Local News Coverage by WCAX TV

WCAX TV called yesterday morning after a colleague at the station received an email about the Wood Stove Design Challenge.  When Adam Sullivan first made contact to get information, he was unaware that we had actually won. So his potential story just turned into something a bit bigger!

National Geographic: Winning Wood Stove Designs Announced

This is the first video I've seen of the grand prize winner being announced, and through the National Geographic website! Wow are we feeling really good right now.

Please view the video below:
Winning Wood Stove Designs Announced

Wood Stove Design Challenge: Award Sharing and Collaboration

Last evening Tom Morrissey accepted the grand prize in the Wood Stove Design Challenge, as well as the award for most affordable. In doing so, Tom shared a portion of the $25,000 award with two other innovators that had come to DC on a shoestring budget and with no corporate support.

The New York Times: Contest Aims for a Cleaner-Burning Wood Stove

Here is another article covering the Wood Stove Design Challenge written by The New York Times, titled Contest Aims for a Cleaner-Burning Wood Stove.

Please note: Woodstock Soapstone Company originated in Woodstock, VT but moved across the river to West Lebanon, NH in 1985.

Wood Stove Design Challenge: Woodstock Wins the Grand Prize!

After a lot of hard work from a dedicated team, Woodstock Soapstone's Ideal Steel Hybrid was awarded the Grand Prize at the Wood Stove Design Challenge!

I'll post more on this as information comes in and by next week we should have a video of the event ready to add to our Blog and You Tube Channel!

Again, thank you to everyone that has supported us through this process.

Wood Stove Design Challenge: Updates and Coverage

On Monday, 11/18/13, the testing for the Ideal Steel Hybrid was completed. Tom reported last evening that the emission numbers were again low! Now that the testing is complete, I hope to see the final standings updated this morning so we can see how Woodstock stacked up to the competition.  As soon as I see a status change I will get it posted.

Wood Stove Design Challenge: Sunday

Today we had our scheduled second burn which looked like a really nice burn (we'll have some video on this later), however the testing equipment wasn't properly prepared so we'll have to retest tomorrow morning. By the end of the day tomorrow I believe we'll have the final standings to post for the emissions and efficiency portion of the Challenge.

There's been a nice flow of the public through the tent wanting to learn more about clean wood heat, and a great group of Woodstock Soapstone owners coming to show their support. It has been a true pleasure meeting the owners and conversing with them face to face. Thank you all that came so far!

One of our youngest Fireview owners, Miles (a too cute 4 year old), has requested a deer and chipmunk stove. We'll see what we can do for you Miles!

Team Gear Head outside of the Design Challenge tent
with the Capital Building behind.

Woodstove Design Challenge: Friday Results & Saturday Pictures

Woodstock Soapstone is off to a good start. Day one of testing for the Ideal Steel Hybrid was yesterday (Friday 11/15), and we are currently placed in 1st on emissions testing and 4th in efficiency! More testing will happen throughout the weekend, so we'll continue to post standings as we have them.

During day one we did ruffle a few feather with our creative pieces, but our intention was to stand out from the norm, and I think we do that admirably!

Dennis & Judy Cook (Fireview owners and hearth forum participants) made the trip all the way from Michigan to support the company. Below you'll see a picture of the lovely couple with the Ideal Steel just starting to fire up earlier today.

Keep an eye on our blog through the weekend and we'll try to keep our supporters informed.

Thanks everyone!

Dennis & Judy Cook with the Ideal Steel Hybrid

Design Challenge tent with Capital Building in the distance

Saturday morning in the tent and the design display below.

Wood Stove Design Challenge: Thursday set up

Tom and the Ideal Steel Hybrid, with all of its accoutrements, made it down to D.C yesterday, and was already set up and running by the afternoon. The official opening of the competition is today at 10:30 and will run through Tuesday at 5:00 pm.

The People's Choice Award will be given at 4:00 pm on Sunday. If you haven't voted yet please do so today at the Popular Mechanics People's Choice Poll.

Here are a few pictures from yesterday.

Hooking up the Ideal Steel Hybrid

Ideal Steel up and running complete with its trophy fish!

Ideal Steel Hybrid - click to enlarge

High Heeled Sneakers: Stove Buddies Assembled (Video)

Who says a wood stove can't be fun and custom designed by each stove owner? 

The Woodstove Lamp

Here are a couple images of a prototype stove lamp. We experimented with TEGs (Thermoelectric Generator) when developing our IDEAL STEEL Hybrid.  Originally we thought we would need the current to power a small fan to pressurize the secondary air supply, but it turns out the fan was not necessary.

Don't forget to vote for us!

If you like what we're doing for the Woodstove Design Challenge Contest - making an affordable, high-performance woodstove that can be customized - please vote for us in the "People's Choice" balloting.  Just click here and vote for Woodstock Soapstone Company.

Be sure to check our blog again soon.  We have more news coming about our new IDEAL STEEL Hybrid!

Thinking Outside the Box: More on the Stove Buddies

One of our first posts about the Woodstove Design Competition back in August showed an illustration of a “woodstove buddy” (it’s reproduced again below).  Our woodstove buddies that are joining us in  Washington DC are pretty gussied up (the Design Competition is like going to the prom).  The buddies also look pretty good in black (see below) or any other color you might like.  The point here is that woodstoves can be, and should be, fun and not just a black box in the corner.

Angler's Delight: Poisson de Manon

Poisson de Manon
Qui n’adore pas Manon, une femme qui aime rire et pêcher avec son mari Richard? Nous voyons une image de Richard sur son téléphone intelligent avec  un des saumons  qu’ils ont attrapés  sur le Lac Ontario l’été dernier. Manon ``celui-ci est pour vous``

Angler's Delight: Design #1

Today we will post a couple of stoves for fishermen.  We have lots of ideas for fish - more than we could put on two stoves, but here's the first to start.  Both designs will probably swim down to Washington DC with us next week!

Coming Soon: The Stove Buddies

You thought we were kidding, right?

Cordwood Testing: Efficiency over 80%; Emissions under 1 gm/hr

We recently did 3 emissions/efficiency tests using cordwood, and testing to the newly proposed ANSI standard for cordwood testing.  The first two tests used about 35-40 lbs of wood, and the high burn used about 20 lbs (as specified in the proposed standard).  The results are printed below.

The first two tests lasted 15.4 hours and 13.23 hours respectively.  Both had HHV efficiency over 80% (82.27% and 80.9% respectively).  They both had emissions under 1 gm/hr (0.88 and 0.68).

We did not do a  burn at the lowest setting, mostly because we never had a 20+  hour window that was open while we were working in the lab.  There are additional comments about the high cordwood burn below.

Woodstock Soapstone on NPR's Marketplace

Tom Morrissey, president of Woodstock Soapstone, was interviewed and featured on NPRs Marketplace last night 11/1/13.  Please click on the link and take a listen to New England cranks up its wood-burning stoves on Marketplace.

Click here to link to Marketplace's story "New England cranks up its wood-burning stoves"

Under the Hood 11: The Cooktop

The cooktop consists of three burners.  The center burner always has a decorative design.  The outside burners are held in place with centering pins, and the middle burner is fastened to an 8” round cutout in the top.  The burners are different heights, to create a temperature variation across the burners (data on that later).

The center burner is a little thicker than the outside burners.  The center burner also lifts out (with a “helping hand”) to reveal a stainless steel shield just above the active combustor - creating a VERY HOT cooking space - perfect for a wok, or sauteing at very high temperatures.  This is the high burner!

In the video below you will see the "helping hand" at work, exposing the high heat area below the center burner.

The Helping Hand will lift the burner or open the door when the
stove is hot. It stores on the back of the stove.

The center burner can be removed for high heat cooking.
Under the burner is a stainless steel shield, and the intense
heat of the catalytic combustor!