Woodstove decision/heating

[Pinesmoke]

Some soapstone/Mansfield input.

The 30 hour they talk about isn't burn time but time before the rock goes to ambient temp. They are an incredibly smooth heat. Sitting at 500 deg they don't set you on fire when you are close, something many people have commented on around mine. Overnight burns with hardwood are easy but it is completely choked down so in very cold temps I'll still toss a couple of splits in 3-4ish so I can keep the air cracked a little for more heat output.

I put the heatshield on mine for rear clearance but didn't get the on with the fan (i like the quiet). I would imagine that would help overall output.

 

[Jaison]

Some soapstone/Mansfield input.

The 30 hour they talk about isn't burn time but time before the rock goes to ambient temp. They are an incredibly smooth heat. Sitting at 500 deg they don't set you on fire when you are close, something many people have commented on around mine. Overnight burns with hardwood are easy but it is completely choked down so in very cold temps I'll still toss a couple of splits in 3-4ish so I can keep the air cracked a little for more heat output.

I put the heatshield on mine for rear clearance but didn't get the on with the fan (i like the quiet). I would imagine that would help overall output.

Thanks for the input - I didn’t know that. I assumed it was like BK with their burn times. So what would be the best estimate on burn times with the catalyst active? I’m assuming he will be burning with catalyst active overnight only.

 

[Pinesmoke]

Thanks for the input - I didn’t know that. I assumed it was like BK with their burn times. So what would be the best estimate on burn times with the catalyst active? I’m assuming he will be burning with catalyst active overnight only.

10-12 hours leave enough coals to light off. 8-10 you have a coal bed that is ready to rock whatever you toss on to of it. I burn the cats anytime they are hot enough to light even when I'm running smaller low heat loads.

 

[Jaison]

10-12 hours leave enough coals to light off. 8-10 you have a coal bed that is ready to rock whatever you toss on to of it. I burn the cats anytime they are hot enough to light even when I'm running smaller low heat loads.

This is good information - I don’t know why they claim a 30 hour heat life/ “burn time” then. That’s what I’m having difficulty understanding there. With a 3.1cuft firebox I would expect a burn time of 12 hours with no catalyst active, you know what I mean?

 

[John Lehet]

It’s total marketing BS, the “Heat Life”. No doubt with a Flir infrared camera at 30 hours it would be showing heat.

But with a massive soapstone wood stove it’s also a huge impact, regardless of the time involved. The Mansfield is about 600 pounds. My Progress Hybrid is over 700, but they both might be about the same amount of soapstone, more or less. The Progress is sort of a steel stove sandwich on soapstone bread. It’s a steel stove, with soapstone interior, and then the cast iron/soapstone on the exterior of that. This makes the stove tight except for intended air inlets, and also more bulletproof.

Yesterday in Vermont was a milder day in the stretch we’re having, but it started out cold, below zero. The way I burned my Progress hybrid was I put wood on coals from the overnight, 22 pounds of wood on the fire. That actively flamed for a few hours, then the stove was hot with coals in it for several more hours. I let that coast until 3:30PM. House stayed over 72. The 3:30 PM fire lit easily on the coals, 12 pounds of wood. I did 12 pounds at about 6:30 (building up coals for the night fire) then 18 pounds for the overnight. Woke up to coals in the stove and 72 degrees.

With the iron stove, (Jotul) that I had in here for 17 years, fire goes out, room gets cold.

Think about the Woodstock Progress if soapstone and high heat is on the list. In my place, which I could never keep anywhere near this warm with my old smaller Jotul, the Progress would be too much heat here for constant fires even in the coldest weather in Vermont. That’s OK. I let it sit with coals and the room stays warm in between gaps of firings. It’s sort of like a mini masonry stove, but I burn three to six fires a day instead of one, and I light them all from coals. If you wanted a huge amount of heat, you could keep feeding it.

 

[Pinesmoke]

From Hearthstone's website
Note the trademark on "heatlife"

 

[kborndale]

From Hearthstone's website
Note the trademark on "heatlife"
View attachment 346008

They are just trying to blow smoke up your ass! (Pun intended 😜)

 

[Pinesmoke]

They are just trying to blow smoke up your ass! (Pun intended 😜)

That warm and fuzzy feeling.....

 

[bigealta]

It’s total marketing BS, the “Heat Life”. No doubt with a Flir infrared camera at 30 hours it would be showing heat.

But with a massive soapstone wood stove it’s also a huge impact, regardless of the time involved. The Mansfield is about 600 pounds. My Progress Hybrid is over 700, but they both might be about the same amount of soapstone, more or less. The Progress is sort of a steel stove sandwich on soapstone bread. It’s a steel stove, with soapstone interior, and then the cast iron/soapstone on the exterior of that. This makes the stove tight except for intended air inlets, and also more bulletproof.

Yesterday in Vermont was a milder day in the stretch we’re having, but it started out cold, below zero. The way I burned my Progress hybrid was I put wood on coals from the overnight, 22 pounds of wood on the fire. That actively flamed for a few hours, then the stove was hot with coals in it for several more hours. I let that coast until 3:30PM. House stayed over 72. The 3:30 PM fire lit easily on the coals, 12 pounds of wood. I did 12 pounds at about 6:30 (building up coals for the night fire) then 18 pounds for the overnight. Woke up to coals in the stove and 72 degrees.

With the iron stove, (Jotul) that I had in here for 17 years, fire goes out, room gets cold.

Think about the Woodstock Progress if soapstone and high heat is on the list. In my place, which I could never keep anywhere near this warm with my old smaller Jotul, the Progress would be too much heat here for constant fires even in the coldest weather in Vermont. That’s OK. I let it sit with coals and the room stays warm in between gaps of firings. It’s sort of like a mini masonry stove, but I burn three to six fires a day instead of one, and I light them all from coals. If you wanted a huge amount of heat, you could keep feeding it.

That's really not a fair comparison with the very small jotul 3 to your much bigger progress hybrid.
I get your point that soapstone holds more heat for longer, but if you were running a larger jotul f500 i bet you would still be burning that and would not have had to get the progress hybrid.

 

[John Lehet]

I would probably be still running it if I had a Jotul 500. I could very well have kept the 3 CB. I mistakenly thought it was as good as could be until I got a bee in my bonnet to get the Progress.

I do think the F500 Jotul, even if bigger, would be different. I've heated with wood since 1978 in various places with very variable insulation, mostly with iron stoves. All in northern New England. I think the soapstone is different.

Keep putting wood in a big iron stove and we could keep it warm here easily, would feel good. But with an iron stove this pattern of just a morning fire keeping the house warm into the afternoon used to only happen in much warmer temperatures.

It's 20s and very windy here. I had one half-load of wood fire at 6am, no flames by 8am. Up until about 4 hours after the fire was flaming the stove was strongly radiating, could really feel it in my chair 6 feet away. Meanwhile the house is hanging at 74 after starting at 72 in the morning from the night burn, will drop slowly from here until I stir those coals and add wood. Now, 8 hours after that fire started, I'm starting to not feel so much heat from the stove but it's still warming the room. I think with an iron stove to have one fire like that the temp would have climbed higher and started falling sooner. But to be fair I've never had a big iron stove in here, always too small stoves. Before the 3 CB I had a Waterford Leprechaun for about a year, definitely too small.

 

[John Lehet]

I actually looked for F500s this last fall. If a used v2 showed up I might have bought that instead of the Progress. The v3 seem to have a bit more quality control problems, and it seems maybe the cat is an add-on that can clog and is expensive.

 

[bigealta]

I would probably be still running it if I had a Jotul 500. I could very well have kept the 3 CB. I mistakenly thought it was as good as could be until I got a bee in my bonnet to get the Progress.

I do think the F500 Jotul, even if bigger, would be different. I've heated with wood since 1978 in various places with very variable insulation, mostly with iron stoves. All in northern New England. I think the soapstone is different.

Keep putting wood in a big iron stove and we could keep it warm here easily, would feel good. But with an iron stove this pattern of just a morning fire keeping the house warm into the afternoon used to only happen in much warmer temperatures.

It's 20s and very windy here. I had one half-load of wood fire at 6am, no flames by 8am. Up until about 4 hours after the fire was flaming the stove was strongly radiating, could really feel it in my chair 6 feet away. Meanwhile the house is hanging at 74 after starting at 72 in the morning from the night burn, will drop slowly from here until I stir those coals and add wood. Now, 8 hours after that fire started, I'm starting to not feel so much heat from the stove but it's still warming the room. I think with an iron stove to have one fire like that the temp would have climbed higher and started falling sooner. But to be fair I've never had a big iron stove in here, always too small stoves. Before the 3 CB I had a Waterford Leprechaun for about a year, definitely too small.

I upgraded from a Jotul 3 (not CB) to an f400 and the change was significant. More heat and longer burns. It's Much better than the 3 and it is still considered a smallish stove.

Because the stove here is in a Very large (center of the house) brick fireplace, it sort of mimics a soapstone stove with the longer warm feel after the stove has gone cold.
I just temp checked the brick, with the f400 being cold for at least 2-3 hours, and it's ranging from 100F - 85F.

So i guess my temp swings although pretty big are moderated by the brick heat sink.

I'll modify my previous comments to say that a steel or cast stove can be a good option for stove in a central brick/stone fireplace. You can get the best of both worlds - The faster heat from a cold start with a longer carryover heat from the baked heat sink of the masonry fireplace.

A soapstone stove, out in the open, seems like a good option if you want to moderate temp swings, as you are describing and experiencing.

Thanks for your updates and reporting on the progress hybrid. If i move you have me now looking at that in addition to the T5 and T6.

 

[Jaison]

So it sounds like a good soapstone stove may actually be great for the overnight burns at at least some heat when he wakes up to feed it again. This is all good information. Only been burning wood for 3 years in my house, so learning all I can about these different wood stoves is good.

 

[carpniels]

@Jaison. Here's my 2 cents.

We just had the same decision process a few months ago. Looked at the GM80, Summit, Ashford. Decided on the Summit.

Decided against the GM80 bcz of the looks and unfamiliarity with it. Large box and window though and finally 6 inch outlet.
Decided against Ashford bcz of availability and cost.
Decided to get the Summit bcz we already had the Classic before. Pros are that it's pretty, more affordable, lots of heat, N/S loading, ashtray, and virtually no ash (once every two weeks emptying). Cons are that if you burn it slow (half air or less) you end up with a stove full of coals. Then you have to burn it for 30 minutes on full air and rake all the coals forward to get them to burn up. We also noticed that if you don't use a fan on the back of the stove, you almost get not heat out of it. The higher the fan setting, the more heat you get out of it.

We upgraded from the PE classic to the summit bcz last year my wife was complaining about not enough heat. This year with the larger stove, she's complaining even more. I told her it's the -10 at night and no wood stove can heat our house (2,920 ft2, all small rooms with hallways, not all that well insulated, some air leakage). Of course that reply still doesn't make her happy. Lastly, I told her that she's getting older and old people can't handle cold as well as young ones, so it may just be perception. She REALLY didn't like that answer! We're suffering through it and using backup oil heat to supplement on really cold days/nights.

I hope this helps. Carpniels

 

[John Lehet]

So it sounds like a good soapstone stove may actually be great for the overnight burns at at least some heat when he wakes up to feed it again.

Oh yeah. I'm putting about 20 pounds in if it's down to zero F at night, which is a bit under 2/3 of a full load. Wake up to 72 degrees down here, stove warm but not all the way up to cat temp, close, and a whole lot of coals, easy to start the next fire.

 

[Jaison]

I told her it's the -10 at night and no wood stove can heat our house (2,920 ft2, all small rooms with hallways, not all that well insulated, some air leakage). Of course that reply still doesn't make her happy. Lastly, I told her that she's getting older and old people can't handle cold as well as young ones, so it may just be perception. She REALLY didn't like that answer! We're suffering through it and using backup oil heat to supplement on really cold days/nights.

I bet she didn’t like that, ha! All this information is good. He is definitely looking for good heat and long burn times, at least for overnight burning. 10 hours at least. If either one of those stoves can do that, then they’re definitely in consideration.

I’m glad I don’t have this issue in my house - my Lopi Answer definitely does enough for me. Does anybody have any opinions on the Lopi Liberty Hybrid? Heat output/overnight burns

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Great that more folks with more types of stove are chiming in on this thread. @Pinesmoke , I'm glad you were able to contribute some Hearthstone knowledge. The Mansfield and Equinox are the largest fireboxes, right? I looked for the Heritage specs and came up with 2.2, so that looks similar to the current Jotul.

I loved the Lopi Revere insert that we had in our first home. It heated really well and was well built. We had planned to upgrade to a stove with a bigger firebox, however, once we switched our mindset from using it as a space heater to using it as a whole house heater. We never managed that before we had to move, though. I don't know anything about the Liberty in particular.

I believe that @Highbeam once had a Lopi stove, but I could be wrong about that. I actually also think that he had a Hearthstone prior to his Blaze King Princess, so he can give some good information at least about his experiences with those two.

@John Lehet , I'm curious how much of your experience with your new Progress Hybrid keeping the house warm all day is due to the soapstone and how much is due to the air regulation and the catalytic burn. I have a plain steel Blaze King stove, and it can certainly put out some face-melting heat on high, but most of the time it just chugs away on a steady smolder where the catalyst burns the smoke. It maintains the temperature in my house really well. Woodstock is really committed to clean burns, and so they designed their stoves around catalysts, I believe, rather than just adding a cat to an existing design to clean up emissions for EPA 2020 or tax credit goals. They definitely seem to have come up with a great combination of large firebox, catalytic burns, and soapstone in the Progress Hybrid. I'm glad it's working out so well for you.

@Jaison, I hope your relative appreciates all the research you're doing on stoves. When you first started this thread, you specifically asked about the Ashford, and I'm curious if that's the preferred aesthetic. Some styles fit better in some houses than others. While I think soapstone is beautiful, I don't think the style would have worked as well in our house. Does your relative like soapstone?