Progress Hybrid Installed 12/21 replacing Fireview

[HollowHill]

What a perfect day. Heading back out in a minute. Can't bear to waste the day inside. Just a quick update on the stove. It continues to please me. Easy to run, and heats very well. Far more suited to actually heating the house than my Fireview. I have not run into any problems with the cat, other than the early time it and the screen clogged. Used a fan on the floor in the hall, about five feet from the stove room, pointing into the stove room, which gives the fan ability to draw air from the kitchen via the two-opposite-wall-door-bathroom under the stairs, as well as from the stairs at the south end of the hall (that stair has four steps up from the kitchen on one side and the hall on the other side to a landing with windows, before stair turns and goes to second floor, so there is good airflow). Have never used a fan before to spread heat. It does keep the temperatures on the first floor much more even. Ranged from 68 in kitchen to 74 in stove room. Without the fan I was running about four degreen cooler in the kitchen with the 60 MPH winds from the south yesterday. The one thing I have not been able to do is get this stove (stovetop, I don't have an IR gun) over about 520. I have to admit I have not killed myself trying to do so...but it doesn't seem to want to get hotter. I do have active secondaries, and plenty of heat, so I'm not worried. But I am curious about what heat output would be if the stovetop was 600. I'm burning very good, dry wood. Same as I've always used. No issue with it's performance. Same wood in Fireview would easily run into a VERY hot fire if I left damper open by mistake. This does not happen with this stove...maybe it would if I left damper all the way open for a really long time, but certainly doesn't in the twenty minutes max I have left it fully open with a fresh load. So, I consider this stove very safe. Anyone care to share what they have done to get their stove up to 600 or so?

I've gotten up to 580 on occasion, not for trying or wanting, tho. As I recall, the depth of the coal bed was a factor in determining the final high temp of the stove top, the deeper the bed, the higher the eventual temp. But, take this with a grain of salt, my memory is NOT what it used to be :-S and it's been awhile since I've gotten up that high a temp. Possibly, also running with the damper open 50% or so for awhile after closing the bypass. My Progress has been performing brilliantly, too.

 

[Flamestead]

What a perfect day. Heading back out in a minute.
...snip...
Anyone care to share what they have done to get their stove up to 600 or so?

Rideau,
here's a link to a thread where I posted a few days ago regarding getting the PH temp up to 600 territory: post on higher PH temps. The burn I was doing while writing that post climbed up to 630, sat there an hour, and then gradually slid back down.

My daughter has been tending the stove after school, and is limited to 4 splits at a time by my wife. Yesterday I suggested that a weekend with us around would be a good time to try getting used to adding more at once. She went whole-hog. I came in later in the day to a very active load as large as any I've done. What she didn't realize was the wind had kicked up, and she hadn't noticed both the stovetop and flue temps were steadily climbing. I got it closed down, and it leveled off at about 680. And then sat there for over an hour. And it was 48 degrees outside. And 80 degrees in the kitchen with a box fan blowing in cooler air. Guess I need to be more careful with my suggestions.

Basically get your load of wood nice and hot, with the secondaries cooking the top wood, and use the damper to go to higher temps. Once within about 50 degrees of where you want to be I'd be backing down and eventually fully closing the damper. I've had the smoke smell with a lower temp fire and fully closed damper, but have not had that happen at the higher temps. The secondaries continue rolling. Opening the damper is your accelerator, but be aware that with a full load there is no brake - you can only level off.

I did once get up to 700 degrees on a black firebox with fully closed damper. Damper was closed fully at about 500 degrees, more than an hour later I noticed it was still climbing. At 650 degree I was getting tense and started searching the logs here. At 700 degrees the secondaries lit off, and within 10 minutes the stovetop started heading (slowly) down. I have not tried to recreate that experience, but it was with a full load, which I think contributed to the amount of smoke for the cat to burn.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Flamestead, your story reminds me of when we were new to the Fireview. I filled or almost filled it and sat back to enjoy. Then when the flame lifted right up off the wood we were really amazed. Then that flame started rolling and it was really amazing and we were really enjoying it. But I started getting a bit too warm and got up to look at the temperature. Oh! Oh! Stovetop temperature was well over 600 degrees and climbing. When it got to over 650 I started being a bit concerned. Then at 680, well, let's just say it concentrated my attention; all of my attention. About the time I decided on plan, the temperature stopped climbing just short of 700. Whew! We opened a couple of windows and probably a door too to cool it off in the house.

Well, that worked okay but it was quite some time before I tried that again. But when the cold weather set in we tried it again and this time really enjoyed the show. Now it is so common to see 650 or above that we don't give it quite so much attention. However, this winter we did not fill the stove but maybe a dozen times. Tonight will be one of those nights with single digit temperatures so we'll have a bit of a show to watch.