Wood stove run by a thermostat! What?

Jeez Highbeam, you sure are anti tube stove!!! Lets give it a season and see how it performs before predicting it sucks! If the stove is sized right (there is a smaller option of a 2.5 cu ft box) it should be no different compared to a manual stove. The air controls can only be shut to a certain degree. Thats when you start adjusting your wood species and/or load to the heating demand. Some of us do like to play and experiment and see a fire, not stare at a black viewing glass!!

 

Not antitube stove at all. I own one, on purpose. The weakness here is the application of a thermostat to a noncat. The marketing is very clear that you load and walk away and then the stove tells you when to reload up to 40 hours later! During that time the stove holds the room temp like a furnace would. Sounds too good to be true, and it is.

 

I don't think it's too good to be true. It's just different.

This is actually pretty low tech stuff as far as home automation.

As to the controller being able to ramp up the rpms of the fan, that should be easy and simply done.

 

Large heat sink means a tank or masonry structure that can hold enough heat to last until next morning. Not everybody has a place for a large water tank.

 

I like that Quad Explorer with the top loading. Did this stove replace the Quad Isle Royal?

 

I agree its not a set and forget it like it is being marketed, it won't work exactly like a furnace. But if the stove is sized and loaded right to be run at more than a minimum like a standard tube stove, it should be effective for those of us that like to heat with wood but are rushed in the mornings and don't have a 30-45 mins to fiddle with a stove during the week. We all know marketing is not 100% dependable with many stove companies. I would not consider this a stove for a beginner but for those that have the fundamentals and DRY WOOD. And I'm sure there will be many bugs that need to be worked around and improved.

And I'm on your boat with the cat stoves, if they would apply this tech to one that would be the holy grail of stoves. The only problem would be the bypass, tough to operate that any other way than manually. But after its closed it shouldn't work much different than the thermostatic control on a BK.

 

I was thinking about this stove over the weekend. If the stove is big enough to be adequate in the coldest part of the winter then it will be too large to run constantly, even on low (400 STT), for at least half (75%?)of the year. During that time this tech will still be a benefit since you can let the house cool, start a fire, and let the stat take over until the fuel load runs out. It won't be a constantly burning fire but rather just a more automated batch burner. That's not bad. It's not a pellet stove with high/low or on/off but it is a step in the right direction.

I hope that there is a way to manually adjust the draft. Just in case.

 

I'd be interested to see how the stove could "idle" yet still maintain a flame and enough heat in the firebox to draft at the same time. seems to me that in order to"not heat" it would need to literally "not burn"

 

At "idle" it must not only maintain draft and combustion but also clean enough emissions to pass EPA rigor. That means hot and is why I believe that the stat will only control a narrow range of outputs between 400 and 750 or so.

 

Allows you to load the stove and walk away, savings hours every day.
What?
Who spends hours fussing with a stove? I LOVE marketing.

 

LOL as a small child the "urban legend" was if you play with matches you would wet the bed, probably to use shame as a deterrent against playing with fire.

wonder if the folks who come up with these marketing meme's still sweat the "don't play with matches" thing

 

The set it and forget it thing works real well with the 30, for a while at least. It certainly doesn't require hours/day.
Dry wood plays a big part, as does a good stove.

 

just daydreaming on a tube stove- a method to open the primary at about 250 degrees in the coaling stage, one shot solenoid on a snap disc- dc circuit 12v - snap closes at temp power to coil, stroke opens primary & hits another switch kills coil power- manual reset. Would help with burning down coals + a little longer higher output btu wise for those that are gone somewhat extended times. Could be set up with a rectification circuit to supply 12v but if power failure default to battery backup additionally a trickle charge circuit could be incorporated - similar to back up sump pumps or the better ups systems for electronics. Might work for cats also depending on parameters. Not having a BK - so do not know its system.

 

Pretty sure the BKs just have a bi-metal spring. Pretty simple (compared to your daydream), and very effective.

 

Not a fan of bimetalic coils on wood stoves/furnace but that is likely because the ones I have had experience with were so cheaply constructed that they were more of a danger than help. In the case of the NC30 or similar it would be a royal pain to mechanically retrofit. Electromechanicly there are other ways of accomplishing a variable control of the primary air, although more involved than my musing. This was meant as dirt cheap/simple, bullet proof. As complexity increases so does the failure rate- electronics and heat are not good bedfellows, along with extreme cold or if operating from ac line voltage various garbage on the ac system. Likely 90% of electronic failures can be traced to vary poor line voltage filter systems in the power supply section of common household appliances coupled with very poor quality capacitors scattered throughout the circuits. Industrial circuits are not always that much better. At this point you start dealing with profit/ quality issues and the ever present bean counters/ greed that have ruined more than one item over the years.

 

Let me dream a bit ... I'd like to see a cat stove similar to the BK design with a t-stat but also an automatic mechanism for closing the bypass once the temps are sufficient to light off the cat. Opening the door would require opening the bypass and closing the bypass would be a one-time operation until the next reload is required. All this of course without electricity ... and in a soapstone version ... with 22.75" rear exit 6" flue ... someone wake me up before I ask for it to make coffee too

 

It will but you have the set up the fixins

 

I have a CharMaster wood oil combo indoor forced air furnace that uses two thermostats. One is for the oil gun, which i set at 45 deg while the other controls the combustion inlet air damper on the door. Depending on the delta T between the room temp and the setting, the door opens and closes at set intervals or if I crank it up, it stays open. Door runs using a simple electronic servo that fails close if the power is lost. The other feature that works on this is that there is a damper on the side of the stove that fails open if the power is lost, allowing natural air flows to heat the house and cool the stove metal. It works very well as I have seen a few power outages. I cannot say enough about this furnace as it heats my 3400 plus sq ft home without issue. Granted I used about 8 real cords of wood, but the oil gun rarely ever kicks on so I save $$$ and justify buying some cool firewood toys.