Thinking about pulling the trigger on a Hearthstone Craftsbury to replace VC Intrepid flexburn by next burning season. Only found one review from a contractors forum that gave it a glowing review. Size wise appears to be near the same size as the Intrepid but has a longer burn and more important an airflow pattern in the firebox that makes sense. The only concerns I've found and that was with its bigger sisters is a learning curve in start up and reloading preventing smoke rollout in the process. Anyone with experience in this stove please comment good or bad. Thanks.
Craftsbury reviews
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I have the bigger sister to this stove, the Shelburne, so I can shed some light. The biggest thing I overlooked was the draft requirement. Specifically for a rear-exit setup. The requirements for both stoves are below.
From the craftsbury manual
From the intrepid manual
I believe all of hearthstone's stoves have the same draft requirements, which basically say that the maximum draft for the intrepid is the minimum for the hearthstone lineup. So if you're draft is not good you're not going to be happy with the stove. Smoke roll-out problems are most likely a function of insufficient draft. Rear-exit plays a role as well as I've been told, but by the above specs you can see that it's probably boils down to insufficient draft (rear-exit = need higher draft).
I had a bunch of problems with the stove last year (smoke rollout, cold start issues, backpuffs, weird air control). I replaced the chimney setup over the summer (5.5" to 6", insulated liner, ~5 ft of chimney height). The first couple of fires indicate that I've drastically improved my setup. I can start the stove with the door open (after preheating the flue) and not get smoke rollout. I don't have enough hot reloads to comment on that, but I'm hopeful that with a new technique I can minimize rollout. It wouldn't make sense to be able to start the stove with the door open, but not be able to reload without smoke rollout. I had what would have caused a backpuff last year occur, but no smoke escaped the stove. Better control over the fire.
My Complaints:
- Air control was poorly thought out. The lever doesn't provide you with any indication of where in the range it is. I have to look under the stove to see where it is in comparison to it's range. Below 50% the lever is pushed under the stove and can't be seen.
- Per the manual and my experience the most used range of the lever is the last 25%; basically small increments make big changes
- Due to the E/W loading and primary air in the front center of the stove you pretty much have to lay down sleepers and build the wood stack on top of them. If you don't do this you'll have problems with the bottom logs catching
- If logs roll up against the air inlet prior to being "lit" the fire may stall
- E/W means you have to worry about logs rolling into the glass door as the wood burns down
- The top of the stove has a raised pattern on it. It looks nice, but the result is that magnetic thermometers don't work that well on it.
- It takes awhile to warm-up the soapstone so until the soapstone is warm the top and glass door are where you'll get most of your radiant heat. There is a noticeable "lag" in heat output compared to a non soapstone lined stove. This also means if you're doing a lot of cold starts time to heat output is delayed.
tabner
Feeling the Heat
I have the Green Mountain 60, which looks different being Cast Iron exterior, but lined with Soapstone, but I think all these Hearthstone stoves are very similar in design. Baffle, secondary air in the upper back, same Catalyst placement "true hybrid" design, etc. I second just about everything @neverstop said above. I would only recommend these stoves to someone with strong draft (can you describe your current chimney setup). And i would recommend them more for people who want ambiance or supplemental heating. If your goal is consistent 24/7 heating with minimal heat curves, i think there are better options. With that said, if you are just replacing an Intrepid, which i think is itself a small stove, you're probably not looking for huge amounts of continuous heat output.
what kind of burn times were you getting with the Intrepid? I would ignore HearthStones "Heat Life" claims. I struggle to get more than 6 hours of strong fire out of my 1.9 cu foot GM 60, i do have coals and a warm stove top 8 or 9 hours later, but the Craftsbury is smaller
what kind of burn times were you getting with the Intrepid? I would ignore HearthStones "Heat Life" claims. I struggle to get more than 6 hours of strong fire out of my 1.9 cu foot GM 60, i do have coals and a warm stove top 8 or 9 hours later, but the Craftsbury is smaller
if you look at the EPA report on the Shelburne they give you total burn time, avg burn rate, and average temperature over the burn. so you can calculate the weight of the wood load for the test and then figure out how long you could expect a burn to last with varying amounts of wood at the specified burn rate/average temp.
*note this is with douglas fir and run 3 didn't have the blower turned on. first run was min air setting, 2 & 3 were "cat 2" (whatever that means), 4 was "cat 3", 5 was full open.
I have no idea how much wood you could expect to stuff in the stove but I feel like it's somewhere between 30 and 40 lbs. *different wood would result in different results
Also they don't provide graphs or test data so hard to tell how much time of the burn is spent above/below the average temperature
*note this is with douglas fir and run 3 didn't have the blower turned on. first run was min air setting, 2 & 3 were "cat 2" (whatever that means), 4 was "cat 3", 5 was full open.
I have no idea how much wood you could expect to stuff in the stove but I feel like it's somewhere between 30 and 40 lbs. *different wood would result in different results
Also they don't provide graphs or test data so hard to tell how much time of the burn is spent above/below the average temperature
| avg temp | time | burn rate (kg/hr) | wood load test | wood load | est burn time | wood load | est burn time |
298 | 354 | 0.834 | 10.84807492 | 30 | 16.31625899 | 40 | 21.75501199 |
366 | 242 | 1.239 | 11.01716961 | 30 | 10.98285714 | 40 | 14.64380952 |
406 | 253 | 1.17 | 10.87651458 | 30 | 11.6305641 | 40 | 15.5074188 |
417 | 187 | 1.604 | 11.02121143 | 30 | 8.483640898 | 40 | 11.3115212 |
373 | 130 | 2.37 | 11.3207464 | 30 | 5.741670886 | 40 | 7.655561181 |
Thanks all for the info! My existing chimney is an outside masonry 25' above stove top with a 6" SS liner. Vent would be out the top to a clay thimble about 2' above stove top. The house side of the brick chimney is also the interior of the house. Chimney is 1' thick there where the clay thimble is. I consider my draft average but I have no idea specifically numbers per above or how to measure it. Sounds like its a thumbs down maybe. From the specs and info I've seen on the Craftsbury it should draft way easier then the VC downdraft design. So that's got me stumped some. The Craftsbury spec has a 6 hour longer burn time (16 hours) compared to 10 with the VC (10 hours). Yea, I know cut a lot of that back but still a lot of difference in the specs. So okay sounds like the first thing I should do is get a proper draft reading and go from there for now.
tabner
Feeling the Heat
That is a pretty tall chimney. Do you know if the liner is insulated? If so, I think it's a fair guess that you'd have pretty good draft. It could work. And the soapstone is nice to look at (if you're into that), and it might be a little less finicky than the Downdraft design (never used one, just read about it).
But at the same time, i don't think i'd expect a radically different burn time than the VC. They're both small stoves, and neither is a true Cat stove.
If you like soapstone and want a slower burn time - maybe the Woodstock Palladian or Keystone?
But at the same time, i don't think i'd expect a radically different burn time than the VC. They're both small stoves, and neither is a true Cat stove.
If you like soapstone and want a slower burn time - maybe the Woodstock Palladian or Keystone?
The Craftsbury is a cast iron stove with some soapstone panels on the inside. No soapstone on the outside. The SS liner has very little insulation. It is inside of 8" square clay tile. So maybe 1" of insulate if that. Not sure what you mean by not a true cat stove. They both have actual cats in them for the flue gas to pass through. But of course the Intrepid is a flexburn and you can remove the cat and just exit the flue gas through its secondary combuster. The Craftsbury has secondary burn tubes prior to the cat but it doesn't look like the cat is an optional additional burn as the flexburn is???? Can't really go with a bigger stove. The stove is in a 180 square foot room with an open doorway to the rest of the house. This room has 3 1/4 outside walls so a cold room. This room addition built 1900. Main house built 1880 or so. The other issue not mentioned is the desire for a clean glass when the stove is in operation. That's impossible with the Intrepid.
I think when people say “true cat stove” they are saying non hybrid without the secondary tubes like a Blaze King or Woodstock stove.
For such a small room maybe look at a Jotul 602 or Morso 2b? Both are N/S loaders and small foot print.
For such a small room maybe look at a Jotul 602 or Morso 2b? Both are N/S loaders and small foot print.
It sounds like your chimney setup would provide sufficient draft for the hearthstone lineup. You can only go by the MFG specs. I'm not familiar with the intrepid, but the flow path in the hearthstone lineup is definitely "restrictive". Not a large opening for exhaust to get around the baffle, the by-pass opening is small, cats are in the back of the stove.
Maintaining clean glass is a function of wood MC, draft, burn rate. Primary air controls the air wash on the hearthstones so if you run it low the amount of air going to the glass is going to be lower and the firebox temp will be lower. Hard to avoid some buildup on the glass if you're running low, but a daily high burn (as per the manual) cleans up the majority of it. I've noticed that the majority of the buildup on my glass occurs during cold start/reload when I have the door cracked.
Yea, was thinking about that Jotul 602. I've had two Waterford (Ireland) stoves of that same basic design in the past but they didn't put out enough heat when it got really cold. The room it's in may be smallish but it has 3+ exposed non-insulated sides and there is a permanent open doorway to the rest of the house whereby it has a natural draft of cold air coming into the stove room near the floor and warmed air leaing the room at the top of the doorway.
The Intrepid is the right size stove for that application and heats that room and actually the rest of the house sufficiently but is a complex animal to keep it running well. And, I know this is secondary but the glass never stays clean no matter how it runs. I really do hate that. Seems to be virtually the only EPA stove out there that has this issue which I attribute to a compromised glass wash by design. A topic for another thread though. I like how the airflow is set up in the Craftsbury firebox compared to the VC. Way more simple. Not looking for that much more burn time. The heat output seems comparable by looking at the spec sheet.
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