Cast Iron or Soapstone???

I have been looking around at local dealers - thanks for the heads up. I have a Hearthstone dealer like 2 miles from me but I am still not sold on soapstone. The Napoleon dealer is about 20 miles from me and my experience with them has been very positive. Also looked into the Fireview that everyone on here seems to like, but they dont have much for local service. My State Farm agent requires that my install is (professional) so I am worried about connecting the new stove myself. Has anyone installed the Fireview (from the online store) and got it approved by State Farm?

Woodstock Soapstone should be able to find a local person to do the install for you. I did mine myself, but Jamie did tell me that they would find somebody for me if I wanted.

It would be nice if your agent could offer solutions rather than obstacles and refer you to a local "professional" who meets his/her approval. Ask if there is some sort of checklist that State Farm uses and get a copy. My ins co has one, and it has a similar requirement for installation by a pro. . .OR HOMEOWNER. I'm thinking that some states may require them to cover such stuff done by the homeowner. I recommend getting a copy of their requirements before doing the install. My agent had some thoughts on the issue. . .tried to tell me to have a pro do the install and not worry about all the requirements. . .turns out that the agent didn't know much about it.

There is no problems starting new fires all the time, it's easier to reload. I have access to truck loads of kindling for free but the fire starters are nice! Light it, shut the door with no kindling and turn the air control down after 30 or 45 minutes.

I wanted to point out that were I you, I would consider a Blaze King stove, especially the King because you can burn it for a long time. Do a little search on here, they have a bit of a cult following.

After reading the responses on insurance options, I guess that I am looking harder into the Progress Hybrid. It seems to be designed almost specifically for my application. Questions for Progress owners -

With only the side door, how do you clean the glass, or do you just not have to?
Are those metal stakes behind the door to keep the wood from hiting the window, or are they fake?
Has not having any local support for these been an issue?
What is the life of the cat? Issues?
Has anyone purchases this stove before physically seeing one? I dont feel like going to NH just to look at it.
I am guesing that it has no fan but I am not sure.

I am also concerned about setting a 700lb stove + the hearth pad in the middle of my dinning room. The basement below the stove is finished and I fear the drywall will crack, or worse. The six month trial is very tempting but I would then have to wait until fall, and pay more because they will not be on sale. $2500 for what you get with this stove seems like a great value.

Mike, I don't have the Progress yet but can answer some of your questions. The reason is that we bought the Fireview sight unseen, which is one of your questions. We were not concerned because of Woodstock's name and their top notch customer service. We installed it ourself but for anyone who does not want to do the install or needs it done professionally, it is an easy task to get someone locally to do the work.

1. The Fireview also has only the side door and it is smaller than the Progress. Yes, you clean the glass from that side door but you do not have to clean it often and then it is only fly ash so it wipes off very easy. You don't want much for coals though when you do it as it gets pretty hot in there.

2. Those "metal stakes" are there to keep the wood off the glass besides making it look very nice. Sort of like looking into a fireplace.

3. No local support is no issue with us and I don't know of anyone who has this as an issue. Should any problems crop up with the stove, Woodstock will help you with it. All it takes is a phone call to Woodstock. For example: when we got our stove we left it in the crate sitting in the carport. I noticed something sticking through some cardboard. It turned out to be the door handle. It appeared the paint had rubbed off and I commented about it to them even though we had not taken it out of the crate yet. Two or three days later a can of paint arrived in the mail. We had not asked for it. We also got a new set of firebrick sent to us because of some damage during shipping. We had a cat go bad and they replaced it. I could tell you many more stories and they would all have this sort of ending.As stated, their customer service is second to none.

4. Life of the cat is yet to be determined as this is a new cat. There is a guarantee with the cat though.

5. I've already answered this on in the first paragraph.

6. There is no fan and with radiant heating you should not need one. However, if the far rooms do get too cool, that is easily fixed with the use of a small desk top fan. Placed on the floor in a hallway or doorway and running it on low speed blowing into the stove room will work wonders.

The stove is over 700 lbs but what if you had 4 people that each weighed 200 lbs? However, we did put an extra support under our stove just in case. On the six month trial, I suggest you call Woodstock with that concern because it is a valid concern. btw, we purchased our stove in March and did not install it until September so we had that as a concern too.

Good luck Mike. btw, I will contact fire_man Tony and ask him to post on this because he had a Fireview and now has a Progress.

I would consider how you intend to burn. If 24x7 burning is what you're looking at then either a cast iron or soapstone would work fine - that is what they do best...smooth even heat. If you intend to fire the stove on nights and weekends, get a ripping fire going to heat the place up quick, then I would strongly consider a welded steel firebox. I've seen the term "cast iron" pop up way to many times on the forum...generally it's associated with words like "crack", "broke", "warp", "leak" and "rebuild'. They don't tend to like rapid / high heat situations. Soapstone - while it makes a beautiful stove, is a bit of a gimmick IMHO...even assuming the stove has 400 pounds of soapstone, you can still only store maybe 10-15 minutes of BTU's at full output. As posted above soapstones can warm up in 40 minutes, a steel stove may be 25-30...that 10-15 minute lag time is the heat you get out on the cooling side. Steel stoves seem to take fast heat, high temps and repeated thermal cycling with relative ease with the trade-off being slightly higher peaks/valleys in temperature compared to cast or soap.

My contractor put in a couple of jack(?) posts down cellar, just to be extra safe. I live in an old house. You may want to talk to WS about the 6 month timeframe, I think they will extend it for spring buyers (or so I've heard).

I've probably chimed in late, but I must say that I'm glad to own a Phoenix. 3 years running and it warms up quickly with a lot of cast . Which ever stove you choose it takes a bit of time to get used to,and a lot has to do with fuel and operation. Best of luck ith your purchase.

Is this better?

Indeed. It's not instant heat like turning on an electric heater, but I have no complaints about the time it takes my stove to start throwing heat. As long as the room heat keeps going up steadily after I light it off, I've got a smile on my face.

Thanks for all the feedback on my new stove purchase. Here is my Nap 1400 insert that I installed last summmer. Seeing if my pictures will work this time. Wondering what the purpose is of the vents (near the top of the picture) in the brick? There are also vents near the floor in the garage and in the next room to the right of the fireplace. It actually looks like the masons used black drain tile to connect the vents? My guess is that these should probably be blocked off now that I have a liner in the flue? Thoughts? Cold air pours out of one while the other has warm air coming out.

Mike: I own the Progress, and Like Dennis said, I replaced a Fireview. I think my answers match Dennis' but here you go:

1. I do have to clean the glass every so often but it is not hard. I use extremely fine steel wool (per WS recommendation) - it's not difficult to acces from the side door.
2. Those Andirons (metal stakes) are to keep wood from hitting the glass. They are not fake.
3. Not having local support has never been an issue. Woodstock is patient and will not rest until you are satisfied.
4. The cat has been replaced with a stainless steel substrate rather than ceramic. There were reports of early failures with a small number of the stainless cats (including mine) but WS sent me a new SS one which has been working fine, and they are working to understand and correct the failure mechanism. They have even provided me with timely updates.
5. I saw the stove before buying it. I was impressed with the rugged construction, especially the concept of a steel firebox surrounded by soapstone panels.
6. There is no fan. I heat a 2300 sq ft house. This was a mild winter, so not a good test, but I can say it heats quicker and better than the Fireview. I really think this stove actually throws more heat than the Fireview while using less wood. Others have reported the same.

I was worried it would not work well for shoulder season, but I was proved wrong. It is a bigger stove with more stone than the FV, so I figured it would take longer to heat the house. It's actually quicker to get to temp than the FV for a couple reasons. First, the Combustor bypass is not directed straight out of the firebox and up the flue, like in the FV. Flue gasses are forced to take a longer path through the chamber below the lid, which warms up the cat quicker and generally helps to get the entire stove warm quicker. Second, the basic construction of the Progress is a steel firebox with soapstone panels on both sides directly in contact with the steel. The FV was two layers of soapstone separated by a thin layer of air. The air layer in the FV (I am convinced) slows down and even tempers heat flow from the firebox to the outside shell.

I am very happy with the Progress.

User reviews of WS are very complementary. Call them up and explain your concerns. They may let you buy it now and take delivery in August or so. You could get the sale price, have time to get it installed and still take advantage of the six month trial. It's worth a thought.

And today Woodstock sent out an email detailing that the 6 mo. would be extended to January 31, 2013 if you buy now.

odd placement of vents for that old heatilator.
should be ok to seal them up

My Napoleon / Hearthstone dealer visted yesterday to look at my new stove application. He actually thought that a corner install would be okay for my home. This would make the stove about 25 feet away from my living room, instead of the 4 or 5 feet away in the location that I was planning on. The corner install is okay for me but I worry that I would be waiting an hour or two for the living room to heat up. Pros for the corner install include the following:
The stove would be out of the way for traffic, ect
It would be hardly noticed when entering the house through the front door
I would be able to use a fan because the corner would really hide the cord and fan on the back of the stove
I could possibly connect some type of outside air kit and hide that as well

The downside is the fact that the stove wouldnt be centered in the house like I had orginally planned.

Also due to further reading on (part time burners) I am now looking at some steal stoves. Any feed back on the Napoleon 1400 series or the PE Super 27? Looking hard at the 1400 because I would have two stoves with common parts - bricks, doors, baffels, ect. However the PE Super 27 seems to very well built and I like the SS baffel. Thoughts?

My thought is that if you had this stove on the main floor, corner or not, you'd use it a lot more - and probably soon be using it more than the one you have in the basement. It would also have a more significant impact on your fuel bill used up there, and you may find that you'd be much more comfortable running it frequently. Possibly your expected usage would switch to running it in a less dramatic ramp up/down way so that it can typically heat the whole house more consistently. My guess is if you liked it more you'd either find more wood or consider occasionally buying some, and when not in basement, buying wood would still save you money.

This is not to say steel stoves wouldn't work, and possibly really well. But if you're inclined to other stoves including soapstone, I'd continue looking at those too.

i have a pheonix. i cant get the heat out of it id like, but i guess im still learning. its beautiful and does the job for the most part. i would say go bigger. but thats just me. we have similar sized houses, but a MD winter is nothing compared to WI.

My quote arrived today in the mail, and my dealer offered a Napoleon 1450 for a great price. So I went with it. I figure if I do end up burning 24/7, I can always upgrade to a new higher end stove. The cost of the install was lower than I had expected but the adder to go to the Hearthstone Mansfield was crazy. I figure give this stove a try and maybe move it to my garage in a few years, then go for the soapstone or cast stove. The best part is they are comming Tuesday to install, so I should be able to break this thing in this year. Still freezes at night here and I hate waking up to a cold house. Thanks for all the great advice!

Will probably work out great, and getting one in early and seeing how it works in cold weather is hard to beat. Good luck.

Nothing wrong with Napoleons . . . or steel stoves. Truth is . . . soapstone, cast iron or steel . . . they all do the job that they are designed to do: heat the house and keep us warm. I suspect you may be happy with this stove and burn 24/7 eventually . . . and still be happy with the Napoleon.