I think when it gets really cold, which for us means 15 or 20 below zero, if we wanted to keep both stories of our 3200sq ft house in the upper 60s or above, we might reload every 5 to 7 hours during the night, burning mostly Tamarack (western larch) with some red fire mixed in.
@@uilleannman that's pretty impressive. I'd be looking to heat around 1600sqft. That might be a little big. We get minus double digits on occasion here in Southwest NH. The factory is about an hour away.
I’ve seen reports that this stove can have enough coals for relight after 24 hours but that depends on the firewood type and weather conditions. I had the Woodstock Keystone and could get consistent 12 hour burns with good hardwood.
We have Progress Hybrid wood stove. Beautiful cast iron frame with soapstone double panels. Super efficient, clean burning. Once the combustor is engaged you don't see smoke coming out of the chimney. We about 2 cords less wood over the season as compared to a non catalytic stove. Also, the soapstone continues to radiate heat for about 6 to 7 hours after a burn is finished.
I just inherited a Woodstock Fireview soapstone stove and found your video looking it up on RU-vid. Very nice! This Progressive Hybrid model seems like the next step up from the Fireview. I might have to upgrade! ; )
Sir I’m in the process of ordering the progress, I would like to ask if you recommend adding the ash pan or just delete from the order. Is it easier to use an ash scoop? Thank you
@bluerider88 actually hearthstone more than likely copied Woodstock soapstone! Woodstock soapstone began in 1978, while hearthstone began in 1981! So yeah!
That may be true in terms of soapstone, but Hearthstone has only recently added the catalytic combustor to their bigger stoves. Woodstock has developed some great cat burners and sold them for decades now. Though Hearthstone has a great reputation too.
Very nice cook top feature. I don't believe the mansfield soapstone has that cook top feature. There is not enough videos on the mansfield which is the one I am looking at. I saw a video where they were cooking on top of the soap stone. I really like what you have .
I have one of these and have used it for about 6 years. Very happy with it, but I do something different: pallet wood marked HD, heat treated, no chemicals. I don't fill it anywhere near full at the cold start, and don't leave the air inlet open all the way, though by pass door is as I want to slow down the burn a bit to allow time for the stone to heat up before the wood is gone. In about 25 minutes stove top reaches 250 and I engage the combustor but keep the air inlet open about half way, again, to allow time for the stone to heat. I have to add wood about every hour, though once the temperature reaches around 375 I start to add thicker pallet pieces gotten from a factory that sells marble countertops, so the burn time is longer. If I go out or for the overnight burn I may put in the thick pallet pieces and some firewood gotten for free from a landscaper. I no longer go through the whole splitting process, only taking logs about 4 inches in diameter. If they take a bit longer to dry unsplit, so be it. Most of my heat comes from the pallets. No more chain saw, gas, oil, bar oil, repairs, sharpening, the fumes, new chains, the danger, the endless lifting, the stacking, waiting to dry, never knowing if I will be getting enough free wood, etc. Taking 4-inch-thick logs and not splitting eliminates all the work associated with splitting, including repairs, lifting, and so on, not to mention the manual says if a hose breaks and hydraulic oil shoots into me I must go to a hospital for treatment, plus all the other dangers that come from using the splitter. Much happier with the pallets. I go out on Saturday morning, cut with sabre saw since 5 blades cost only about $10 to a size that fits in my hatchback, then cut to final size with my Bosch sabre saw at home. All so easy and safe, my wife can do any of it without worry of pinched fingers from the splitter, or all the other possibilities for injury. Now at almost 70, glad I figured this out, though the customer service people at Woodstock Soapstone didn't seem to impressed. By the way, a good deal of the pallet wood is oak or cherry, so not all of it is soft pine, though I need some as kindling. Once the stove reaches about 400, that's as high as I need, and can put in a fair amount of pallet wood or logs and close the air intake close to completely for a long slow burn. With pallet wood and 2 unsplit logs I can still have hot ashes in the morning for a quick start, and the stove doesn't know what kind of wood got it hot, so the soapstone releases the heat slowly as if it were all split logs.
That's really interesting, alan! I enjoy the process of logging and splitting the wood personally (good exercise for one thing), but I can see why you would go the pallet route too. Thanks for sharing!
Hey thanks for doing a video review. I was always curious how the "air intake" worked on these stoves, but never had any clear pictures or vids. So again, big thanks for doing this short review! (A side note, dude I'd move that rug back just a little further.... in case of embers flying about when you load wood) I was loading a piece of wood, into my stove, & while I was doing it, a log inside "popped".. I guess it had a spot of moisture in it or something? I don't know.. anyways, blew embers all over me, & my floor.. Unusual experience for me, but I "Sh*t happens" as the saying goes.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment! In our case the rug is a thick Persian wool rug, and wool puts out its own flame (if it does ever catch). So it's a actually a pretty good protectant for our flooring.
When you say shut it down for the night, so it burns through the night, do you mean that's when you close your bypass? Just struggling with my stove here. Thanks!
Well, that's part of it. Any time you put in a new load you'll want to let it catch pretty well, but pretty quickly you'll want to shut the air intake to half way so your new load doesn't overfire the stove. Then I wait until the stove top reads between 250-300 next to the pipe, or the pipe hits 300 deg about 8" over the stove. That means the combustor will burn smoke. Then I close the bypass and let the air intake stay half open to keep the internal temp high for a minute. After that I close the air intake almost completely. If I did it right the stove pipe gets cooler but the stove top starts climbing to 320, 330... up to 450 or so. The flame goes out for a while but the secondaries come back eventually as the inside of thr stove heats up. I've been getting nice 9-10h burns right now following this.
As a side note, after ~30min the cooktop temperature was 430 deg F in the center. Sides of the stove are about 350. There is no smoke at all coming from the chimney.
