First year with soapstone.

[Henz]

this sounds like my place..If your house is drafty with alot of air infiltration your NEVER gonna be totally happy with the stove and it wont even be the stoves fault!..Here is my situiation, I have a 1300sqft homestead that was remodled prior to our purchase..Very shotty insulation at best (now that I know) and the damn sill plate to foundation has several inches of gaop in places...Anyways, it can be 80 degrees i nthe livingroom where the stove is, and not 10' away if you were to stand in the corner of the very same living room it would be 70. Interesting to take a thermometer and place it along your exterior walls and floor..see what you get..otherwise, windows/doors are always a problem..

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Wow! You indeed sound very drafty. I admit our house is not the best insulated but it is not like that. I also admit that at times we resort to opening a window in our bedroom to cool it off enough to sleep...and our bedroom is the furthest room from the stove.

 

[Henz]

yeah, its such a treat! We are widdling away at it..had the stone foundation in 1/2 of the house spray foamed from the inside last summer..hoping that it will keep the kitchen floors warmer without all that draft..and keep the pipes from freezing to boot! Truthfully, I should rip off all the knotty pine in the downstairs and have the spray foam guy come back in and fill all the walls to the sill plates..that will really be the only way to kill the draft in my house..!

 

[thephotohound]

BWS - The pine is > 2 Yrs and the birch is 1 1/2 yrs. The coldest nights here are around 0 to -5. Coldest days are in the teens. Hardly ever gets colder than that. We definitely have the wind, though. We're 900 ft above sea level, with nothing around for 1/2 mile. I spent a good part of the summer caulking and "Great-Stuffing" all of the penetrations from the foundation up. I also added another 6" of insulation above the cathedrals and sealed my recessed lights and walk-up attic stairs. Interested to see the difference it makes this year.

Adirondack - I have heard that our stove is not big enough, too, but we own it for it's aesthetics as well as it's heating ability. We wrestled with getting a bigger stove, but we are only heating 1000 SF (one floor)... Woodstock says the Keystone can heat 1,300 SF even with the 12 ft ceiling in the great room. I can't report accurate findings yet, as this is our first year with truly seasoned wood.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Ah, the joys of the older homes. Still, they are very nice even if they provide you with much work. That foam should help out a lot.

PH, that sounds as if the wood should be okay to burn being seasoned that long. I'll stick with our white ash, elm, cherry and maple though.

On a sour note, I was walking through a part of our woods this morning and found a couple more white ash that has to come down because of the borers. We have no idea how long before all the ash is gone in Michigan but the powers that be seem to think there is no stopping it, so we'll keep cutting until it is gone. Now if I could just find a market for all the birch we have....

 

[cbrodsky]

NY Soapstone, we have to be a little careful when starting the fire. Can't leave the draft open too far because our stovepipe runs straight (well, uphill some) out through the wall and the chimney runs up the side of the house. They say the pipe should raise 1/4" per foot when horizontal but we run ours about 1/2" per foot. So if we don't cut our draft back sooner the pipe gets kind of hot and we get some stink yet (that's another problem).

I find it amazing that you wrote, "If after 10-12 hours, you find the stove is cooler than 350 following a full load, I’d guess the air was left too far open and too much heat went up the chimney, or your wood could stand to be drier." Well, overnight our setting is either about 1/2 or 1/4 at most and the wood has been seasoned 2 years and is covered so highly doubt that is the problem.

Just how much of an ash bed do you build up in your stove?

I probably have 1-2 inches typically, and I'm always tempted to clean it out thoroughly, and every time I do, I regret it

I may be off on the temperature - it's the point right around the border of catalytic - I think that might be 250 - not 350 can't remember from the top of my head, but I think I meant 250-300 - usually at that transitoin line or a little above it. It's warm enough that when I walk by, I still clearly feel it.

It sounds like you may have a really strong chimney draft - I usually don't close my air intake down completely. My chimney is in the center of the house w/a couple 45s in the double-wall stove pipe and I think a 15 degree offset in the attic. Pretty straight, but not dead straight.

-Colin

 

[jpl1nh]

PhotoHound, are you sure you should be burning birch and pine in that stove? It seems to me that either one of those might cause some problems with the cat.! For sure if you burn that, I’d think it should be seasoned at a minimum of a year for birch and probably longer with the pine. With the birch, you have the black smoke at the start but that might clear up before you engage the cat. but with the pitch in pine, that just seems to me that it might cause a problem.

Todd, I have the same stove as PhotoHound and burn A LOT of white birch and hemlock. Its shoulder season so it works really well for us even though I often really have to let the stove cool down to where I can just reignite a new load with kindling on the bottom. Close to running 24/7 now as just described above, sometimes letting it go out all together. That's basically a load in the morning, a load early evening, and perhaps a bit more just before bed, though I add some small hardwood before bed with the hemlock. I burn some red and white pine as well. Since any pitch or smoke are basically volatile oils, they burn well, and in my opinion the cat stoves allow you to damp down those otherwise very hot fires and burn soft woods quite well. The cat temps are so hot that certainly "pitch" which would get there only in a gaseous state would be burned as well as any other wood smoke.

 

[kwburn]

my brother in law got a woodstock for their weekend cottage and i second that it wasn't a good fit for them. they want quick heat when they get up there for the weekend and obviously this isn't the stove to do that. also, even after a year or two of practice with it he says he still needs to get up in the middle of the night to feed it to avoid a cold house in the morning. had i known as much as i do now about stoves back then i probably would have realized that soapstone in his case wasn't a great fit and talked him into something else. now he just has a really expensive stove he'll probably never change because of the financial investment he has into it.

 

[jpl1nh]

my brother in law got a woodstock for their weekend cottage and i second that it wasn't a good fit for them. they want quick heat when they get up there for the weekend and obviously this isn't the stove to do that. also, even after a year or two of practice with it he says he still needs to get up in the middle of the night to feed it to avoid a cold house in the morning. had i known as much as i do now about stoves back then i probably would have realized that soapstone in his case wasn't a great fit and talked him into something else. now he just has a really expensive stove he'll probably never change because of the financial investment he has into it.

Hmmm, shouldn't have a cold house in the AM with a soapstone stove, specially a cat soapstone, Have hime chime in here so we can ask him some questions and see if we can help him out. Granted it's a bit slow on the initial warm up but once its up to temp it will cruise and cruise and hold heat for a long time.

 

[thephotohound]

I agree. Soapstone isn't a great fit for a second home because of the time it takes to bring a house to temp, but once it's going, there's no stopping the heat! Unless of course, it is undersized for the home.....

 

[cstrail]

well, it was colder here last night. 20's right now. Anyway, I loaded the stove before I went to bed around 10, got up at 5 this morning to a BIG pile of coals and small flames, threw on a few more splits and it took right off again. When I loaded it the top of my stove was around 300. So I am finding out that it will heat my whole house the colder it gets. So far I really LOVE this stove. The stone stays hot for a VERY long time and the kids and dog love to lay around in front of it.

 

[cbrodsky]

well, it was colder here last night. 20's right now. Anyway, I loaded the stove before I went to bed around 10, got up at 5 this morning to a BIG pile of coals and small flames, threw on a few more splits and it took right off again. When I loaded it the top of my stove was around 300. So I am finding out that it will heat my whole house the colder it gets. So far I really LOVE this stove. The stone stays hot for a VERY long time and the kids and dog love to lay around in front of it.

What I find remarkable is how long those coals will last past that point. I have come back 15+ hours later and found enough to start a fire with no effort and the outer stone surface is still 200+. Granted, it's not throwing off tons of heat by that point, but it is rare that I have to actually "start a fire" all winter.

-Colin

 

[thephotohound]

Colin - I agree. (For me) around hour #6, it appears that there is nothing left but coals... If it's really cold, I reload at this point. But if I leave it, there are still plenty of coals 6 hours later! I have found that to be amazing too.

 

[Henz]

curious, what is theprice tag on the largest Woodstock Soapstone stove??

 

[thephotohound]

The two largest models are the Fireview and the Classic (both 55,000 BTU, 28x26x20 firebox) and are both around $2,400 right now... http://www.woodstove.com/pages/sale.html

Don't be deceived by the "low" BTU ratings... go by how much they say each stove can heat, due to the fact that soapstone can hold and radiate heat 5x longer (and more evenly) than cast iron. i.e. the Fireview can COMFORTABLY heat 1,600 SF (assuming average insulation, 8 ft. ceilings, etc).

 

[Henz]

Last year I was torn on what stove to get..I grew up with a VC Vigiliant and it always did us well..A friend of mine got me onto the Avalon Olympic and I am pretty happy with the heat output and burn times overall. IT says its rated for a 2500sqft home and I only have a 1400sqft home, so it does heat it..The only thing that I am not totally satisfied with is that the majority of the heat comes out from the very front of the stove and not much from the sides like the VC Vigiliant did..Of course its a steele stove. On the other hand, we didnt have alot of space to put it and the clearances on the Olympic are far less in the back and sides that any other stove I looked at so it fit perfectly

 

[thephotohound]

We bought the stove for it's looks as much as we bought it for it's heat. I think most Woodstock owners would say the same thing. We didn't want a square black box sitting in our great room (no offense to square black box owners). This was the perfect combination of aesthetics and utility. We love it.

 

[cstrail]

I agree photohound, my wife and I did a LOT of research on different kinds and types of stoves. When it came down to it, she liked the looks of the Woodstock and that was a big factor. We thought we liked some of the other stoves from the pics in a brochure, but when we went and looked in person they were just plain and did not go with our style of house. This is our first year with a soapstone stove and I love it. By the way, my house is around 1600 SQ Feet and I have 10 foot ceilings throughout. This stove heats it just fine. I sometimes use a small electric heater in the bathroom, just to warm the seat

 

[Henz]

my house is homestead with Adirondack interior..A soapstone wouldnt fit..had to be BLACK!

 

[jpl1nh]

PH, I agree with you about the looks. But I also love that as a cat - soapstone stove, I think it provides the most even heat you can possibly get. One load, even of mediocre firewood like hemlock, red maple, old punky elm, will heat my house up to 72 -73 degrees within an hour or two and when its 45 out, I shut it down as its heading towards coal stage enough to put out the flames. The cat just cruises and 8-9 hours later, the stove is still warm to the touch and my house is still 69-70. I may or may not still have enough coals to restart depending on how deep the ash is. The deeper the ash, the greater the likelyhood I can stir up enough coals to restart.

 

[thephotohound]

I have only ever owned this stove (and my wife's parents had a Fireview) so I don't know what it's like to heat with anything else. I do know that it took some getting used to, with the cat and all, but I can't really complain about anything. We're even considering soapstone for our kitchen counters and sink when it's time to remodel (next 5-7 yrs). The qualities of the stone are fantastic... far past it's heat retaining qualities.

 

[Todd]

Ok, I like to brag too. Before I left for work yesterday, I loaded up the stove around 12pm, when I got home at 1230am the stove was at 250, the house at 73 upstairs and 75 downstairs. Plenty of coals left so I loaded her up again. I'll do the same reload schedule today. That's only using 8-10 large splits per day on a 12 hr reload schedule. Granted when it gets colder I will go to a 3 time reload schedule, this stove has cut my wood consumption down by 1/4 from my previous non-cat stoves. I only go through 3 cord compared to 4 or more before. I like it. :cheese:

 

[cbrodsky]

Ok, I like to brag too. Before I left for work yesterday, I loaded up the stove around 12pm, when I got home at 1230am the stove was at 250, the house at 73 upstairs and 75 downstairs. Plenty of coals left so I loaded her up again. I'll do the same reload schedule today. That's only using 8-10 large splits per day on a 12 hr reload schedule. Granted when it gets colder I will go to a 3 time reload schedule, this stove has cut my wood consumption down by 1/4 from my previous non-cat stoves. I only go through 3 cord compared to 4 or more before. I like it. :cheese:

Yea, that sounds like my experience - I checked last night, and indeed, it's usually in that 250-300 surface temp range - not 350. Enough that it's a quick ramp back up on reload and right back to catalytic burning.

This year has been nice because we now have the solar HW system still getting us into the 80-90 degree range, so I just let the electric finish the top of the tank to 115, and I can still leave the boiler off, avoiding the ~3/4 gallon per day of combined HW production and standby loss I used to have this time of year. The electric usage is still fairly reasonable since a little over half the job is being done by solar.

With our 12 hours away for work each day, we'll probably fire the boiler once we see highs in the 30s / lows in the teens/20s - at that point I'll have to supplement with oil to be gone that long during the week and keep the house up to temperature. Once I do that, I'll also move the HW from electric to oil as backup.

-Colin

 

[swestall]

After burning WOOD for a life time, I can honestly say that it is cooler in the house when you wake up. It was that way in the old days with that Cast Iron kitchen stove on the farm and it is that way now with this Modern EPA compliant unit. I think coming down in the morning to a bit of a cool home, stoking the fire up and enjoying the warmth as it comes up is part of this experience. Or, you could just get up at 3:30 and stoke it again; some do.

 

[Henz]

thats true..we have one of those old wood fired kitchen stoves in our hunting camp. its used as the heat source obviously as well. heats incredibly well.