Woodstock Settings

[goofy]

I'm into my second month with my new Woodstock Keystone, and I'm loving it

I lit the stove for the first time in the second week of November for a break-in fire, and it hasn't been out since (not even any kindling used).

My question is for Keystone owners, but I think the Fireview is similar enough that I'd love feedback from Fireview owners too.

I have the whole 12+ hour overnight run all figured out, but now as the weather is getting colder, I'm wondering what setting gives the best heat output during the day, while still being somewhat conservative of wood usage (i.e. don't answer "wide open").

I know every installation is different, so please tell me about the fire, instead of the damper lever.

Example:
A - Turned as far down as possible while keeping the cat glowing
B - Turned up as much as possible, without having any flames (cat glowing very brightly)
C - Turned down so flames just disappear (really the same as B above)
D - Set so flames cycle between going out, and starting up again
E - Set so there are just barely some dark flames
F - Set so there are a small amount of lazy dark flames
G - Set so there are a fair amount of lazy dark flames
H - Set so there are some yellow flames
I - Set so there are a lot of active yellow flames
J - Wide frigg'n open (don't choose this one please)

I would also be curious what damper setting corresponds with your choice.

Thanks

 

[Todd]

When it gets colder for me I like to adjust the air (.75-1) so there is still red in the lower coals and some good flame at the beginning of the burn then it will slow down to those slow lazy flames after about an hour. This setting will give me a good hot 8 hour burn.

For longer burns I like to lower it down to .5 and the bottom front coals will go black and the top front log will turn red and burn with those ghostly bursting flames then the burn will work it's way from front to back over 12 hours or more.

Any pictures of your stove? I like the looks of the Keystone better than the Fireview but wish it had a larger fire box.

 

[MyFyrByrd]

I'll be watching this thread. Great question. I hope to hear from several more on this.

 

[Slow1]

Same sort of questions here with my Fireview as I'm getting into my first cold season with it. The balance I'm playing with is to get maximum heat (of course) while being able to get nice burn times and not have too much of a buildup of coals.

I'm finding that the air setting is very sensitive and that is rather annoying. Such a slight change can make such a difference in the fire it amazes me. I adjust from what may be .95 to .93 (a very slight nudge) and it goes from lots of fire in the stove to dark flames right away that fade to no flames in a few minutes. I wish the control had more "throw" to it so that these adjustments were easier to make.

 

[Todd]

I always engage at #1 and leave it there for awhile before turning it down.

 

[Flatbedford]

Coal buildup has been a problem for us. No room for fresh wood on reload.

 

[Todd]

Sometimes I get too many coals built up and have to either burn hotter with the next load or I just open the air to full and wait 15-30 minutes til it burns down.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

To get the most heat from the longest burn, we, like Todd turn down to 1 when we engage the cat but do not leave it there very long at all. We have found if we turn it down to .25 that most of the time the flame will die out but the cat will soon glow very bright red. Then, amazingly, after a time (half to an hour) there will be the pretty dark red rolling flame at the top of the glass and the stovetop will usually be 600-650 or sometimes over 650. This seems to get the longest burn at the highest heat output for us.

It also depend upon what wood is in the stove. If we burn all maple (soft maple) then if not careful we could go into an overfire and have to bypass the cat for a time. If we burn mostly ash, we get the best burn. Elm and cherry also gives us a good long burn without any worries of overfire.

This fall was awful with the warm then cold then warm, etc. Also for night fires we've had a lot of nights when it did not get that cold so was a bit of a hassle figuring how to load the stove.


Steve, on the coaling problem, we had the same thing our first year with the Fireview but it didn't take too long to figure it out. The big thing is to no be afraid of touching that draft control after the fire is going. We watch the temperature of the stove top. When it starts to drop just a little, we open the draft a little (but usually open it to 2). Just before you are down to coals, open the draft full and let it cook. When it is down to just coals, open the door and rake through the coals (rake right down into the ash; loosen things up) and load them up towards the front of the stove. Leave the draft wide open.

You don't have to wait until the coals are burned all the way down, but just to a manageable state. Once we did this our problem with too many coals ended. In the cold of the winter, many times I'll add two real small splits onto the coals and leave the draft full open. Caution: I said 2 SMALL splits (or even some kindling).

Todd says 15-30 minutes with full draft. We've been known to leave full draft for well over an hour and as much as 2 hours.


I hope this helps fellas.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

By the way goofy, welcome to the forum. I hope you stay around and impart some of your own wisdom.

 

[MyFyrByrd]

Backwoods,
I tried your method of operation today. Wow! It worked great. Whenever I set the damper below the #1 setting the flame would disappear. I always thought that if there was no flame then I wasn't going to produce enough heat and eventually the cat would stall within a short time. Because I didn't want the cat to stall I would never set the damper below #1 position. Doing this made it impossible to reach anywhere near an 8 hour burn time.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Happy that has worked out for you. It took us some time to figure out the stove as it is definitely different from anything we'd ever had but once you get it figured, you just have to love the stove. For those who like to look at the flame, just give it a bit more air and there is the flame!

 

[goofy]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys.

I wasn't going to post any pictures, but since Todd asked...

The Keystone is basically a replacement for at 20+ year old VC Resolute Acclaim. The old stove ran really well until the last few years. Perhaps all the parts that kept falling into the firebox, and that I kept removing, has something to do with that.

New Keystone:

Notice the crappy wood I have been using so far (mostly half punky branches).

OAK

 

[Todd]

Nice looking install Goofy. How much house are you heating with the Keystone? Your getting 12 hour burns with that little 1.5 cu ft fire box?

 

[goofy]

The house is around 2000 sq ft. About 1500 of that is a wide open floor plan, and the remaining is upstairs bedrooms and bathroom. 12 hour runs are pretty easy, but the stove is usually only around 220* - 240* by the end. However, it's easy to get things clipping along again without need for kindling for anything like that. Actually it's usually roaring along before I get the last piece of wood loaded. The oil furnace does turn on in the mornings because it heats my hot water, and helps a bit getting the farther reaches of the house back up to 70. After that it pretty much stays off. Also, the real cold weather hasn't arrived here yet (Eastern MA). We will be going down into the teens for the first time later this week.

Here are the settings I have been using, 15 minutes after the typical reload and fire up routine:

If the house is cold and I'm trying to get fast heat, like in the mornings: setting E/F, which is 1.1 for the damper lever

If the house is warm, but I still want it a little warmer, or outside temps are dropping: setting B/C, which is .9 for the damper

For overnight runs or if the house is plenty warm: setting A, which is anywhere from .3 to .7 depending on outside temps, how much wood, how the planets are aligned, my mood, etc.

So I guess my answer to the original question is E/F or 1.1 for the damper. I do think that a higher damper setting will give me more heat, but at the expense of buring through the wood too quickly.

Disclaimer: The wood I'm currently using is round oak branches, that are 1" - 4" in diameter and most have a ring of punky wood around the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the diameter. Things may be very different once I get into the 'better' splits.

 

[rob bennett]

+1 for showing pictures of your OAK basement photos. Thats detail!

 

[HuskyMurph]

To get the most heat from the longest burn, we, like Todd turn down to 1 when we engage the cat but do not leave it there very long at all. We have found if we turn it down to .25 that most of the time the flame will die out but the cat will soon glow very bright red. Then, amazingly, after a time (half to an hour) there will be the pretty dark red rolling flame at the top of the glass and the stovetop will usually be 600-650 or sometimes over 650. This seems to get the longest burn at the highest heat output for us.

It also depend upon what wood is in the stove. If we burn all maple (soft maple) then if not careful we could go into an overfire and have to bypass the cat for a time. If we burn mostly ash, we get the best burn. Elm and cherry also gives us a good long burn without any worries of overfire.

This fall was awful with the warm then cold then warm, etc. Also for night fires we've had a lot of nights when it did not get that cold so was a bit of a hassle figuring how to load the stove.


Steve, on the coaling problem, we had the same thing our first year with the Fireview but it didn't take too long to figure it out. The big thing is to no be afraid of touching that draft control after the fire is going. We watch the temperature of the stove top. When it starts to drop just a little, we open the draft a little (but usually open it to 2). Just before you are down to coals, open the draft full and let it cook. When it is down to just coals, open the door and rake through the coals (rake right down into the ash; loosen things up) and load them up towards the front of the stove. Leave the draft wide open.

You don't have to wait until the coals are burned all the way down, but just to a manageable state. Once we did this our problem with too many coals ended. In the cold of the winter, many times I'll add two real small splits onto the coals and leave the draft full open. Caution: I said 2 SMALL splits (or even some kindling).

Todd says 15-30 minutes with full draft. We've been known to leave full draft for well over an hour and as much as 2 hours.


I hope this helps fellas.

hey there names nick first time typing on here. i have a fireview new to burning. im haveing trouble getting that 600 to 650 burn range. only have done it a few times. when you sat .25. are you saying only a .25 open from 0 to 1. on the fireview 0 damper closed 4 all the way down is wide open. or was .25 down from 1 as in .75 to 1 sorry if you cant understand this. trying to figure out my stove. thanks alot.

 

[Todd]

To get the most heat from the longest burn, we, like Todd turn down to 1 when we engage the cat but do not leave it there very long at all. We have found if we turn it down to .25 that most of the time the flame will die out but the cat will soon glow very bright red. Then, amazingly, after a time (half to an hour) there will be the pretty dark red rolling flame at the top of the glass and the stovetop will usually be 600-650 or sometimes over 650. This seems to get the longest burn at the highest heat output for us.

It also depend upon what wood is in the stove. If we burn all maple (soft maple) then if not careful we could go into an overfire and have to bypass the cat for a time. If we burn mostly ash, we get the best burn. Elm and cherry also gives us a good long burn without any worries of overfire.

This fall was awful with the warm then cold then warm, etc. Also for night fires we've had a lot of nights when it did not get that cold so was a bit of a hassle figuring how to load the stove.


Steve, on the coaling problem, we had the same thing our first year with the Fireview but it didn't take too long to figure it out. The big thing is to no be afraid of touching that draft control after the fire is going. We watch the temperature of the stove top. When it starts to drop just a little, we open the draft a little (but usually open it to 2). Just before you are down to coals, open the draft full and let it cook. When it is down to just coals, open the door and rake through the coals (rake right down into the ash; loosen things up) and load them up towards the front of the stove. Leave the draft wide open.

You don't have to wait until the coals are burned all the way down, but just to a manageable state. Once we did this our problem with too many coals ended. In the cold of the winter, many times I'll add two real small splits onto the coals and leave the draft full open. Caution: I said 2 SMALL splits (or even some kindling).

Todd says 15-30 minutes with full draft. We've been known to leave full draft for well over an hour and as much as 2 hours.


I hope this helps fellas.

hey there names nick first time typing on here. i have a fireview new to burning. im haveing trouble getting that 600 to 650 burn range. only have done it a few times. when you sat .25. are you saying only a .25 open from 0 to 1. on the fireview 0 damper closed 4 all the way down is wide open. or was .25 down from 1 as in .75 to 1 sorry if you cant understand this. trying to figure out my stove. thanks alot.

.25 is considered 1/4 between 0 and #1. Most people burn their stoves somewhere around #1 or below so we all like to break it down inbetween.

As far as stove top temps go I'll say it again, it doesn't tell the whole story since the cat is directly under the top, you can have a smouldering dark firebox with the cat glowing bright red from all the smoke and give you a stove top of 700, but the rest of the stove is relatively cool. I get more heat when I have some red coals and flame with a 550 stove top than a smouldering fire with a 700 stove top.

 

[goofy]

To get the most heat from the longest burn, we, like Todd turn down to 1 when we engage the cat but do not leave it there very long at all. We have found if we turn it down to .25 that most of the time the flame will die out but the cat will soon glow very bright red. Then, amazingly, after a time (half to an hour) there will be the pretty dark red rolling flame at the top of the glass and the stovetop will usually be 600-650 or sometimes over 650. This seems to get the longest burn at the highest heat output for us.

It also depend upon what wood is in the stove. If we burn all maple (soft maple) then if not careful we could go into an overfire and have to bypass the cat for a time. If we burn mostly ash, we get the best burn. Elm and cherry also gives us a good long burn without any worries of overfire.

This fall was awful with the warm then cold then warm, etc. Also for night fires we've had a lot of nights when it did not get that cold so was a bit of a hassle figuring how to load the stove.


Steve, on the coaling problem, we had the same thing our first year with the Fireview but it didn't take too long to figure it out. The big thing is to no be afraid of touching that draft control after the fire is going. We watch the temperature of the stove top. When it starts to drop just a little, we open the draft a little (but usually open it to 2). Just before you are down to coals, open the draft full and let it cook. When it is down to just coals, open the door and rake through the coals (rake right down into the ash; loosen things up) and load them up towards the front of the stove. Leave the draft wide open.

You don't have to wait until the coals are burned all the way down, but just to a manageable state. Once we did this our problem with too many coals ended. In the cold of the winter, many times I'll add two real small splits onto the coals and leave the draft full open. Caution: I said 2 SMALL splits (or even some kindling).

Todd says 15-30 minutes with full draft. We've been known to leave full draft for well over an hour and as much as 2 hours.


I hope this helps fellas.

hey there names nick first time typing on here. i have a fireview new to burning. im haveing trouble getting that 600 to 650 burn range. only have done it a few times. when you sat .25. are you saying only a .25 open from 0 to 1. on the fireview 0 damper closed 4 all the way down is wide open. or was .25 down from 1 as in .75 to 1 sorry if you cant understand this. trying to figure out my stove. thanks alot.

.25 is considered 1/4 between 0 and #1. Most people burn their stoves somewhere around #1 or below so we all like to break it down inbetween.

As far as stove top temps go I'll say it again, it doesn't tell the whole story since the cat is directly under the top, you can have a smouldering dark firebox with the cat glowing bright red from all the smoke and give you a stove top of 700, but the rest of the stove is relatively cool. I get more heat when I have some red coals and flame with a 550 stove top than a smouldering fire with a 700 stove top.

That is exactly what I'm starting to figure out. I get really good stove top temps with no flames and the cat glowing brightly, but I think a get a lot more heat out the front glass when there are visible flames, even though the stove top temp might not be as high. I'm currently trying to find the perfect balance between the two, for different needs and situations.

Thanks for confirming my suspicion Todd.

 

[Slow1]

Ahh yes, perfect balance. A worthy goal... As soon as I think I've achieved a sense of understanding enough to start tweaking things to get into balance something changes again that I can't control! The weather changes significantly or I get into a vein of different wood in the pile (rather eclectic collection - more varied than I had appreciated before burning season started) and suddenly I have to readjust my thoughts on things. On the bright side by time I get done learning all this I should be able to cope with quite a variety of variables... maybe in about 10 years I'll be an expert on it.

I think I understand why folks become wood snobs though. I sure would like to have a uniform wood pile with nothing but nice clean splits that I know the history on so that I wouldn't have any surprises.

 

[johnn]

still learning and trying to decide for next year`s new stove choice,,,as much as i can get very analystic and would take time to learn all the options and the end results on operating this stove,,im afraid that others in the house would never take the time to learn the difference between black coals and red coals,,the lazy flame vs lively and on so forth. I do work full time and swing shifts and overtime depending on the economy, would this not be the stove for me if my partner`s in the household would not take the vested interest in operation. Sorry if this appears to be hi-jacking the thread, but there are some experienced cats following it!

 

[goofy]

ml,

Don't hold it against the cat stoves, just because some of us can be a bit anal about burning. We are talking about the "perfect burn". I was getting WAY better performance from this stove in the first week of burning it, compared to my previous non-cat stove, without considering any of this stuff. They aren't hard to operate, and if you need a long steady burn they are, in my opinion, much easier to be successful than my non-cat stoves. For every person here, there are probably hundreds or thousands of more 'normal' burners, that the stoves just work for, without being obsessive about them (guilty as charged).

 

[Slow1]

I agree with Goofy - I have not yet had a bad burn in this stove. I'm just the anal type trying for perfection. Yup, impossible with wood burning I'm sure, but why not - I love to watch the fire burn and try to see if I can get every btu out of each piece of wood and into the room. I also like to imagine that I can control it (ha!). Ok, well it is under far more control now than I ever had with my old stove - that one now scares the willies out of me in retrospect.

 

[Flatbedford]

ml,

Don't hold it against the cat stoves, just because some of us can be a bit anal about burning. We are talking about the "perfect burn". I was getting WAY better performance from this stove in the first week of burning it, compared to my previous non-cat stove, without considering any of this stuff. They aren't hard to operate, and if you need a long steady burn they are, in my opinion, much easier to be successful than my non-cat stoves. For every person here, there are probably hundreds or thousands of more 'normal' burners, that the stoves just work for, without being obsessive about them (guilty as charged).

I obsess over and tweak the stove for ultimate performance all day when I am home. When I'm at work, about 70 hours a week, my wife throws wood in the stove and pretty walks away. The house is warm either way. I just take it a little more seriously than she does.

 

[johnn]

Sure, I see your point,,well written guys thanks for the confidence booste,,,I`m sure if I get most of the i`s dotted and T`s crossed any stove would be better that pre Epa

 

[Flatbedford]

l... Ok, well it is under far more control now than I ever had with my old stove - that one now scares the willies out of me in retrospect.

Now that I know a little more about burning, I can't believe that I never burned the house down with my old stove. It was Franklin style stove. It had two settings Full and Off! There was no air control. I just kept throwing wood in and it just kept on burning! There would be sparks coming out of the chimney! The stove was about 12 inches from the wall with a manufactured hearth pad screwed, with no airspace, to the wall. I had the stove glowing cherry red more than once. Woodstock Soapstone, and Hearth.com may have saved my house.