Well, that may be over-stating it a bit; It's a little early to say if the stove is tossing really nutty heat. Two nights ago, it got down to 30* here, and that'll be the coldest it gets for several days. It's doubtful weather I'll get a chance to see how the stove does when temps are low. Right now, I can engage the combustor, cut the air all the way back, and still maintain 70*. Loads easily go ten hours with plenty of coals left to re-load.
So, Keystone operators, what do you do when you need a lot of heat out of this stove? What about a fan to pull off more heat? I'm curious as to how others run the stove to get max heat out of it when needed.
In case anyone is curious, here's how it went down:
Hearth install. I took out my old liner, a 6" rigid pipe snap-together stainless setup with two adjustable elbows at the bottom, top-venting the Dutchwest which sat back in the fireplace. The two-elbow setup resulted in two 80* turns, more or less.
For the new liner, I went with 16' of 6" Homesaver 304 heavy-duty roundflex, insulated with 1/2" Saf-T-Wrap, top plate, clamp, storm collar and chimney cap. A tee at the bottom rear-vents the Keystone, which has a 7-to-6" reducer on the flue collar. The liner is also supported at the bottom of the tee, so I'll have to move that to brush the chimney.
If you're contemplating applying insulation to a flex liner the long way, get someone to help you or grow a couple extra hands. :lol:
I enlisted the help of my nephew to pull the insulated liner, with tee attached, up through the exterior fireplace chimney which has a 13x13" O.D. clay liner. That went fairly smoothly, but the Roundflex + wrap is heavy. Then we proceeded to lift the 440# Keystone off the pallet and into position on the hearth. The old man still has a little bit of POWAH in reserve, if needed. :cheese: I found out that SS sheet metal screws don't work too well for connecting hard stainless pipe; It tends to shear the threads off the screws. I'll probably replace those at the end of the season with SS nuts and bolts.
Looking at the inside of the stove, I saw this:
Looks like the cement is a little sparse where the door side of the stove meets the back. There's probably some cement in that seam, but seeing this wasn't confidence-inspiring, nonetheless. I slapped a little more cement along the seam.
With the stove connected, I lit my first break-in fire later that night. The manual said to burn "a series of low to moderate fires." I happened to look at the Hearthstone manuals and they seemed to be more conservative, saying to shut down the stove when the stones were "warm to the touch, not hot." Well, I could only touch my stone for about a second. It was closer to hot than warm. Maybe Hearthstone has a different break-in procedure due to differences in construction, or maybe they want to make absolutely sure you don't get the stove too hot, seeing as how stone temp lags behind firebox temp...
I had to go to work, so I couldn't run my break-ins as quickly as I would have liked. Room temps were around 60* for a couple of nights, necessitating the application of another layer of clothing.
The low break-in fires really gunked up the glass, and I didn't want to burn the new stove hot enough to burn the black stuff off at this early stage. I ended up cleaning the glass with vinegar, as suggested by snowleopard in a thread I read. Worked well. Then after I got the combustor lit off, I got a cool-looking solid wavy sheet of flame all the way across the top of the glass. It was gorgeous to look at. I could get off to the side and see the peaks and valleys in this solid sheet. Problem was, it was sucking up the airwash; Below the flame, the glass got rather dirty again. Some of that may be due to wood that isn't as dry as it could be.
The combustor lights off almost instantly, which is nice. With the magnetic thermo that was included, so far I've gotten stovetop temps of 470 on the stone above the combustor, 350 back in the left-hand corner, and about 450 on the tee surface, about a foot back from the stove. I'll get a flue probe thermo, a combustor probe, and maybe an IR thermo, shortly.
I like the design of the stove. Everything looks heavy-duty.
In talking with my folks, who grew up in New York state, my mom mentioned that they used to put warm soapstones in their beds to keep the tootsies warm, and my dad said that they had a soapstone cooker in the basement, I assume to keep heat out of the kitchen on hot summer days.
I think the Keystone will do the job in our 2-room, 980 sq.ft. space. I may have to seal a couple of the bigger air leaks in the house to be able to hold temp when it drops to single digits outside. I'll make a preemptive strike on these in the off season this year.
I can't kill the fire in this stove, even with the air cut back all the way. Apparently I'm getting plenty of draft through the 7-to-6" reduction with 16' of stack.
Now to get the Ash and some Dogwood for next season split and stacked, and work on some Red Oak for the following year...
So, Keystone operators, what do you do when you need a lot of heat out of this stove? What about a fan to pull off more heat? I'm curious as to how others run the stove to get max heat out of it when needed.
In case anyone is curious, here's how it went down:
Hearth install. I took out my old liner, a 6" rigid pipe snap-together stainless setup with two adjustable elbows at the bottom, top-venting the Dutchwest which sat back in the fireplace. The two-elbow setup resulted in two 80* turns, more or less.
For the new liner, I went with 16' of 6" Homesaver 304 heavy-duty roundflex, insulated with 1/2" Saf-T-Wrap, top plate, clamp, storm collar and chimney cap. A tee at the bottom rear-vents the Keystone, which has a 7-to-6" reducer on the flue collar. The liner is also supported at the bottom of the tee, so I'll have to move that to brush the chimney.
If you're contemplating applying insulation to a flex liner the long way, get someone to help you or grow a couple extra hands. :lol:
I enlisted the help of my nephew to pull the insulated liner, with tee attached, up through the exterior fireplace chimney which has a 13x13" O.D. clay liner. That went fairly smoothly, but the Roundflex + wrap is heavy. Then we proceeded to lift the 440# Keystone off the pallet and into position on the hearth. The old man still has a little bit of POWAH in reserve, if needed. :cheese: I found out that SS sheet metal screws don't work too well for connecting hard stainless pipe; It tends to shear the threads off the screws. I'll probably replace those at the end of the season with SS nuts and bolts.
Looking at the inside of the stove, I saw this:
Looks like the cement is a little sparse where the door side of the stove meets the back. There's probably some cement in that seam, but seeing this wasn't confidence-inspiring, nonetheless. I slapped a little more cement along the seam.
With the stove connected, I lit my first break-in fire later that night. The manual said to burn "a series of low to moderate fires." I happened to look at the Hearthstone manuals and they seemed to be more conservative, saying to shut down the stove when the stones were "warm to the touch, not hot." Well, I could only touch my stone for about a second. It was closer to hot than warm. Maybe Hearthstone has a different break-in procedure due to differences in construction, or maybe they want to make absolutely sure you don't get the stove too hot, seeing as how stone temp lags behind firebox temp...
I had to go to work, so I couldn't run my break-ins as quickly as I would have liked. Room temps were around 60* for a couple of nights, necessitating the application of another layer of clothing.
The low break-in fires really gunked up the glass, and I didn't want to burn the new stove hot enough to burn the black stuff off at this early stage. I ended up cleaning the glass with vinegar, as suggested by snowleopard in a thread I read. Worked well. Then after I got the combustor lit off, I got a cool-looking solid wavy sheet of flame all the way across the top of the glass. It was gorgeous to look at. I could get off to the side and see the peaks and valleys in this solid sheet. Problem was, it was sucking up the airwash; Below the flame, the glass got rather dirty again. Some of that may be due to wood that isn't as dry as it could be.
The combustor lights off almost instantly, which is nice. With the magnetic thermo that was included, so far I've gotten stovetop temps of 470 on the stone above the combustor, 350 back in the left-hand corner, and about 450 on the tee surface, about a foot back from the stove. I'll get a flue probe thermo, a combustor probe, and maybe an IR thermo, shortly.
I like the design of the stove. Everything looks heavy-duty.
In talking with my folks, who grew up in New York state, my mom mentioned that they used to put warm soapstones in their beds to keep the tootsies warm, and my dad said that they had a soapstone cooker in the basement, I assume to keep heat out of the kitchen on hot summer days.
I think the Keystone will do the job in our 2-room, 980 sq.ft. space. I may have to seal a couple of the bigger air leaks in the house to be able to hold temp when it drops to single digits outside. I'll make a preemptive strike on these in the off season this year.
I can't kill the fire in this stove, even with the air cut back all the way. Apparently I'm getting plenty of draft through the 7-to-6" reduction with 16' of stack.
Now to get the Ash and some Dogwood for next season split and stacked, and work on some Red Oak for the following year...
I had already engaged the cat and got mine up to 325 at that point but he said its still ok, just not recommended. I just thought I'd throw that in. The manual is pretty sketchy about breakin's.
hh: 
