New SS combustor installed last night.

Todd, you're not monitoring cat temp this year?

 

I installed a DuraFoil SS cat last Dec. It works much better than my original SS cat ever did IMHO.

 

Dammit, man, you're making me want to spend more money!

 

That is exactly what I have found: they do not actually fail outright but they deteriorate in performance exactly as you describe. My yardstick of when it is time to get a new combustor is when one lights off and starts the burn only to stall as soon as the draft is cut back any amount at all. The combustor still works but it has to be used a lot harder to maintain the catalyst function.

Brian

 

Did you ever try simmering one out at that point? I've done it with ones that were OK, but never one that had seriously declined in performance. I'm wondering how much I can stretch the life of one. But I guess I won't know, if I rinse all of them every couple of years...

 

Not yet, my cat probe only lasted one year so I'm a little Leary of buying another.

 

Wow, that thing is really glowing, does that kind last longer?

 

I did not try that until last year and it did seem to perk it up somewhat. It was in the old stove though and so got very little time on it and very late in the year so I did not really get a chance to get a decent idea of how much it improved.

I will probably do it again at the end of this year though. Combustors really are critical to the performance of a cat. stove and running a stove with a sluggish or under- performing combustor leaves the stove a lot less efficient and puts a lot of creosote into the flue in my experience. One of the critical things for me in choosing a new stove was the cost and ease of installation of the combustor; the I.S. cat. is $125 new and it would certainly be worth it to me to buy one every other year if that is what it takes to keep the stove running at high efficiency. I believe a correctly operating cat. is easily worth a cord of wood or more per year and it is well worth $65 annually for the cat. I am hoping the cat. lasts much longer than that in this new stove of course, just sayin' that it is pretty easy to put a value on changing out the combustor IMO.

Brian

 

It glows all the time. Well, not all the time but it glows a lot. If it's glowing you know it's working, but it is often working great with no glow as per my cat probe, WS ,BKVP and others. I'm sure your Princess insert cat glowed often, the Keystone just gives a nice cat view from the recliner.

 

I looked on the Woodstock site, but could only find the cats for the Fv and Ks, not the IS or PH?? I knew the others were $125 but thought maybe the hybrids had a different or more expensive one.

 

Last longer? I don't know but I think the technology is moving forward.

 

What happened to it?

 

Maybe it melted! But seriously, yeah, it should have lasted longer than a year I would think. Heck, I'm pretty sure the probe in the Buck 91 is 5 yo or more and still works well. I think Todd had the probe bent around the shield...or was that his previous setup?

 

It was a Auber 10" thermocouple probe that was inserted into the cat probe hole in the back of the stove. When I fired up the stove the first couple times this year it was reading hundreds of degrees low and if I wiggled the wire it jumped all over the place. Maybe there was a short or break in the wire?

After last years data from the cat probe I'm pretty confident what the cat temps are just by looking at the surface temps and the glow. Usually they were just over double the stove top temp. I don't think I ever went over 1600 CT even with a 700 STT.

 

125$ is a great price. That really makes all this cleaning and monitoring for deteriorating performance a waste of time. Just pop a new one in.

I wonder why it is so cheap. The IS cat looks huge! much bigger than my princess cat but my princess cat is just under 300$.

 

The price given to me back in the spring was $125 for the I.C. and $175 for the P.H. If I remember right, I think the I.S. uses the same combustor as the Fireview but the P.H. combustor is different.

Brian

 

That was a significant part of my stove purchasing decision: how much the cat. cost, how hard it was to clean (vacuum or blow off) and how hard it was to remove and reinstall. The I.S. won by a huge margin because the cost is low, the access and removal extremely easy and require no tools; just lift the stove top, reach in and pick it up.

Just as a reference: the Blaze King princess seems to use a round combustor, 7" dia. X 2" thick. The I.S. uses a rectangular combustor with a flange on the outside, 10" X 5 1/4" X 2 5/8" thick.

Also the placement of the I.S. combustor is ideal in my opinion: directly above the firebox, with the cells facing 'up' so they tend to stay cleaner and not collect ash. It is easy to light and keep lit even with a very low fire because it is directly above the firebox and the exhaust temp. of the firebox is hottest there.

Brian

 

I've wondered this as well, looking at Keystone cats from other sources are almost twice as much as Woodstock. Maybe WS just sells them at cost to keep their customers happy?

 

Well, I assume any / all commercial businesses make a profit on the things they sell, and Woodstock Soapstone should not be an exception. Besides, I believe they weld the flange on that specific combustor or have the combustor mfg. do so, so the combustor is unique to them as far as I know.

I suspect Woodstock is making a reasonable profit and others are making a larger profit is what we are seeing here. I have to believe the cost of making a full production run of combustor material is quite low; we are simply used to the inflated prices from others because that has been the norm. before. At least in my opinion of course.

Brian