Hi folks,
We recently had a new hearthstone heritage installed in our walkout basement family room. It's a great addition to our home and I'm looking forward to the satisfaction of cutting wood and warm heat.
Our old house had an older non-cat hearthstone Mansfield and we heated primarily with wood for 5 years. It was an open floor plan so the Mansfield in the large living room worked well.
The new house has geothermal heating/cooling which works well and is very low cost since we have solar as well. However the basement family room never really felt "warm" and the geothermal has trouble keeping up with the house when it's down near or below zero. Having the stove for supplement/backup is a welcome addition.
Some questions:
1) after the break on fires, I had a few fires of 4 hours or so with "junk" wood - pine and poplar. The catalyst probe read in the too hot range, however shooting the stove stones with my IR gun thermometer showed max temps in the low 300 degrees range. Seems like the built in probe may not be super accurate?
2) engaging the catalyst spiked the probe into the too hot range, so I've been keeping it bypassed until I feel more comfortable with stove temps. I've heard the catalyst can initially be wild until they get "broken in"?
I wasn't sure how I was gonna like the side door but after a week or so I really like it. I'll have to learn to cut my rounds little longer than I'm used to to take advantage of the firebox shape.
Overall still learning the stove but happy with my purchase. Our formerly chilly family room can be in the 80s without much effort now, and plenty of heat goes up the stairwell into the upstairs living area. I'm happy to get back to chainsaw and splitting therapy to relieve stress from my desk job.
Attached a pic below - mostly completed install. Still need to trim it out this weekend. I did the tile myself, actually my first ever tile job..learned a lot and in hindsight might have done a few things different but my wife is happy, so its all good.
We recently had a new hearthstone heritage installed in our walkout basement family room. It's a great addition to our home and I'm looking forward to the satisfaction of cutting wood and warm heat.
Our old house had an older non-cat hearthstone Mansfield and we heated primarily with wood for 5 years. It was an open floor plan so the Mansfield in the large living room worked well.
The new house has geothermal heating/cooling which works well and is very low cost since we have solar as well. However the basement family room never really felt "warm" and the geothermal has trouble keeping up with the house when it's down near or below zero. Having the stove for supplement/backup is a welcome addition.
Some questions:
1) after the break on fires, I had a few fires of 4 hours or so with "junk" wood - pine and poplar. The catalyst probe read in the too hot range, however shooting the stove stones with my IR gun thermometer showed max temps in the low 300 degrees range. Seems like the built in probe may not be super accurate?
2) engaging the catalyst spiked the probe into the too hot range, so I've been keeping it bypassed until I feel more comfortable with stove temps. I've heard the catalyst can initially be wild until they get "broken in"?
I wasn't sure how I was gonna like the side door but after a week or so I really like it. I'll have to learn to cut my rounds little longer than I'm used to to take advantage of the firebox shape.
Overall still learning the stove but happy with my purchase. Our formerly chilly family room can be in the 80s without much effort now, and plenty of heat goes up the stairwell into the upstairs living area. I'm happy to get back to chainsaw and splitting therapy to relieve stress from my desk job.
Attached a pic below - mostly completed install. Still need to trim it out this weekend. I did the tile myself, actually my first ever tile job..learned a lot and in hindsight might have done a few things different but my wife is happy, so its all good.
![[Hearth.com] New hearthstone heritage](/talk/data/attachments/337/337846-e9f3497c19cf10feec5895710008532b.jpg?hash=fIi9NTvkHD)
![[Hearth.com] New hearthstone heritage](/talk/data/attachments/337/337847-febbae9487759acfeb3efd5d68da0549.jpg?hash=OGSFc2irEX)
