Hearthstone vs Progress, bee in bonnet

[fire_man]

It's hard to control how long the cat stays in pure cat mode, at least on my stove. If the stovetop hits around 500ºF in cat mode the firebox always self ignites, ending pure cat mode. If I wanted to get firebox flames a little earlier, I could open up the air when the stovetop hits maybe 400ºF and get an earlier flame in the firebox, which would be "hybrid" cat mode.

Tom would certainly know the likely failure mechanism of current combustor technology but I'm doubtful that decreasing the transition time to firebox flames would meaningfully impact combustor life. I think combustor longevity has to do with maintaining the integrity of the aluminum oxide coating which is applied to the foil substrate. Using WS's words: "The aluminum oxide on the surface of the foil protects the metal substrate from oxidation that would otherwise occur to the metal substrate at the operating temperatures of the wood stove. It increases the longevity and durability of the catalyst."

How this impacts combustor life expectancy is debatable at least with my level of understanding.

 

[John Lehet]

The Progress is AMAZING. Put 23 pounds of wood on coals at 9:30 PM. At 5:30 AM the room was 70, stove still warm, coals. Put 22 pounds in at that point. No more since then. It’s 73 in here and the stove is still radiating like mad. With the Jotul I would have woken up to a cold stove, a struggling mini split, and 65 degrees. I’d have put about 35 pounds in by now in several loadings, and it would just be getting up to this temp by now. Oh, it was about 7F overnight and this morning, gradually rising to about 20 now. I am a bit worried about warmer weather, but mini split, and small fires I guess. A lot harder to get the cat to fire with a small fire, I decided with the break in fires.

 

[fire_man]

Don't even bother trying to engage the cat if the load is too small (like a quarter or less full).
Just make a small fire to warm up the stove with the cat lever disengaged and it will burn fairly clean and works well for taking the chill out.

 

[Todd]

Glad the new stove seems to be working out for you. You probably won’t even need that mini split all Winter but it will be nice for the shoulder seasons.

How full is your firebox with 23 lbs of wood? That’s just about a full load for my Fireview. I think I can squeeze in about 30 lbs of Oak if I have the right pieces.

 

[John Lehet]

The 23 pounds was pretty full, but my splits are mostly still 16” or so for the Jotul, so they don’t fill the length of the firebox. With full length logs and just the right sizes chinked together I’m guessing I could easily get over 30 pounds in there? It’s pretty amazing. We haven’t had the coldest weather we can have, but so far at night the goal is to just make it through the night and not over-cook it. I think I put 17 pounds in last night. Slept in this morning because of the ice storm, so woke up 2 hours later than usual. Room was 70, stove had just a few coals — didn’t need paper.

 

[John Lehet]

I’m finding if I try to go Blaze King Black Box with it, I get a bit of smell, especially if it explodes a bit. I think I’m better off keeping some flame. Last night I was going to try to black-box it through the night, but I bailed on that plan and let more air in, flaming when I went to bed. Woke up to a 73 degree room (unheard of before now in this house) and a serious bed of hot coals. That was 21 pounds of wood, might need more at 10 or 20 below I guess, but this or less should do it for an overnight.

Day 4 with it, and I like it more and more — and I liked it a lot right away. It seems to just be warmer and warmer in the house, and the stove seems to need less and less wood. Yesterday was 32 all day (and freezing rain) so I tried to make small fires. I can get a good hot fire going and the cat to fire easily if there are coals with 15 pounds of wood or so.

 

[Todd]

I think it will be hard to go black box mode with this stove. Eventually it will get hot enough for those secondaries to light off. I was just in the black box mode with my Fireview for the last hour then a slow lazy flame above the logs developed. It should continue this for the next couple hours.

I wonder if it would be better to just fill the stove up full on the warmer days and find your low and slow sweet spot and see if that’s enough heat til the next day instead of smaller hot fires? I’ve seen a few reports of 24 hour burns in the PH. This is one reason I’ve been eyeing it as my next stove.

 

[John Lehet]

I’m not positive, but I think the coasting down to coaling phase and then a while with the coals burning down is a good interlude to have, overall a cooler phase, and then light a fire while there are still coals. This keeps coals from building up too. No matter what I’ve been doing, the stove top (metal) has generally about 400-425, and then the temp of the sides and heat coming through the glass depend on what’s going on, with any flaming making more heat on the rest of the stove and more heat overall. Black box on the other hand gets the cat really hot, so top is hotter with the rest of the stove quite cool. I think unless it’s quite cold, those interludes between smaller firings will be the way to go — though it may also be that a big load gives a longer coast-down period? During coaling the top coasts down slowly from 400 to under 250, and then I make another fire.

This week in Vermont will be quite cold, so I can experiment. Today won’t get over 15F or so, and it’s off and on pretty windy. Currently the stove is coaling from the 5:30AM 12 pound load. I can feel the heat from 8 feet away, and it’s 75 in here.

I think I can also ditch using the mini split in the bedroom upstairs if we open the door up there. Usually with the doors closed the mini split set at 66 made the bedroom warmer than the landing next to it, at the top of the stairs. Now the 66 degree bedroom seems cool compared to stepping out of it. On the other hand, we like to sleep at 66, so it might get too warm! I bet I can cut at least $100/month off the winter electric bills, ditching the mini splits in the coldest weather, but the 20 pounds of wood per night is extra, so it will be more wood to do that.

I think with this stove shoulder seasons will be a bit shorter for wood burning and longer for mini split use, so they will get their workout then.

 

[fire_man]

I think it will be hard to go black box mode with this stove. Eventually it will get hot enough for those secondaries to light off. I was just in the black box mode with my Fireview for the last hour then a slow lazy flame above the logs developed. It should continue this for the next couple hours.

This is very true on my Progress. Eventually the dark flameless firebox ignites resulting in much higher heat. When it does ignite, it's much different from the Fairview's lazy wispy flames that hover above the log like a ghost. It's more like jets of strong flames shooting into the wood.

 

[bsw]

I’m finding if I try to go Blaze King Black Box with it, I get a bit of smell, especially if it explodes a bit. I think I’m b....

I've struggled with a sporadic smell off and on for about 2 years with mine. It burns odor free 95% of the time and I can't seem to find any common contributing factors for the other 5%. It's not a huge deal, but can definitely be annoying. The bursts of flame can definitely put a little smoke smell in the air but there's also a different smell that some others have experienced as well that you might run into.

Regardless, glad the new stove is working out good for you.

 

[Highbeam]

I think it will be hard to go black box mode with this stove. Eventually it will get hot enough for those secondaries to light off. I was just in the black box mode with my Fireview for the last hour then a slow lazy flame above the logs developed. It should continue this for the next couple hours.

Do you think the reason the fire seems to self accelerate is because you don't have a thermostatic air control automatically closing the air as the stove heats up? That's the BK difference. What if you sat there and closed the draft as flames began to appear?

 

[fire_man]

Do you think the reason the fire seems to self accelerate is because you don't have a thermostatic air control automatically closing the air as the stove heats up? That's the BK difference. What if you sat there and closed the draft as flames began to appear?

With the Progress, If you shut the damper closed completely while the stove is heating up, it eventually ignites whether you want it or not. Once the firebox ignites, you can't get the black firebox back.

I'm guessing BK maybe chokes the air down more at the minimal setting since it's a pure cat stove not a hybrid.
I'm not sure about the thermostatic air control and how that plays into it.
@BKVP might be able to explain why the firebox stays black but some say it's alien technology!

 

[Todd]

Do you think the reason the fire seems to self accelerate is because you don't have a thermostatic air control automatically closing the air as the stove heats up? That's the BK difference. What if you sat there and closed the draft as flames began to appear?

You’re probably correct on that. Eventually the stove will get hotter and draw in more air unless you have a thermostat control. I’ve shut my air all the way off and still get a little flame.

 

[Highbeam]

With the Progress, If you shut the damper closed completely while the stove is heating up, it eventually ignites whether you want it or not. Once the firebox ignites, you can't get the black firebox back.

I'm guessing BK maybe chokes the air down more at the minimal setting since it's a pure cat stove not a hybrid.
I'm not sure about the thermostatic air control and how that plays into it.
@BKVP might know!

As I recall, that PH (or is it the IS?) also has a thermostatic secondary inlet that opens as it heats up so a bit of a spiral.

 

[Todd]

Isn’t there a secondary air control thermostat on all the Woodstock hybrids?

 

[fire_man]

There is only one air damper control on the Progress. No thermostat.

 

[John Lehet]

Right, the secondary air is not shut down in the same way as the primary air. It might also have to do with the cat having heat exchangers, which if I recall transmit that heat to the fireback burn plate. The more you shut down the flame, the more smoke is going into the cat — a pure smoky situation — so the cat gets Super hot and gets the burn plate hotter, so it is easier to flash off. I’m speculating. I don’t have a cat probe. This seemed to happen, judging by stove top temps, last time I tried to black-box it. I asked Lorin and Tom about cat probes last Saturday when I was in there. They looked at each other, a look that said a lot was unsaid. Then they both said that they didn’t like them and found cat probes made it harder to manage the fire. Easier with the stove top. I told them I had cat trauma from my last VC stove and just wanted to see it was working.

 

[fire_man]

From what I have heard about VC, cat trauma is not an unusually condition for VC owners.

A very counter intuitive fact with cat stoves is that if you increase the air supply, the stove top temp will decrease.
More fresh air enters the combustion chamber which dilutes the smoke concentration and combustion gases move quicker across the combustor giving the catalyst less time to react with the gases.

At least that's how I see it if someone wants to poke a hole.

 

[John Lehet]

Plus more air = more flames, which eat the smoke, so less smoke for the cat.

 

[Highbeam]

There is only one air damper control on the Progress. No thermostat.

The one air damper control is for the primary air. The secondary air system may be fed by a thermostatically controlled flapper. The kind that you can't control. I'll see if I can look it up on the woodstock site. On edit: Easy to find that the secondary system "engages" at 1000 degrees. Also easy to find the bimettlic coil controlled catalyst air supply. The graphics all show a door controlling the secondary air supply as a red flapper.

Whatever happens with their secondary air control may explain the apparent flame up as the load burns. Or else it's just that the fuel load gets burning hotter and releasing more stuff to burn and without you managing the intake lever it tends to increase the burn rate.

I would sure like to try one of these woodstocks some day. They sure put out lots of good stuff on their website blog.

 

[John Lehet]

From their "What makes the Progress a Hybrid" page:

"Through the long and winding path of R&D we have designed an air damper system that controls both primary and secondary air to the firebox using a single, simple lever. The ratio of primary to secondary air is pre-set so the user does not have to fiddle with separate knobs or levers to fine tune the burn. The Progress will automatically deliver unused secondary air to the combustor at lower burn rates, or allow the air to combine with gases in the firebox at higher burn rates for a spectacular secondary burn. At a medium burn rate, the secondary flames and catalytic combustor alternate depending on the conditions in the firebox. Two different systems, working in harmony, make the Progress Hybrid Wood Stove."

 

[fire_man]

The one air damper control is for the primary air. The secondary air system may be fed by a thermostatically controlled flapper. The kind that you can't control. I'll see if I can look it up on the woodstock site. On edit: Easy to find that the secondary system "engages" at 1000 degrees. Also easy to find the bimettlic coil controlled catalyst air supply. The graphics all show a door controlling the secondary air supply as a red flapper.

Whatever happens with their secondary air control may explain the apparent flame up as the load burns. Or else it's just that the fuel load gets burning hotter and releasing more stuff to burn and without you managing the intake lever it tends to increase the burn rate.

I would sure like to try one of these woodstocks some day. They sure put out lots of good stuff on their website blog.

Nope I'll eat my words if you can prove me wrong but there is absolutely no thermostatically controlled device in the Progress or to my knowledge ever been one in any WS wood stove.
I have seen this stove gutted in my house and at WS - and pretty sure I read all the design blogs.

Thermostatically controlled woodstoves are not in WS's DNA.

 

[begreen]

Nope I'll eat my words if you can prove me wrong but there is absolutely no thermostatically controlled device in the Progress or to my knowledge ever been one in any WS wood stove.
I have seen this stove gutted in my house and at WS - and pretty sure I read all the design blogs.

Thermostatically controlled woodstoves are not in WS's DNA.

I haven't studied the design closely but perhaps this may be a draft regulated damper similar to the EBT2 on PE stoves? It might bias secondary air to the cat under low fire then divert more to the secondary rack under higher fire? In that case it may not be thermostatic, though still automatically regulating.

 

[Highbeam]

Nope I'll eat my words if you can prove me wrong but there is absolutely no thermostatically controlled device in the Progress or to my knowledge ever been one in any WS wood stove.
I have seen this stove gutted in my house and at WS - and pretty sure I read all the design blogs.

Thermostatically controlled woodstoves are not in WS's DNA.

I don’t think I was clear enough. There are several ways that air enters the stoves. One of them was thermostatically controlled. Catalyst air for sure but maybe also secondary air.

That is not to say that the whole stove burn rate is set by a thermostat like a BK.

VC did this too.

You’re probably right fireman, you own it after all. I’ve just read a lot of the marketing and mixed that with fuzzy memory!

 

[Highbeam]

From their "What makes the Progress a Hybrid" page:

"Through the long and winding path of R&D we have designed an air damper system that controls both primary and secondary air to the firebox using a single, simple lever. The ratio of primary to secondary air is pre-set so the user does not have to fiddle with separate knobs or levers to fine tune the burn. The Progress will automatically deliver unused secondary air to the combustor at lower burn rates, or allow the air to combine with gases in the firebox at higher burn rates for a spectacular secondary burn. At a medium burn rate, the secondary flames and catalytic combustor alternate depending on the conditions in the firebox. Two different systems, working in harmony, make the Progress Hybrid Wood Stove."

It’s that “automatically” part.