone else has wandered away to play elsewhere. What does this mean?

Seriously, though, what the heck is going on here? Why are stoves working out so very well for some and so very poorly for others? I wish people put more data in their sig lines: how big their house is, what they heated with before they switched to wood, what their fuel consumption was. I think there are very interesting questions that aren't getting asked here. The more I know, the more I want to know and understand.

gdk84 said:

Well, considering this isnt my own house it is hard to get into great detail about every little thing. Just asking a question about stove top temps regardless if he is living in a cardboard box with no insulation and trying to heat the outdoors. Im not sure why some work well and others so poorly, or why there isnt more data in sig lines, or how big the house is, or what he heated with before wood. I dunno! and what does it have to do with the question?

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Sorry! Didn't mean a threadjack, here. I'd have to say I was responding to this as part of a larger dialog, the fabric of the forum conversation as a whole rather than this thread--not fair, and I hope you'll accept my apology. You see, for some of us, some of these `conversations' are High Play, how we amuse ourselves, and an interesting problem is often taken up like a stick amongst dogs--we have to wring every shake and tug out of it that we can. Or perhaps a better analogy would be to say that each problem is part of a bigger puzzle: how to get maximum performance out of each stove set-up. Your question seems to me to be: is this going to hurt the stove for him to do this? I gave you as much information as I could find on it, then tangentially asked, but why would he do that, anyway? I asked this because I'm trying to round out my big-picture understanding of stove-chimney-house-wood-lifestyle systems, and this looked like it might have some interesting clues.

I assumed (as you can see, I do that a lot) that you since you knew this person well enough to call him friend, to offer advice, I thought you'd be familiar with the size, layout, construction of his house (in general, not necessarily in specific detail), and with any other heating systems he has.

Every so often we'll see pix on here of stoves on CL or in someone's barn where a once fine firebeast has been reduced to ruin--hate to see that. So if someone's overfiring a stove trying to get it to do the work of two stoves, I think you'll find folks will speak up about that. I don't know if that's the case here or not--so I asked questions that I hoped would give more information about that. No offense was intended, and I'm genuinely sorry if I gave it.

Short winded answer. I've burned hearthstone stoves at about a 600 degree surface temps in a showroom for years on end. Never an issue.

Franks, I agree and do not see why it would do any harm to anything in that stove to run at a steady 600. That is not super hot by any means.