Opinion on Soapstone

[willmcb]

Sorry if I offended anyone. I never intended to imply that soapstone was bad. I own I soapstone stove and I don't regret buying it at all. I love it. I will say it again my Hearthstone Mansfield is an excellent stove and it heats very well, much better than any fireplace. All I am saying is that steel and cast iron are more efficient when it comes to radiating heat. Let me explain my theory. I base this on scientific facts and my own controlled experiments. This year I am doing my senior project and it is on wood stoves. I am still in high school so you don't have to listen to me but I have done alot of research. I am designing a wood stove. I am designing it to release maximum amount of heat on a minimal amount of wood. Recently 2 stove dealers offered me a job to work as a salesman after having a conversation with them while I was searching for a stove for the Cabin I plan to move to. One of the stove dealers specialized in Hearthstone soapstones, I have a lot of good things to say about soapstone too.

I have experience burning in several stoves. I have personally burned in a Hearthstone Mansfield, Harman Oakwood, 5700 step top Quadrafire, Mama Bear Fisher stove, and various others. My experiment involved the Harman Oakwood (Cast Iron) and a Hearthstone Mansfield (Soapstone) being rotated in my living room. (The flue was installed by a professional so there are no problems there we get great draft-not too much not too little and my father and I are basically professional movers of anything so we have no trouble moving the heavy stoves around). Although the Oakwood has a smaller firebox and surface area it out heated the Mansfield on the less wood. I used Hickory wood that had been seasoned for 14 months and I laid out 8 stove loads of similar sized splits for each stove. I burnt each stove for 2 days straight with similar weather conditions on temperatures (snowing and around 30 day 25 night). I have a record of the flue temperatures and stovetop temps. I used two stovetop Rutland burn indicators (not highly accurate)-one on the flue (8 inches above stove top) one on the stove corner (equivalent locations for each). The Oakwood stovetop temperatures were higher until the embers finished burning. The Mansfield’s surface remained warm for quite a few hours after, but warm to the touch- somewhere around 100 F, not really heating the room. The flue temperatures were on average 50 degrees within each other. The Oakwood generally had lower flue temps. While the Oakwood was installed I was maintaining 70 in my room. With the Mansfield my room held around 68.

So I concluded as far as heating efficiency goes steel or cast iron stoves perform better. I also concluded that both stoves performed great since I successfully heated 1585 sq ft of space to my likings in a ranch style house with both stoves. My stove location is far from optimal ( the northern extreme of my Ranch House that runs longways north to south), but I had no available central areas to install a flue in the house. It is very impressive that both stoves performed well enough to heat that much space even in the worst conditions.

 

[Todd]

No offence taken, glad to see a youngen taking interest in wood stoves. Sounds like a fun experiment. The one thing I see flawed in your experiment is two different sized and different rated efficiency stoves. The Mansfield is much larger and less efficient especially with half a load and I bet if you filled that whole 3 cu ft fire box up and compare it to the Oakwood filled up the Mansfield would make the room warmer. For a better comparison find two different stoves the same size and efficiency and see if there's a difference.

 

[Dakotas Dad]

I might add to the experiment an attempt to measure how long the room held at temperature, since one of the counterpoints of the two styles of stove is the "heatLife"... I have read a couple people on here say a stove at XX degrees is no longer "heating" the room.. I don't know, but it seems to me a soapstone stove at 100, 200, or whatever, is most certainly doing "more" then a steel or cast stove at room temperature..

Oh, and I have no clue what your are sorry for, if you are trying to do a quantitive study of any item, some people will not want to hear it. I don't personally care which stove is actually exactly the most bestest myself, I like the looks and feel of my stove, and well, it seems to heat my 2100sqft fine. Good luck with your work.

 

[willmcb]

I know that the expirement is flawed, but I don't have 2 stoves made of the different materials of the exact same size and design to compare. In my expirement the splits were of relatively the same size but the loads were prepared to fill the firebox as complete as possible for each stove. So I burnt more wood in the Mansfield. I had stirred the emotions of people in another forum. So I continued my explanation here and told them I would continue here. Thats where the offense part came from.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

One more fly in the ointment is that you compared only one cast stove and one soapstone stove. That is hardly a scientific experiment and a bit too minimal to even begin to make any comparisons. Also one must be extremely diligent in choosing the wood; same wood type, same size splits, same weight, same moisture content, etc.

Better yet on the stoves would be to compare a lot of soapstone stoves (even against each other) and the same with cast and steel stoves. One interesting comparison would be a Woodstock stove that can be burned up to 700 degrees vs. the Hearthstone that says 600 degree maximum. Of course the stoves should have the same sized firebox. Another good experiment (and you would get a taste of this comparing Hearthstone and Woodstock) is the difference with a cat. vs. a non-cat.

Good luck on your experiments.

 

[willmcb]

To get the best heat from I soapstone (350-550), I know from experience that it takes a full load of wood to do so. Whereas in the Oakwood the stovetop cruizes at 450 with a good bed of coals. It is very difficult to reach stovetop temperatures above 550 with soapstone. I once read that soapstone will peak out at 500 no matter how much wood you put in it. I have reached 600 one time with alot of effort and small splits of well seasoned hickory. I can easily get 800 degree stovetop temps with steel and cast iron and maintain them. To sustain high temperatures on my Mansfield I installed a damper in my flue to minimize the draft and allow the stone to absorb the heat. Even with the damper closed off I have trouble sustaining these high temps. With the damper open I can only hold these high temps for minutes. A normal temperature for me on the Mansfield is 350-400.

I have only compared the Oakwood and Mansfield in my home but while in the shops of the stove dealers they allowed me to burn in the displays and record the temps so I have other stoves to compare to just not in the more controlled environemnt of my home. Obviously I could never perfectly match wood quality perfectly but I believe I got pretty close and I feel my results are something to consider. The fact is I heated my home warmer with the smaller stove using less wood.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

To get the best heat from I soapstone (350-550), I know from experience that it takes a full load of wood to do so. Whereas in the Oakwood the stovetop cruizes at 450 with a good bed of coals. It is very difficult to reach stovetop temperatures above 550 with soapstone. I once read that soapstone will peak out at 500 no matter how much wood you put in it. I have reached 600 one time with alot of effort and small splits of well seasoned hickory. I can easily get 800 degree stovetop temps with steel and cast iron and maintain them. To sustain high temperatures on my Mansfield I installed a damper in my flue to minimize the draft and allow the stone to absorb the heat. Even with the damper closed off I have trouble sustaining these high temps. With the damper open I can only hold these high temps for minutes. A normal temperature for me on the Mansfield is 350-400.

Will, you have been reading the wrong material or have been informed very wrong!

When you read that it is very difficult to reach stovetop temperatures above 550 with soapstone, that was badly flawed material to say the least. It is like saying that soapstove takes forever to heat up! Wrong on both counts.

I can very easily reach 700 degrees with our soapstone stove and it is very easy to maintain 600+ degrees. With a coal bed, it is also easy to maintain the temperature between 400-500 degrees.

Of course you had trouble sustaining those high temperatures with the damper closed! Do you realize what the purpose of a damper is?

Also, your normal temperature with that Mansfield is way lower than it should be. That thing should cook higher than that for quite some time.

Somehow, your experiments are going wrongly. Perhaps you are not using the right wood? Again, this is one variable in experimenting. It is not enough to just use the same type of wood and the same amount of pounds, but that wood should be well seasoned before any experiment. By your description, I say your wood is not ready to burn and you can not expect good results with poor fuel.

I apologize if my comments came off sounding nasty as that is definitely not my intention but I only want to point out what I am reading from your words. By the results you are getting, it leads me to only that one conclusion and that is the fuel is not the best.

Good luck.

 

[BrowningBAR]

Certain people love certain firearms. Some will swear by the Colt 1911. Others love Glocks and curse the weight and limitations of the 1911 frame. While the 1911 following hate how the Glock is made from plastic. Some love the AR-15 and think the AK-47 is inaccurate garbage, while others love the simplicity and durability of the AK and loathe the complexity and temperamental nature of the AR-15.

Truth is, the majority of the firearms are well made and are more than capable of working efficiently, some people just have particular tastes. The same applies when it comes to stoves.

 

[Todd]

Well I have to say the scientific fact is soapstone holds twice the heat or BTU's than steel or cast so that's the reason it doesn't get as high of temps but it will stretch the BTU's out longer. It's definitely a different heat feel between the two (i've burned them all) and I can see why someone would say steel or cast feels hotter cuz it does, but it also cools off much faster while the soapstone evens out the heat. Sound like for whatever reason your Mansfield wasn't burning up to par, it should have no problem with temps over 500 with a full load of Hickory. My stove has no problem keeping stove tops over 500 for 4 hours and heats this house warmer than my previous similar sized Hearthstone and Regency.

 

[willmcb]

To get the best heat from I soapstone (350-550), I know from experience that it takes a full load of wood to do so. Whereas in the Oakwood the stovetop cruizes at 450 with a good bed of coals. It is very difficult to reach stovetop temperatures above 550 with soapstone. I once read that soapstone will peak out at 500 no matter how much wood you put in it. I have reached 600 one time with alot of effort and small splits of well seasoned hickory. I can easily get 800 degree stovetop temps with steel and cast iron and maintain them. To sustain high temperatures on my Mansfield I installed a damper in my flue to minimize the draft and allow the stone to absorb the heat. Even with the damper closed off I have trouble sustaining these high temps. With the damper open I can only hold these high temps for minutes. A normal temperature for me on the Mansfield is 350-400.

Will, you have been reading the wrong material or have been informed very wrong!

When you read that it is very difficult to reach stovetop temperatures above 550 with soapstone, that was badly flawed material to say the least. It is like saying that soapstove takes forever to heat up! Wrong on both counts.

I can very easily reach 700 degrees with our soapstone stove and it is very easy to maintain 600+ degrees. With a coal bed, it is also easy to maintain the temperature between 400-500 degrees.

Of course you had trouble sustaining those high temperatures with the damper closed! Do you realize what the purpose of a damper is?

Also, your normal temperature with that Mansfield is way lower than it should be. That thing should cook higher than that for quite some time.

Somehow, your experiments are going wrongly. Perhaps you are not using the right wood? Again, this is one variable in experimenting. It is not enough to just use the same type of wood and the same amount of pounds, but that wood should be well seasoned before any experiment. By your description, I say your wood is not ready to burn and you can not expect good results with poor fuel.

I apologize if my comments came off sounding nasty as that is definitely not my intention but I only want to point out what I am reading from your words. By the results you are getting, it leads me to only that one conclusion and that is the fuel is not the best.

Good luck.

Don't worry I am not bothered by the comments. I had heard of people using a damper to slow the draft and I tried it. Using the damper has increased the stovetop temperature of the Mansfield for me. Most of the wood I am burning now came from oak and hickoty I cut and slit over a year ago. The stays dry, off the ground, and gets some sun at the same time under the tin roofed shed I built. I would call that high quality well seasoned wood but maybe I'm wrong to say so what do you call the right wood?

 

[BrowningBAR]

I can very easily reach 700 degrees with our soapstone stove and it is very easy to maintain 600+ degrees. With a coal bed, it is also easy to maintain the temperature between 400-500 degrees.

Gotta agree with that. My neighbor owns a Fireview and my father in-law owns a Heritage. Both will easily get past 500 and stay there.

 

[willmcb]

I can very easily reach 700 degrees with our soapstone stove and it is very easy to maintain 600+ degrees. With a coal bed, it is also easy to maintain the temperature between 400-500 degrees.

Gotta agree with that. My neighbor owns a Fireview and my father in-law owns a Heritage. Both will easily get past 500 and stay there.

Around here I have never heard of that. I know several soapstone owners. Even the dealer I bought the stove from said my temps were normal and it was difficult to get the hearthstones above 500. The dealer claims to be quite and experienced stove owner himself. I couldn't believe what I saw people on here claiming to get temperature wise.

 

[BrowningBAR]

I can very easily reach 700 degrees with our soapstone stove and it is very easy to maintain 600+ degrees. With a coal bed, it is also easy to maintain the temperature between 400-500 degrees.

Gotta agree with that. My neighbor owns a Fireview and my father in-law owns a Heritage. Both will easily get past 500 and stay there.

Around here I have never heard of that. I know several soapstone owners. Even the dealer I bought the stove from said my temps were normal and it was difficult to get the hearthstones above 500. The dealer claims to be quite and experienced stove owner himself. I couldn't believe what I saw people on here claiming to get temperature wise.

I've been over my neighbor's house many times and have seen the Fireview hanging out at over 500 degrees for lengthy periods of time. I have been over my in-laws for 8-12 hours at a time. I have loaded the stove myself several times and I have watched the temps take off quickly and stay at a high temp for several hours.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Congratulations Will. I think you just found your problem!

In your last post, I read this, "Most of the wood I am burning now came from oak and hickoty I cut and slit over a year ago. The stays dry, off the ground, and gets some sun at the same time under the tin roofed shed I built. I would call that high quality well seasoned wood but maybe I’m wrong to say so what do you call the right wood?"

To answer your question....NO!

Are you aware it can take up to 3 years to season oak? In addition to that, you are correct in keeping it off the ground but splitting that wood and then.........stacking it outside where Mother Nature can do her thing. Getting some sun is good but getting wind to blow through that pile of wood is the key to seasoning wood. By splitting the wood, you expose more wood surface to the drying effects which you would not get by not splitting it. By stacking the wood so that the wind hits the sides of the stacks will allow for the best drying. Wind is more important than sun!

Here is how we do it: We cut all of our wood during the winter months. Splitting is done in the spring and it is all stacked immediately after the splitting is completed. It is stacked on saplings that we cut. The wood is left uncovered all that summer and fall and is covered only in late fall or early winter. Then, it is not burned for at least 3 years.....and we have very, very little oak. Most of our wood now is white ash, soft maple, elm and cherry and as you know, these are very fast drying woods. Here is a picture of last year's cutting (9 cords):

 

[Todd]

Oak and Hickory takes 2 full years to get best results. This is what kind of stove top temps I get with 3 year old Black Locust.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Todd, I know you can get higher temperatures than that! Remember the time you got well over 700?

 

[Todd]

Todd, I know you can get higher temperatures than that! Remember the time you got well over 700?

Yeah, I posted the wrong pic at first, I pretty much always top 600 on full reloads if I want to. 750 is my record! :bug:

 

[willmcb]

Congratulations Will. I think you just found your problem!

In your last post, I read this, "Most of the wood I am burning now came from oak and hickoty I cut and slit over a year ago. The stays dry, off the ground, and gets some sun at the same time under the tin roofed shed I built. I would call that high quality well seasoned wood but maybe I’m wrong to say so what do you call the right wood?"

To answer your question....NO!

Are you aware it can take up to 3 years to season oak? In addition to that, you are correct in keeping it off the ground but splitting that wood and then.........stacking it outside where Mother Nature can do her thing. Getting some sun is good but getting wind to blow through that pile of wood is the key to seasoning wood. By splitting the wood, you expose more wood surface to the drying effects which you would not get by not splitting it. By stacking the wood so that the wind hits the sides of the stacks will allow for the best drying. Wind is more important than sun!

Here is how we do it: We cut all of our wood during the winter months. Splitting is done in the spring and it is all stacked immediately after the splitting is completed. It is stacked on saplings that we cut. The wood is left uncovered all that summer and fall and is covered only in late fall or early winter. Then, it is not burned for at least 3 years.....and we have very, very little oak. Most of our wood now is white ash, soft maple, elm and cherry and as you know, these are very fast drying woods. Here is a picture of last year's cutting (9 cords):

The oak and hicory I cut last year had been standing dead for over a couple of years at the time I cut it. I just figured A year of good air drying would finish the process. I stack my wood just like you so it gets plenty of wind. It seems to burn very well. I had no problems in the Oakwood so I assumed it was the stove. Maybe soapstone is particular about the wood. I would like to be further ahead but if I haven't had the time to get ahead as far as you. 3 years ago I was 14 and I didn't have the interest. That picture was taken just a few minutes ago running at 450.

 

[FireWalker]

Gonna jump in here, at least for my stove I'm hitting 500-600 any time I want those temps. I can run 300-400 too. What is my secret you ask? It's the wood, If I want a hot fire I have to choose the right pieces of wood and what works the best is not usually all the same species. Sure, a good bet is some dry oak but to make that work the best, you need a piece of maple or birch to get thing moving along. Now as my firebox is larger than most, I have the luxury of cramming 80lbs of wood in there, this is when I get my hottest surface temps, more wood, more heat output and longer heat life out of the stones.

I beileve under correct conditions soapstone to have an advantage over steel/iron in that the stone will store heat and release it slowly as the fuel burns out. Burning 24/7 does not take full advantage of a soapstone stoves most efficient feature, it's storage capability, the release never happens if you are reloading the fuel regularly. This is where soapstone shines, when outdoor temps allow for one burn a day, start a fire in the evening, the wood burns and heats all night and then the stones release stored heat during the day. The Equinox does this very well, the stove is still warm after 24 hours!

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Opinion on Soapstone

Overpriced

Unsightly

Fad

 

[BrowningBAR]

Opinion on Soapstone

Overpriced

Unsightly

Fad

PE SUMMIT

 

[Martin Strand III]

Good idea; however, your methods are flawed and some basic understanding of wood stove heating is lacking. Please take this constructively, not personally.

First, as a reader attempting to understand what you want to prove, please explain your definition of "heating efficiently". I feel this is widely misused and not well understood.

Next, do you realize the design and engineering of each stove you used by a different Mfg is different which will affect the way in which each stove heats. This means you are not comparing "apples to apples" in basic stove design. Add masonry (soapstone) to one stove of different basic design just complicates data interpretation.

How much incoming air, quantitatively, was each stove allowed through out the burn cycle to gauge the "hotness" of each fire not to mention measuring the fuel weights, species burned, dryness, and firebox sizing - all affecting heat output.

Frequent heat measurements at various distances from each stove would be nice to know to see which conducts heat faster or slower to the room and, after the fire is out, which maintains heat in the room best or worst. I think I already know the answer to that one.

Then, what about the weight of each stove since thermal mass of a stove affects how rapidly, or not, a stove comes to temperature and emits heat to the room. This factor relates back to your initial intent - to design a stove that heats fast with a small amount of fuel. Common sense says this will be hindered by adding masonry (soapstone). For fast heat release in a stove, you want thin metal. Unfortunately for your premise, thin metal also cools rapidly which is undesirable in a wood stove application.

I think this project needs to go back to the drawing boards...

Aye,
Marty

 

[scotsman]

I can't speak for anyone other than myself, and I'm really new to this, but if I load up my FV full (with 10-12 pieces) of 80-year-old, unsplit, 4"-6" diameter cedar "logs", wait 5 minutes, engage the cat and cut the air to 2.0 to 2.5, my stove will go to 700 or more in about 10--15 minutes (this is during a reload, not a cold stove!). If I leave the damper full open, it'll go to 800 and hang there for an hour or more. If I cut it to 1.0 to 2.0, the temp goes to a little over 700 and remains there for 2 - 3 hours. Maybe I'm not doing something right, but that's what it wants to do. Now if I burn the kiln-dried hardwood pallet pieces, I can't achieve and sustain those temps for very long--maybe 1/2 hour.

I think the wood DOES make much of the difference, BUT I also think that different wood types having different characteristics may require different burning techniques to achieve similar results. Whether a given stove has the ability to be adjusted to accomodate different wood characteristics is something I do not know, but is a variable to be considered. I would venture to suggest that such should be considered when comparing stove products. I would also assume that it would even be possible for individual FVs to have different burning characteristics/parameters, but not to the extent that stoves of different types and construction materials would exhibit. This suggests to me that a CI stove will have different "strengths" and "weaknesses" than a steel stove and/or a soapstone/CI combination. For example, to put 30 lbs of the exact same wood (assuming that is possible!) into each of a CI, Steel and SS/CI stove and use the same burning sequence is destined to exhibit vastly different heat curve results, based solely upon the type of stove(s) used. A steel stove may or may not burn the load more quickly than the others, but leave more mass of the wood behind than the other two or vice versa. The steel may excel at burning oak, while the others are less excellent or the reverse. So many variable parameters may exist and may affect the experiment so substantially that the products cannot be compared for quantitative results when so many variables persist (i.e. strengths and weaknesses and different burning characteristics of each type for different fuel types, etc.).

So, to say that one stove type produces more heat than another stove type may be impossible to prove (or disprove) given the lack of ability to eliminate all but the single variable of heat output. It would seem that the differences in stoves would produce a statistical scatter that would completely blur the statistical results of the single data point of heat output.

Just some thoughts on the matter.

BTW, NICE wood stacks, Dennis!!

 

[gyrfalcon]

Gonna jump in here, at least for my stove I'm hitting 500-600 any time I want those temps. I can run 300-400 too. What is my secret you ask? It's the wood, If I want a hot fire I have to choose the right pieces of wood and what works the best is not usually all the same species. Sure, a good bet is some dry oak but to make that work the best, you need a piece of maple or birch to get thing moving along.

Bingo. Boy, is that ever my experience. With a tiny soapstone stove, the burning characteristics of different kinds of wood make a huge difference since there's really no room for error. Some of the stuff that gives off the most heat doesn't like to get started until it's got a pretty good fire under its butt. I can run up to 500 on my stove quickly and easily with the right sequence of wood-- rock maple to start, as you say, then when that's gotten going pretty good, small splits of beech and black birch, and zip, up it goes and sits. Red oak is nearly as good for that stage. But starting with beech or black birch is groaningly slow. Using all rock maple struggles to get between 400 and 450. Etc.

It's fascinating, really, but also a pain in the **** since I've ended up carefully segregating my wood by species so I have enough at hand to feed the stove the right stuff at the right point.

 

[bjkjoseph]

will mcb you are 100% correct,..there is no comparison when it comes to heat transfer with iron and soapstone....i have the fireview and i really like it alot...but i bought it so i dont get cooked out of the room,it is one of 2 stoves in the house it replaced a little vc aspen that had to be reloaded every 2 hrs..but that little iron stove heated the whole house...the fireview cannot..if you need alot of heat in a large area maybe soapstone is not for that person.