Travis Industries Xtrordinair Elite 36

Hey, welcome back! What..... you left Massachusetts?! We'll never be the same! I heard you can still get Sam Adams in NH. ...just a rumor. ... Where are you? I can throw a stone into the Monadnock Region from my front yard.

I have nothing to add to the new stove thing.

Stick around, we're having fun!

 

Yes I do. The damper is controlled from the front of the stove and when the catalyst comes to temp the damper gets fully closed which redirects the flue gases to the catalyst.

I think I’m whiney because of the former stove I owned I had so much more control of the stove

 

I’m in the Whites, near Conway. Good to be back, thanks.

 

Wow! God's country! If you ever get over to Bartlett on Rt302 try the Sunrise Shack! Best breakfast or lunch in the Conway area. My BIL lives 20 miles south in Freedom NH on Ossipee. I spend some nice days up there on one of my scooters.

Good luck with the stove and the housework you've got going on. You'll be closer to Lebanon now. (hint-hint)

 

Yes, definitely look at that. Perhaps the linkage is off not really allowing it to be shut down? Any gasket leaks on the door? There's door gaskets right? I'm not really certain about the details on these zero clearance units.

 

Dennis has already reminded me

You'll be closer to Lebanon now. (hint-hint)

 

The IS you had was built for high efficiency and excellent control of the burn rate to offer not only a big fire show when you want it but the utility of low burn rates when you don’t all while producing low emissions.

Very few wood burning stoves were built that way. Most, as I’m afraid you are finding, are built to satisfy the average homeowner to provide a big fire show and low emissions. The IS is a rockstar.

 

I was thinking of a damper, not a cat bypass.

 

I think most people with insert stoves don't have the luxury of a flue damper...unless its a custom made deal, and even that would probably only be with a standard insert woodstove...but this is a ZC stove I think...probably no access to the pipe, or liner...

 

Yea brenndatomu, i was just hoping for easy.

 

Well, Staples used to sell that button...

 

I believe this acts as both

 

You are correct

 

UPDATE:

It’s Xmas day eve and I’m sitting in my easy chair in front of this stove and I’m stewing really hard.
Unless something is really off/wrong with this stove, I’m about to send it back.

After running the IS for many years I have some background with catalyst stoves enough to know a thing or two.
I ran this stove tonight and time tested it for performance with its factory setting as it was installed.
At 5:30 pm I reloaded with a load of dry maple over a small bed of coals. After opening the damper and the air to full I had a 500 deg box in about 12 minutes. I closed the damper, the bypass engaged the catalyst and I lowered the air as far as I could. I continued to sit and watch.

On the lowest air setting the flames continued to dance around. The flames would follow the draft and make contact with the ceramic catalyst. In my IS experience, I could run the box black and get a solid 10 hrs of heat from that stove with no problem.
Moving on, after 3 hours on the lowest air setting I am down to coals already, VERY disappointing. The descriptive information on burn times for this stove says “up to 10 hrs”

My rant is almost over, thanks for bearing with me. So after a disappointing burn session I have contacted Travis Industries to begin the process of getting some answers. This will now be a test for customer service.

My wife wanted a fireplace in the new house, I wanted another free standing wood stove like my IS and we settled on this. Pffft.

Merry Christmas

 

Bummer it isnt meeting your desired performance. Hope your wife is on board with your dislike.

 

After a little research of this stove (took apart the air intake linkage) this morning and rechecking the door seals I have found that the stove is acting exactly the same way as yesterday, no improvements. There is definitely a second (or third?) air source coming into this firebox.

At the time of starting a new fire in a cold stove I was able to fully close the door after about 10 mins and let the stove itself do the work. When I watched the smoke in the firebox, there seemed to be a down draft of sorts happening. The smoke travelled in a circular motion from front to back and eventually up. To see a forceful motion like that leads me to believe there is air coming in elsewhere.

I’m into this load for about 1.75 hrs right now and it’s all hot coals already. SMH

 

Man, that's frustrating!

 

When I first decided to install a stove in the fireplace I bought a cheap little Vogelzang Defender EPA stove...It worked fine but being a smaller firebox and an "easy breather" the fire really only lasted a couple hours like yours...I eventually found that I could get more like 6 hours out of it (1.2 CF firebox) by cutting the primary air hole down by 50%, plugging the "boost" air (air hole front and center of FB) after the fire was well established, and then plugging off 1 of the 2 secondary air holes, if the fire started to get too vigorous...I just had little balls of foil that I had worked into custom sized "plugs" for each one of those holes that I would push in lightly, then remove later on...kinda PITA, but it worked...I later found a Drolet 1400i to replace it...little better stove, little bigger too...biggest advantage was the blower was is in the front, much easier to clean than the blower on the back of the VZ..had to pull the stove to clean that one!