Production Woodstock IS

Top pic shows a cat temp of 1800 and surface temp of 525. Flue temps on pic below are a cool 250.
I reloaded the stove with 5 pieces of ash, firebox is black, air damper is at 1/4 less 1 notch.
I'm wondering if the 1800* is too hot for the cat?

 

Having had both one of those mechanical cat. thermometers as well as an electronic thermocouple in the same stove, my guess is that the cat. is not really at 1,800 F. Probably more like 1,600F (at a wild guess) or a bit less. 1,600F is not too hot for a cat. to maintain IMO or even more. I believe the upper limit is suggested to be around 1,700 or 1,800F but that is tough to sustain IME. You can always tip the top of the stove up just a tad and take a look: 1,800F would be quite bright yellow, well beyond red and even orange. As long as the cat. is not hotter than dull orange, I would call it 'good'. And the S.S. cat. in the I.S. cannot crumble or spall like the ceramic ones do so thermal shock is not much of a worry either.

Brian

 

Darrin,
Did you have any communication with the folks at Condar that would make us believe that the bimetal coil, which is the temperature measuring mechanism of that type of thermometer, is calibrated to the length of the stainless steel probe. And could cutting the probe shorter cause the bimetal thermometer mechanism to now read temperatures higher than actual? Explaining your 1800* reads?

 

I had thought of the same thing but never inquired in my initial correspondence. At the time I was assuming that I would use the entire length of the probe. I'll reply tonight and ask if the probe being cut affects the readings on the dial.
Good question Bruce!

 

I had some days with warm weather so I decided to clean the stove and pipe. The pipe, to my surprise , was very clean. The only hint of build up is just really fine soot that wipes right off. Even what I could see of the liner looked really clean.

It's nice to know you can run seasoned wood at a smolder and not have creosote problems! What you see in the picture you could wipe off with your finger.

 

My reconnaissance regarding how cutting the SS probe on the Condar cat thermometer affects the reading is preliminary. So far, it seems, cutting the SS does affect the read. I learned this from one of the employees at Condar; albeit not the guy who may know for certain. The guy who may know for certain is out for Thanksgiving. I will give them a call Monday. I hardly believe that a moderate burn in your stove is gonna create a cat temp that will cause damage. But your concern is more than valid.

 

BrucePA-CWood , funny how our timing was so close on posting for the same issue. I just heard back from my guy, his title is Vice President and Marketing Director at Condar. I'll let you know his name in private if you want to know.
This is his response to my e-mail question yesterday; "Hi Darrin, Not to worry, trimming the probe will not affect the thermometers performance or calibration".
Maybe your contact knows something different? Maybe mine is throwing a smokeshow? I dunno...

 

....Not making me feel "warm-an'-fuzy' in the confidence department about Condar. But giving them the benefit-of-the-doubt; maybe the guy who is off for the holiday will know definitively. In the mean-time; I just can't believe your cat is burning that hot. I think Lorin sent you the extra-special stove that is super efficient!

 

Well said and I'm sure you are right when we lean towards the Cat thermo as being a little off. If you see the numbers on the stovepipe and the surface temps right next to the cat, they all seem a little low for a cat therm that reads 1800*. I'd think if the cat was reading 1800* the surface temp should be a lot higher than 525*.

 

Agree.

 

I gotta say one more thing about the cat temps; A little pre-Thanksgiving thought:

In some stoves, Dutch West by Vermont Castings for example, as well as other stoves I'm certain, the cat is sequestered and well ceramically-insulated within a snug compartment beneath the top of the stove - next to the flu pipe. Historically, I could never understand where all the heat was going in those stoves. And how the heat could possibly get into the room given how highly insulated the cats are - despite there being a radiating devise on the downstream side of the cat. In contrast to the "set-up" just described, the cat in the Ideal Steel and cats in the other stoves in the Woodstock line-up are "plopped" in the middle of the whole sha-bang, surround by a small ton of steel. Not insulated at all! (great design)
It's a fact; cats burn between 800* - 1800* and hotter. When the cat is burning hot, stove surface temps vary between 500* - 700* and pipe temps hover around 200* - 300*. I know the heat from the cat is absorbed and radiated by the metal surrounding it and then gets radiated into the room -ultimately. But when you consider the 1st law of thermodynamics the stove top and flu temps mentioned above do not seem high enough; especially when measured on the stove skin that is adjacent to the cat; stove top and front in the Ideas Steel.
First law of thermodaynamics:
"The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed".
So where is that 1800*???
My best guess is this:
A match is hot - but not enough to heat the room. It does not have the mass or the amount of fuel required to put out enough BTUs to heat a room. The cat is also hot - but not outputting enough BTUs to (over) heat the stove (yes, I realize, the cat can put out enough BTUs to create conditions where the cat itself can suffer damage). But like the match, just not that much mass or fuel to heat the stove skin to 1000*.
I suspect there is not as much volatile fuel as I thought there was remaining in the smoke after the primary and secondary burns. As well, there is a lot of metal mass surrounding the cat, absorbing and effectively amatorizing the heat throughout the mass of the stove. Still, the cat temps measure a whopping 1800*! But the BTU output may not be as great as what I've always thought they were. However, certainly enough so that a well designed stove will output greater BTUs than a plain box stove and not put smoke up the chimney. Having said all that - I'm happy (on Thanksgiving) to have the benefits from the hybrid design of the Ideal Steel.

 

I think there is a tendency to confuse heat and temperature. That heat put out by the combustor is mostly absorbed by the surrounding stove which being much larger in area, can absorb all of the heat of an 1,800F combustor and get no hotter than, say, 600F. The same amount of heat, spread across a larger area, will result in a lower temperature.

And that is basically what decides the output of a woodstove by the way: the radiating area (any areas of the firebox and / or the outside that are un- insulated) and the temperature it can be brought to. So if you picture a relatively small firebox volume in a large sheet metal covered, ornamental box, the outer box cannot be held at very high surface temperatures so even though the stove is pysically large on the outside, it cannot produce a lot of heat.

A very obvious example would be a hot water boiler and an acetylene torch: the torch is capable of reaching over 6,000 F while the hot water boiler will not produce water above 180F. But a torch, every a relatively large one (a hand- held torch) sitting in your living room will not be sufficient to heat the house while that 180F water is more than capable. The reason is that while the water is much, much cooler, it contains a great deal more heat than the torch can deliver.

Compare the surface area of the combustor with the surface area of the stove top. It is not as simple as straight division but close enough to serve as a visual example. Another way to look at it would be if the stove top could be brought to 1,800F, you would not be able to stand in any normal sized room with it as the radiant heat would drive you away.

Most of the heat of the combustor is radiated outward to the stove top where it further radiates and is convected into the surrounding room air and walls / ceiling (and any other objects in the room of course). Some of the heat of the combustor is carried up the flue but not much because there is very little air passing through the stove / combustor / stove pipe when the stove is damped down into a low or medium burn.

Brian

 

Me too- I am thrilled with how clean this stove is running at very low temps. My stove has spent a LOT more time with the stove top well under 400F than it has above 400F and yet everything after the cat. is absolutely creosote- free. Like yours, mine has some brown dust a vacuum could clean up. The firebox is pretty black with creosote though, which I certainly expect at these very low, smoldering temps., and that shows me that it is the combustor doing all the work. My stove rarely has any secondaries and the firebox is almost always black when the stove is running.

Brian

 

these stove analytics are awesome. A buddy of mine has a smoke dragon that eats more wood than I do pizza. His stack temps were insane and his solution was to install a Magic Heat (yea, I know, I know). The Ideal absorbs the heat and radiates it out into the room. I installed a Drolet AC02055 thermodisc on the back of the Ideal which triggers an Air King fan that's mounted behind the stove. It moves a ton of hot air and is dang near silent, as opposed to the squirrel cage blower on my 2010 EPA tube stove that was louder than a fat drunk guy.

 

Can you shoot some pics of your fan / thermodisc setup? Please

 

I am running a small fan constantly, I like the sound of what your set up is. .

 

Wait......is this even possible?
What are ya', some kinda' lighweight or somethin'?
Just messin',....I love pizza.

 

Your numvers while the cat is at 1800 soubd right to me. 1800 X .58-68 depending on the exact rating of this steel, X .45-.48 for the rating of the soapstone will land you with a stovetop reading of 469-just shy of 600.

1800x.58=1044, 1044x.45=469(low case)
1800x.68=1224, 1224x.48=587

 

I saw the cat glow for the first time at 1:30 AM.....the stove had been loaded with 3-year old cut/split/stacked white ash at 11:00 PM....it ignited, flue temps topped 500 and I engaged the cat. The cat was holding around 600 degrees on the stove-front thermometer....it was pretty cold so I set the air to 25%. At 1:30 AM, the distinctive smell of stove paint was in the air and it woke me up. Going into the stove room, there was a strange glow coming from the roof of the firebox and the stove-front temp was 800.....great googily moogily, I turned the air down to the 2nd notch and pointed a fan at the front of the stove. It cooled down to 700 after a little while and I went back to bed. What the heck would this thing do with the air set to 50%

 

Melt?