Heating with Your Soapstone Stove

How to Start a Fire in your Soapstone Stove

2010-01-04T10:45:00.007-05:00

Here are a few tricks for starting a fire in your Soapstone wood stove or any other wood burring stove for that matter. First off when burring wood in your Soapstone stove you must use seasoned wood!!!!!!! Do not use wet or what is called green or fresh cut wood in any wood burring stove, there are a few reasons and I will talk about this in my next post. Back to starting the fire. I take a few prices of dry kindling or twigs and arrange them in front of the air intake on my Hearthstone Mansfield Soapstone stove, next in the center of this pile I but two or three single sheets of balled up newspaper. Do not use colored pages and or magazines the dyes and chemicals they papers are sometimes coated with is not stuff you want to burn in any stove. Set the air intake lever so it is all the way open. Now you can light the fire with a match. Once the kindling starts burring you can take some small logs no more than an inch to two inches in diameter and place one laying down starting from the front of the stove to the back on one side of your burring kindling, next place two or three small logs or pieces of wood the same side across this log and the center of the fire horizontally. This is what I call my lean to method of lighting a fire at this point you should close the stove door if you have not already done so. My next trick with this is I take one or two sheets of newspaper and pour a hand full of Wood Pelletsinto each sheet and then close them up by twisting the folded up end to make what I call a pellet meatball LOL. Now place a medium sized log laying it from front to back against one side of the burring fire just like when you started with the small logs, then drop the two pellet meatballs on top of your burring fire, then place two or three logs horizontally across the log you had just placed spacing them to give air flow between them close the stove door all the way unless the pellet meatballs have not ignited which they should unless you did something wrong. If not you can keep the door open a crack until they light. What you should have is a roaring fire going. When I get a chance I will post a video of this so you can see how it's done.

A little info on my House

2009-12-30T11:45:00.004-05:00

I am heating a 1920 Colonial with 33 original wood framed windows and no additional insulation in my walls. My attic does have bats of Owens Corning A65 "Unfaced" R25 Fiberglass Insulation
and the addition of vinyl storm windows. The storm windows were here when I purchased the house; they are of poor quality and have a good amount of air leaks in them. At some point I would like to change out all the windows with Anderson or Pella wood windows but the cost would be very high, vinyl replacement windows just don’t look right in a house of this age. My second option which is what I will end up doing it replacing these cheap storm windows with Harvey storm windows which are the best you can find and are still a fraction the cost compared to replacing the whole wood windows.

This is the reason I chose the Hearthstone Mansfield it is considered oversized for my size house but with the lack of proper insulation the stove works out just right for the job at hand. One thing I have done which as helped is on the main floor of my house where the Mansfield is located I have installed on all the widows 3M 2141W Indoor 5-Window Insulator Kit this has cut down most of the drafts on the main floor of the house.

My Soapstone Stove Choice

2009-10-28T18:00:00.001-04:00

I did a lot of research before I purchased my Soapstone wood burning stove. I looked at all the big names like Tulikivi, Woodstock, and Hearthstone after looking at the Tulikivi and Hearthstone inperson and reading countless reviews here online I went with the Hearthstone Mansfield. Woodstock is sold direct to the consumer and not through any dealer networks, being the are up in New Hampshire and I am in NY the only way to see one of their stoves would be to make a road trip. Instead I talked to a tech at Woodstock who was very knowledgeable about their products but in the end after looking at the reviews and specs of each company's product line I was glade I went with the Hearstone Mansfield. This stove met my needs.

The stoves specifications are as follows:

Heats up to 2,500 sq. ft.

Burn Time Up to 10 hours

Heat Life Up to 14 hours

Size 80,000 BTUs

EPA Rating 2.8 grams per hour

Efficiency 77.4% Low Heating Value

Width 27"

Height (includes flue collar) 31"

Depth 29"

Maximum Log Length 21"

Firebox Capacity 3.2 cubic feet

Flue Exit & Diameter Top exit only 6" flue collar

Weight: 550 Lbs.

Soapstone Stove Heating Intro

2009-10-28T14:51:00.003-04:00

Heating your home with a Soapstone Wood Burning stove is nothing like heating with a cast iron or steel wood burning stove. Soapstone is a natural material – metamorphic rock - formed millions of years ago under intense heat and pressure. Because it started out in a lava like state deep within the earth, and because it has an unusually stable makeup, soapstone can easily withstand fire and rapid changes in temperature.

For hundreds of years, soapstone has been known for its ability to retain heat. Other stones, such as granite and marble, also hold and radiate heat, but only soapstone has the added benefit of being able to endure direct flames indefinitely.

Because of this, the firebox of a soapstone stove is actually constructed of stone, which lasts longer than steel, cast iron or refractory bricks used in other types of wood burning stoves. Many thick pieces of stone make up the top, sides and back of the stove. Each piece of soapstone forms both the inside and outer wall of the stove. Inside, the stone directly absorbs the heat of the fire, while outside, it radiates heat into the room.

Once heated, soapstone stays warm for several hours, making it the perfect material for overnight heating or for other long periods of time when you can’t tend the fire.

The heat radiated from the Soapstone is gentle, even and comfortable; you can sit close to a soapstone stove without getting the uncomfortable blast of heat you would feel from a steel or cast iron stove.