Ideal Steel Hybrid

We are busy making and shipping Ideal Steel Hybrids every day!  In fact, we've been so busy that we haven't had a chance to post all of the new designs we've been working on in collaboration with our customers. As we can, we will post the new design sets within our GEARED 2U Design Book.  Below..

We’ve been spending a lot of time the last few weeks testing our Franklin inspired steel hybrid in the lab. We hope to begin beta-testing this next new model in the early fall.  So far the results are good. The Ideal Steel, which goes into production in June, had the lowest high burn emissions on re..

The IDEAL STEEL Hybrid is 30% more efficient than the average noncatalytic stove.** This means that 30% more heat stays in your house, rather than going up the stack.  Another way of looking at it is that with an IDEAL STEEL Hybrid (82% Efficiency) 18% of the heat produced goes up the stack, bu..

Here are a few other improvements we have made recently to the Ideal Steel Hybrid: We cut a damper adjustment scale in the ash lip.  Lots of people operate their stoves in a narrow range for long periods of time, and this makes it easier to remember your best operating settings. The andirons have..

We’ve made a number of improvements to the IDEAL STEEL Hybrid over the winter, and many were based on comments/suggestions from our beta testers.  We’ll try to cover some of the changes on this blog over the next few weeks. We eliminated hinges from the top.  The top lid stands up in a slot, and..

We’ve added a port for a catalytic temperature probe just above the center of the loading door.  The probes are simple bimetallic coils attached to a stainless rod.  We have been testing the bimetallic probe against a thermocouple:  it’s certainly “in the ballpark” and gives a good idea of catal..

We are offering pre-production prices for the IDEAL STEEL Hybrid for the next several months (see below).  We won’t actually begin shipping IDEAL STEEL Hybrids until June, for one simple reason:  it’s still cold and we haven’t quite finished with Beta testing yet. Our Beta testers have provided in..

Our Geared 2U Design Book for the Ideal Steel Hybrid is now live on our website. We're still working on getting all of our designs into the book, but we have a good start. Click here to see our Geared 2U Design Book ..

It's nearing the end of February and we are still working on getting few more Ideal Steel Hybrid beta stoves out in the field for the last couple months of burning. So far, the information we've received from our beta testers has prompted several changes/improvements, with a few more being worke..

When Doug and his wife Amanda came in to pick out the colors for their Ideal Steel beta stove, Amanda quickly took over the reins to create a color combination that would work well in their home. Speaking honestly, when Amanda told me she was interested in light colors (Almond body/Surf Sand acc..

Two weeks ago we got Nick, another beta tester, up and running with a beta version of the Ideal Steel Hybrid. Nick was the first to submit his own artwork of a maple leaf and mountains motif, which Nick generated using AutoDesk. With a little bit of translation on our side we were able to get a f..

One of the interesting aspects of our Ideal Steel Hybrid, is that the side medallion, burners, and andirons can be customized. Kurt, our beta tester in Bow NH, decided to submit a photograph for a customized art set. Below is the file Kurt originally sent,  followed by the side medallion and andi..

"I just wanted to send a quick note.  First off, thank you for including me in this beta test and thank you for the quick ship on the parts. It's all up and running!  The house is nice and toasty again.  Here are a couple of quick pics from last night. I already like it.  It puts out..

We are very excited to share this video from Brian K, one of our Ideal Steel beta testers. Brian's video is a 16 hour time lapse, with ever 4 seconds representing about an hour of burning.  Below the video you will see some of Brian's description of the burn and a link to his forum post for more..

This week we delivered a beta stove to the door of Laurie and Sam in Chester, Vermont. Sam was so excited about the stove he started posting images while our guys were still getting the stove hooked up (or shortly thereafter!). Sam and Laurie are heating a large, old Vermont farmhouse and went throu..

The Ideal Steel Hybrid achieved weighted average emissions of 0.54 gm/hr using method 5G3, and an “Adjusted Emissions” of 1.04 gm/hr.  The adjustment factor was created in 1988 to account for prospective differences in test methods, and is currently the result published by EPA.  The new EPA regulati..

Our first Moose Trophy Stove was ordered right away (we can make more!), and we have prospective orders for Stove Buddies (we are still experimenting with high-temp coatings for the buddies).We’ve had some requests for Dog Trophy Stoves, and the illustrations below are ruff rough, but will hopefully..

How long will the Ideal Steel Hybrid burn?  It's an important question that many people will ask.  We have designed the Ideal Steel Hybrid to achieve easy overnight burns, and we will likely advertise burn times of 12-14 hours because this is both conservative and completely validated by our indepen..

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.Matt Remine from..

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...