Seasoning/breaking in a new stove

[USMC0802]

With the forecast for the night showing a low in the low 40s, I got another fire going tonight. Tried my first top down fire tonight as well. I know I wasn't going to need a raging fire, so I used some chunks that were pieces I left after cutting some splits that were over 20" down to size.

The stove top thermometer is showing about 350* right now and I expect it to climb a bit more as I backed the air control lever down for the night. I'm not expecting anything crazy for burn time or even heat output, but I'm continuing to get that hot stove smell as the temps are continuing to be new highs.

I'm really happy with how the heat feels coming off the stove. I'm interested to see how warm the surface temp will be tomorrow around 6:30-7:00.

 

[blades]

Just did a bit bigger burn on my new 30nc over the weekend ( 45 Friday night and damp) Started about 7 pm by Ten it was 75 in the main part of the house (2k ranch) Put 2 smallish pieces of Silver maple in it on top of a fair coal bed, slid the control in about 3/4 of the way and crashed, 3am 78 in side and the stove was still around 400 deg. with just red coals. I think I am going to be quite toasty this winter. This stove operates differently than my previous unit, which also had secondaries but was about 10 years old. ( 30nc is about twice the size heat wise also). I can see a longer learning curve on this unit.
Note: a good coal bed is important on these newer stoves as they are primarily designed to burn the wood gases. It is very different from my old stove to see all the flames at the top of the firebox and almost nothing except a red glow down below. I have not had this stove up beyond 500 deg as of yet according to the Rutland gauge on top in front of the flue. So I likely have not even hit its most efficient point as yet.

 

[USMC0802]

Just did a bit bigger burn on my new 30nc over the weekend ( 45 Friday night and damp) Started about 7 pm by Ten it was 75 in the main part of the house (2k ranch) Put 2 smallish pieces of Silver maple in it on top of a fair coal bed, slid the control in about 3/4 of the way and crashed, 3am 78 in side and the stove was still around 400 deg. with just red coals. I think I am going to be quite toasty this winter. This stove operates differently than my previous unit, which also had secondaries but was about 10 years old. ( 30nc is about twice the size heat wise also). I can see a longer learning curve on this unit.
Note: a good coal bed is important on these newer stoves as they are primarily designed to burn the wood gases. It is very different from my old stove to see all the flames at the top of the firebox and almost nothing except a red glow down below. I have not had this stove up beyond 500 deg as of yet according to the Rutland gauge on top in front of the flue. So I likely have not even hit its most efficient point as yet.

Fortunately, the odor hasn't been annoying or a nuisance. For now, it's actually kind of nice as it's a prompt for me to go check the thermometer to see where the new high temp is at.

I have a feeling it will be at least a few more weeks until I get the opportunity to have the stove that hot. It peaked about about 375* on the surface temp last night before bed and it was 80* in the hall upstairs, about 77 in our bedroom. I didn't add any wood before bed as I wasn't trying to roast the house, I just wanted to bump the heat up overnight so it wasn't in the 60s in the morning for the baby. I think it was about 76 in the upstairs hallway at 7:30 this morning. The stove was warm to the touch, but not putting off heat. There were a few coals left, which was encouraging since there wasn't ever much in the stove during the entire burn. I've yet to put a single split in the stove.

I was impressed at the heat coming off the stove at 375 and I'm looking forward to that 500-550* range to heat the whole house when the temps drop into the teens and below.

I still haven't burned enough to even scoop any ashes yet. I have been reading mixed viewpoints on the soapstone stoves...one is that you burn them all winter and keep a consistent heat coming out of them and the other is you get them going hot, heat the stone, and then let the fire go and let the stone radiate heat for hours and hours and then start the cycle over again. A few people have been saying that keeping a constant burn doesn't allow the soapstone to really do its job - heat after the fire has gone out.

Any opinions on that from you soapstone stove owners?

 

[Marc]

Any opinions on that from you soapstone stove owners?

Well, I've burned in a Hearthstone Heritage for 3 seasons now...

The benefit I see in my soapstone is the overnight heat retention. I never get up in the night to load the stove, and my house is old and poorly insulated, so having the stones retain the heat and release it slower keeps the house from cooling off as fast. The trade off is of course it heats up slower as well.

It's the heat storage that's important to me. If the stove burns roughly the same efficiency as a comparable cast iron or steel stove, you'll get the same total heat output from your wood to your room. My stove, however, weighs about the same as my father's cast iron VC Encore. The rub is, cast iron's heat capacity is about 0.46 kJ/kg-K and soapstone is about 0.98 kJ/kg-K (I think steel is around 0.5).

The greater heat capacity creates greater thermal inertia (the flywheel analogy was a good one, whoever mentioned it). That's not terribly important to my dad, since his house is well insulated and his stove isn't in a room that's used all the time. Mine's in my kitchen, and like I said my house isn't well insulated, so I reap the benefits of having more heat stored in the stove, rather than in the air and walls of the house.

Of course, I think soapstone looks really nice as well.

Hope you could get something out of these ramblings...

 

[dmlefevre]

Love my soapstone! In the cold season, my kids fill the stove at 3pm, I load it around 10pm, I load it at 6am and the cycle repeats. Stove will run for months like this. Can regulate the amount of heat given/time of burn by the size of the load in the stove. Dry wood makes the whole process much more pleasurable - so work the woodpile well...

 

[USMC0802]

Well, I have about 1.5 cords of oak that's been split since October 2009 and I have 2+ cords of walnut and some other hardwoods that's been split since January 2010. I have some black locust that was a standing dead and very dry, and then I have some wood that I cut throughout the spring and summer that's been split for a couple months now.

The dealer who sold me the stove doesn't think I'll burn more than 3 cords of wood in this stove, so if the 1.5 cords of oak gets me through half the winter, everything I'll put in the stove this year will have seasoned at least a full year.

Starting next year, I'll be burning stuff that's seasoned at least 15 months. I have all of my wood for next year already cut into firewood length rounds and we're going to start splitting the first weekend in October. So, I'll have 1.5-2 cords of black locust that was split in June or July for next year plus the wood we're splitting in October. That should be long enough to dry the wood sufficiently.