Soapstone side panels or not on Ideal Steel

[bikedennis]

I ordered My WS Ideal. I got the SS liner and was told by Woodstock that the external SS panels are mostly for aesthetics and minimally effective radiating heat. WS must be right but I'm still questioning. My unscientific mind says more mass( soapstone)= more heat retention.Thoughts.

 

[jetsam]

Soapstone is stone. It has a much lower thermal conductivity than steel.

Wrapping your steel stove in insulation is a terrible idea, and soapstone has a fraction of the thermal conductivity of steel.

Back in the days before secondary combustion there was a case to be made for it- burn all fires as hot as possible for efficiency, store some of the heat in stone- but these days it's just a flat out efficiency loss.

People will quote from the brochure at you- oh it's gentle even heat, tell you they heated their house for 20 years with an insulated stove, etc. But this is such a simple topic that the fact that it even gets argued over blows my mind. The body of the stove can conduct less heat, more heat goes up the flue.

What is the difference between thermal conductivity and heat capacity?

Answer (1 of 25): Thermal conductivity measures the rate at which heat can pass through a material, while heat capacity measures how much heat the material can hold. Suppose you have a brick, a bucket of water, and a self-destructive interest in thermodynamics. You heat both the brick and a bric...

www.quora.com

 

[WoodBurnerInWI]

I ordered My WS Ideal. I got the SS liner and was told by Woodstock that the external SS panels are mostly for aesthetics and minimally effective radiating heat. WS must be right but I'm still questioning. My unscientific mind says more mass( soapstone)= more heat retention.Thoughts.

As an Ideal Steel owner, I can attest that the soapstone will not in any way help warm your house faster or longer. You'll get a few thrills the first few times you feel a soapstone slab still warm hours after the fire has gone out but that heat coming from the stone isn't useful at all. Now having said that, I did decide to get my version of the Ideal Steel with everything soapstone, which is basically their top of the line model. I took advantage of one of their bigger sales, for a few hundred more it was worth it for me. People who order the stove with no soapstone anything are going to be just fine. The stove is great with or without the soapstone. A bigger thing to order as soon as you get into the burn season is a second ash pan. If you burn high ash content logs (cherry, etc) you will be very happy to have that second ash pan ready to go after the first one fills up. This stove actually has a great ash removal system so using the ash pan is worth it!

Overall, soapstone these days is more of something aesthetic, it looks nice (esp with the art work in front of it) but it isn't practical.

 

[stoveliker]

Of course it won't be faster; additional things to heat up.
It may work evening out (as in be slower, less fluctuation in the heating power) but it won't make the stove heat longer either.
And (indeed, jetsam is right) it should not significantly insulate the stove because it would make it harder for heat to get out, meaning more goes up the flue.

 

[Highbeam]

Soapstone does look nice though.

 

[Nateums]

A company being forthright about soapstone brings them up several notches in my book. Good for them.

Soapstone improving woodstove performance is folk knowledge gone awry.

And it sure does look nice.

 

[logfarmer]

I had one of their original stone stoves, did great in the shoulder season for the stone radiating heat hours often the fire was out…

 

[Woodsplitter67]

I looked at soap stone when I was looking at stoves years ago. Very pretty stoves, liked the side door loading, That being said... glad I went with my cast stove..