Hi guys, it's been a while since I've posted on here. But when things go wrong, where else would I turn? Does it damage the Ideal Steel to run for an hour or so with the bypass open? When I remembered the stove, the temps were 712*F in the flue and 1200*F on the cat. Flue temp is an Auber digital reading off an internal probe about 20" above the stovetop. This was with a small load of extremely dry wood (maybe 35-40% full, two pieces of softwood and one hardwood plus a couple sticks of kindling.) There was a light coal bed left after this morning's fire when I went down to re-fire a couple hours ago. I put in the wood (uglies so that's all that would fit), snapped a couple pieces of kindling onto the coals, and set the door into the "partially open" catch. After a few minutes the kindling had caught, so I closed and latched the door, closed the air to the third large notch, and went up stairs to help my wife for a minute. An hour later I went back downstairs. The wood was burning, the top piece was pretty much gone but no noticeable secondaries. It wasn't a fierce blaze, and the flue temp alarm doesn't go off until 750*, so that hadn't alerted me. But that high cat temp with the bypass open? Did that damage anything? Or am I overreacting? A new gasket, perhaps?
I’ll be the first to say it.... or the first to say anything.... if the stove is messed up, blame your wife. JK, glad to see you pop in, hope someone more smarterer than me chimes in to ad-dress your situation
I am assuming the cat in bypass, allowed the hybrid part of the stove to fire without the cat engaged. But your thermostat that would be there recorded the temperture. Flue temp is not a concern as they are designed depending on type to handle IIRC close to 1500. What I would check, and on stove simple to do is lift top and check spot on top lid over radiator shield. The piece that actually lifts, if that and gasket that closes it are good, I would assume your good too. You could just call Woodstock, i did when i did a and spoke with Tom who chuckled and said so you finally got it out of 3rd gear huh?!!
This is correct. The cat was sitting in bypass, but the gasses, and probably flames, that were flowing up through the wide open gap were heating the cat thermometer probe to 1200*. The metal parts look normal, that internal gasket that surrounds the bypass looks very smokey, even a little burnt. Much darker than it did when I was cleaning the stove a few weeks ago. I don't know how crucial it is, it's probably not sealing quite as well as it used to, but it is still there. Perhaps it will need replacing soon, I don't know.
