New SS combustor installed last night.

Where did you see that price? KEJ 1107 was $277 for ceramic.

 

I believe the first generation was what's referred to as "diesel foil" and were the ones that some folks had trouble with. I didn't have any trouble with them, but two of my SILs shriveled theirs because their stoves leaked air and the cats were no doubt very hot from flame and high cat temps due to uncontrolled off-gassing. One diesel foil is in the Fireview I sold to my BIL. That one is in its third year...I'll have to check out how it's working when I'm over there some time. I have a diesel foil in my Dutchwest and it's broken in now. I can still easily light it off with only 300 on the cat probe. I think the new Woodstock cats are "DuraFoil" and are heavier-duty. Probably won't shrivel. and may be superior in other ways as well. Can't wait to try one of the Duras, but don't need a cat right now. I don't think I'll mess with the ceramics from now on but like Todd said, the jury is still out over the long haul...

IIRC, cardboard is one of the things not to be burned. I'm guessing some chemicals in it could poison the catalyst metals, as opposed to just masking them, as Todd referred to with the potassium. Masking can be removed by vinegar/water, poisoning is irreversible.
I have to believe that simmering the cat out would clean it best, as opposed to spraying, but I could be wrong. I'm trying to simmer mine out every other year, but every year would probably be better... Page 6 details the white vinegar/distilled water cleaning procedure: http://www.condar.com/combustorcleaningmanual.pdf

The article Todd linked said that cat effectiveness didn't drop much even after 8 yrs but I'm thinking this is after the cat is lit. If it takes higher temps and a longer time to light the older cat, then it is indeed less efficient.

It is probably that the smoke is moving through the cat too fast to be burned. It lacks Time, one of the 3 Ts required for the cat to work...Temp, Turbulence and Time. If I open up the air on my cat stoves and have flame in the box, I go outside and see smoke from the stack. That's why hybrids look to me like the ultimate; You can burn clean at high or low burn rates. I don't know if I can stand the wait before I can get the Woodstock 211 on the hearth...

 

Woody, nice post. Thanks, JB

 

Thanks
Will try this for the annual cleaning.Made it a jpg

 

I know that this is the goal with a hybrid but it would seem that the current hybrids offer neither all the benefits of a noncat nor all the benefits of a cat. Rather than the best of both worlds, I see the worst of both worlds. This is of course from a full time burner that prefers long low burns in a milder climate. If you want medium to high burns all the time then the hybrid system as applied currently looks pretty good. I would love to see a hybrid that could run 30-40 hours on low and run at high outputs while always maintaining low emissions and high efficiency. We're not there yet but woodstock seems to be the most likely brand to accomplish it.

 

Being a very new owner of a hybrid (Ideal Steel), I can say with absolute certainty that mine tends to run in 'pure cat.' mode most of the time. There are no secondary or primary flames at all, just some red spots at the base of the wood. The wood gasses from pyrolysis, the cat. burns all the visible smoke and the stove runs like that for hours and hours. In other words, a pure cat. burn without any detriment from having inactive secondaries sitting above the coking wood. As I said, a hybrid is brand new to me and there could well do a downside to this arrangement running a pure cat. burn but so far, I have not seen it and am thrilled with the efficiency of this stove, at least running low and slow and doing pure cat. burns.

Brian

 

If you were really operating in pure cat mode, you would be seeing 30 hour burntimes from that 3+CF box. What are you seeing? I have no doubt it is efficient and clean burning, lots of stoves do that though, can yours do it slow enough to last 30 hours? 300-400 stove top temp?

 

To directly answer your question: I don't know.

That said, I do not think that is really a valid method to determine a 'pure cat' burn anyway. Different stoves radiate different amounts of heat at the same surface temperature.

The secondaries in a woodstove have to produce flame for the stove to be burning in a secondary mode and the mere lack of any flame that there is no secondary action going on at all. The only thing left is the cat., and the simple temperature change of the gasses as they pass through the combustor show that the cat. is active (it may or man not have any glow to be active). So if the inside of the firebox does not have flame and is merely gassing the wood, and the combustor is active and cleaning up any particulate in the exhaust, I think by definition that is a 'pure cat. burn' regardless of heat output or anything else.

The only thing left for the secondaries to do would be to provide air to the firebox, which they absolutely do in an Ideal Steel, regardless of any secondary flame or not. But that air will actually simply join any other draft air to provide primary ignition to the wood in the firebox and then provide additional oxygen for the gasses to combust as they do pass through the cat.. I do not think there is any downside to having the secondaries as an air source when there is no secondary burning as it would compare to a cat. only stove.

Brian

 

You're right BDF. Whether or not it is all cat or all secondary makes no difference at all. What is lacking from today's hybrid options is the flexibility to burn very low and slow as well as hard and fast all while doing so cleanly and efficiently.

 

Not sure where that is coming from but it is certainly fine with me. ??

I find my I.S. does both very well; in fact I have been astounded at how low and slow it will burn (pyrolize actually) with a perfectly clean exhaust (going by eye, not any instrumentation). Further, as I stated in my earlier post, I cannot see any reason why a 'cat. only' stove would hold any advantage over a hybrid stove; when burning slowly, the secondaries are simply not being used so they are irrelevant and the stove is a pure cat. stove.

I am sure there are several excellent stoves on the market at this time with more coming. I looked quite intently at the new Regency F5100, which I believe would be an excellent stove also and bigger than anything Woodstock Soapstone offers at this time although that too is a double edged sword as the stove requires an 8" flue.

Brian

 

No t-stat in the IS so I doubt it can have as even a burn at that low of an output for as long as a BK, but I have heard of people getting 24 hour burns.

 

Our PH runs like a tube stove with a scrubber. With a dark box and the cat chewing away, it is only a matter of time before the top of the box gets hot enough to fire the secondaries.

 

Most BK owners are realists. But this is his first cat stove and I think he's bought some of the cult hype regarding the "astounding burn times of this magical stove." He hasn't yet burned other cat stoves and realized that they are all magical compared to what he had before. Now that he's committed, and faced with the very real possibility that there's something even better available that will burn low, but with way more top end (on EPA softwood, anyway,) equal efficiency and more than twice as clean, not to mention superior ash-handling, top- or rear-vent versatility etc, he's got to make do (or sell, taking a big loss) and convince himself that his decision would still be the best one, even today. Granted, I have yet to see an IS or BK in person to assess materials and build quality, but I've seen other Woodstocks.... Now, where were we? Oh yeah, the cats...

I think Sud Chemie makes the DuraFoil cats for Woodstock, but I'm guessing what you have there is the AC version of the same thing, right? It doesn't look like the original "diesel foil" cats I got a couple years back. Those don't have the straight lines of the cat in your pic. Here's a pic of my Keystone diesel foil:

 

I have folded the cards before and sold stoves to upgrade. The BK was a big upgrade for me. At the time, there was no PH or IS. I asked questions in this thread about the ability of the IS to burn low and high, it is interesting to me to research that next purchase and how technology is changing.

I'm an engineer and with that comes decisions. I am not afraid to call a spade a spade but I can come across as critical. I'll keep trying not to offend.

 

Ah, that could be- I did not think of that view as a possibility.

There is no magic in a woodstove, only the management and containment of simple combustion. The idea that some mfg. has somehow 'snuck up on chemistry or physics' is kind of amusing to me.

Back to all this cat. / cat. + secondary / secondary burn idea: again, it does not make any difference what is in the stove. Inactive secondaries are not meaningful or important to the stove's operation. Entering a 'cat. only' burn is simply a matter of hot having sufficient heat, oxygen or both to ignite the secondaries at which point all those gasses pass (Easy Boys!) on to the next step- either out the exhaust or through a catalytic combustor that is in the way, at which point it will finish the job of combustion. When operating like this, it makes no difference if there are secondaries in-between the firebox and the cat. or not. And there is certainly no magic that is only known to some manufacturers about how to extend burn times: a given mass of wood contains a given number of BTUs, chemically speaking, and getting fewer BTU's per hour for more hours is not magic, merely management.

This year I looked seriously at four stoves: in no particular order.... the Regency F5100, the two Blaze Kings (I am including this as one stove as I almost certainly would have chosen the King anyway), the Progress Hybrid and the Ideal Steel from Woodstock. I stood next to a new Blaze King at a dealer that was listed at just over $3K, which I am confident I could have had for a flat $3K or maybe a bit less. A well built, nice stove IMO but lacking much in the way of refinement; still I was impressed and would happily own and use one if I happened to find myself owning one (in a house I purchased for example). I found a killer, one- time deal on a new Regency F5100 for $1,700 (no typo: $1,700 and they would load it on my trailer). A very nice stove with an unlimited warranty, great reputation form the mfg. and a quality device going over it in person. Both of those stoves were well w/in drivinig distance (30 mi. on the King, 80 mi. on the Regency). I rejected both for a variety of reasons although I think both are good quality products and there was no particular thing that squashed the purchase for me, I just thought the Woodstock Soapstone stoves were better suited to 24/7 wood burning. I decided on the Ideal but liked enough features of the P.H., including the far, far better looks (I think the I.S. is fine looking but the P.H. is beautiful to me) that I kept the idea of swapping my deposit from the I.S. to the P.H. until the fall..... and the matter was decided for me when W.S. ran out of P.H. stoves and have absolutely no idea when more would be available. I took the I.S. and am pleased with this purchase beyond my expectations! I am right in the middle (OK, maybe more at the beginning ) of the learning curve but I can honestly say the use and performance of this stove have exceeded not only my 'best hope' expectations but even the 'best possible case' hopes. Even the difficulties I am working through are not as bad as I thought they would be before purchasing (and there are no large problems, just a few relatively petty, pesky problems that I expected to be worse than they actually are).

All of that said, I think both the Regency and Blaze King brands would also have served very well. But I do not believe any of the stoves contain any particular magic or have any kind of big advantage over the others regarding burn time, burn quality, etc. The reason I made the choice I did is a series of smaller items, some just personal choice, some that make me believe this particular stove will serve me better than the others but none are huge, 'deal killers'; a non- cat stove for example, would be a 'deal killer' and was not up for consideration.

But if Blaze King comes with that special Kool- Aid that makes it somehow magical, fine and well by me. I just don't feel the urge to drink it....

Brian

 

To be honest, I think all of these cat. based stoves on the high end of the spectrum are quite competitive. For me, the choice came down to very specific issues rather than overall stove performance in burning wood. I think the actual choice comes down to actual usage and what is important or not important to the particular person- that will sway the decision IMO.

No problem on the engineer part- they are accepted almost everywhere these days (not as much as VISA but hey, they set the bar pretty high, right?) The only thing I try to bear in mind when conversing on the internet is that we are really communicating with potentially everyone and so I try to interact with everyone as if Enrico Fermi were reading my posts and might just take a few minutes to engage me in conversation. I find it really helps with humility and care in writing.

Brian

 

I just did the math and found that I am over 12000 hours on the OEM cat in my BK. So they warranty them for 10 years. 100% replacement cost even. Quite a spread between 10,000 hour life expectancy from the cat manufacturer and the warranty period. Had the cat glowing brightly last night with a pegged cat meter during a test burn with North Idaho Energy Logs. The OEM ceramic cat still looks good and goes active at the right temperatures.

Maybe I should follow the OP's lead and get a new cat after this season.

 

One of m theories was they are going to get more expensive year to year.

Save a few bucks now, thought $30 shipping was reasonable.
Will clean it more often & try to get 3 - 5 years out of it.
Old one still glows, just not light off as fast or maintain the heat on low burns,
new one glows bright during low burns where the old one did not.

 

After all this talk on cat life I started to get paranoid that my ceramic was degrading, it is over 12000 hours old, but this afternoon she took off on me turning bright red with a 715 stove top. I'd say she's still good to go.

 

First I bought the Keystone. Then I got to thinking I could use more firepower, even though the Keystone was holding its own, and got a Fireview. Then I did some weather-sealing and started thinking the Keystone could handle anything Old Man Winter threw at us here. I sold the Fireview to my BIL in favor of the Keystone's big window and ash-handling, and am trying to view my $700 loss as a sacrifice on my part to put one more smoke-bomber stove in the 'hood, on the bench . I scored the Keystone when the 30% tax rebate was in effect, so that softens the blow a bit I guess.

Hey, maybe I should try that...

Good approach. I believe Highbeam takes my sometimes tounge-in-cheek posts in the spirit in which they are meant, though they are sprinkled with good-natured ribbing and my own particular slant on things. You're right, there are almost infinite choices to be made in a purchase and they will differ based on the purchaser's own situation, priorities and preferences. Sure is fun, ain't it?

Yeah, do we see much of anything come down in price? Not too often. You said you noticed an improvement when you sprayed the old cat out; You could try the full-monty simmer-out and see if that helps at all. Eventually, though, the catalyst just wears out. If you do simmer it out, wait 'til summer when you can open the windows; The vinegar fumes can get pretty strong.

715? Yeah, I'd say she's still workin'! Any plans to get a cat probe in there? On the Dw, I think my probe is about 3/8" above the cat. I got a longer one, then put a couple washers under it to lift it a bit, but I guess I could have cut it off as well. Like I said, that diesel foil will light off around 300, probably lower if I wanted.