Okay, a bit of an update: I still need to put the finishing touches on the hearth but my table saw crapped out on me so my shelving is on hold but I've had a few fires in the stove and so far so good.
I had a little hiccup yesterday morning, I burned a small break in fire Wednesday evening as noted and Thursday I woke up to find that my air control lever wouldn't move past the halfway point. Another person on the forum noted that after the first fire they were also having trouble getting their air control to move. I did end up getting mine to move freely again and haven't had a problem since (cold or hot). I spoke with Scott at Hearthstone regarding the issue and we both assumed this was temperature related and he assured me that it was most likely a product of the break in and shouldn't happen again. I've since had a couple of fires in the stove and have not had a single issue with the air control.
Now onto my take on the stove so far: It hasn't been very cold yet(mid 40's) and I've only had the stove running for a couple days so this is a bit premature but I will say that this thing throws out some heat! I will be heating approx 2800sf of a 3100sf old farm house. I've installed new windows, exterior doors, and attic insulation to help seal things up but it's still a fairly large old farm house so it's been fun to heat. Last night I decided to put a decent sized load of wood in. I didn't load it to the gills but I did have about three medium/large splits and one small split in it. At the point that I fired it up the temp was only down to the low 50's outside and I quickly found out that a medium/large fire at those outside temps was a bad idea, the living room was pretty steamy even with a window open. The stove top got up to about 580f according to my IR thermometer and after closing it down settled in and cruised right around 515-520 for a couple hours. I started the fire right at 7pm and when I headed up stairs at 11 the stove top was around 470-80. At 7 this morning the top was around 190f and you could feel a bit of heat if standing next to the stove but not a lot. I opened it and found a pretty decent bed of coals and a good sized charred chunk of one of the splits in a back corner. I moved things around a bit, threw in three more chunks, closed the door, and opened up the air. A couple minutes later I had a good sized fire and not long after the top was back up around 500. I then closed it down and it's been cruising in the low to mid 400's ever since with a nice glow of coals inside and a dance of flames in the top and the bottom every so often.
On a side note, the stove has some holes in the convective top and I'm getting the previously mentioned temps by shooting my IR thermometer down through them to the actual top of the stove itself.
I had a little hiccup yesterday morning, I burned a small break in fire Wednesday evening as noted and Thursday I woke up to find that my air control lever wouldn't move past the halfway point. Another person on the forum noted that after the first fire they were also having trouble getting their air control to move. I did end up getting mine to move freely again and haven't had a problem since (cold or hot). I spoke with Scott at Hearthstone regarding the issue and we both assumed this was temperature related and he assured me that it was most likely a product of the break in and shouldn't happen again. I've since had a couple of fires in the stove and have not had a single issue with the air control.
Now onto my take on the stove so far: It hasn't been very cold yet(mid 40's) and I've only had the stove running for a couple days so this is a bit premature but I will say that this thing throws out some heat! I will be heating approx 2800sf of a 3100sf old farm house. I've installed new windows, exterior doors, and attic insulation to help seal things up but it's still a fairly large old farm house so it's been fun to heat. Last night I decided to put a decent sized load of wood in. I didn't load it to the gills but I did have about three medium/large splits and one small split in it. At the point that I fired it up the temp was only down to the low 50's outside and I quickly found out that a medium/large fire at those outside temps was a bad idea, the living room was pretty steamy even with a window open. The stove top got up to about 580f according to my IR thermometer and after closing it down settled in and cruised right around 515-520 for a couple hours. I started the fire right at 7pm and when I headed up stairs at 11 the stove top was around 470-80. At 7 this morning the top was around 190f and you could feel a bit of heat if standing next to the stove but not a lot. I opened it and found a pretty decent bed of coals and a good sized charred chunk of one of the splits in a back corner. I moved things around a bit, threw in three more chunks, closed the door, and opened up the air. A couple minutes later I had a good sized fire and not long after the top was back up around 500. I then closed it down and it's been cruising in the low to mid 400's ever since with a nice glow of coals inside and a dance of flames in the top and the bottom every so often.
On a side note, the stove has some holes in the convective top and I'm getting the previously mentioned temps by shooting my IR thermometer down through them to the actual top of the stove itself.
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