wood stoves

I would have to break it down to if it was a stove to save money. Then another catagory a stove if money wasnt an issue.
Alot of first timers going to try it to think about the cost of a flue and the cost of stove can seem like too much of an investment and too many years to break even and start saving on heating cost.
Thats why I gringe when I seem people bad mouthing cheaper stoves as not everyone is inn the same boat. Everyone is at different points in their life times.

Vogelzangs and Century and Drolets are good intro stoves

Top of the line stoves would be for me, a Wood Stock stove or a BK stove.

But I am not sure a low slow cat stove would work for me as I think a stove with a higher peak in its heat curve would work better for me since I heat my house from the basement family room. ITs that higher peak in the heat curve that sends heat upstairs better.

 

I have never seen a device like this on my stove or heard of it before. Might be a cool idea or just like Daka wood furnaces, or my BK, put a freaking thermostatic draft control on it.

Anybody confirm this device on an NC30?

 

Yes yes, of course. I am (or was) an engineer I understand failsafes, but they aren't perfect. Perhaps 90+% of the time they would work correctly but there are scenarios that still could be an issue.

 

Such as.....? A gravity fired, non- hinged or non- pivot system that requires both power and a running MPU (Watchdog timer) will always fail in the closed position. Think of a guillotine.... ever see one where the blade did NOT fall down? Truly fail- safe devices are.... well, fail- safe. False fail- safe devices are simply not fail- safe devices in the first place IMO. For example, the current way of making elevators fail- safe depends on the cables remaining intact; a truly bad idea, not fail- safe and not at all what Otis invented way back in the olden days.

Brian

 

Uh, what?
Nobody told me.

 

Never heard that either

 

Sorry then, must have been another stove? I remember reading about it on Darth

 

Not saying your wrong just dont recall that feature... esp in this simple stove!

 

I probably am wrong about it on the 30. Just can't remember what model....

 

I've been through the manual more than once and don't remember anything about it. Must be a different stove.

 

Yea I am pretty sure it is!

 

Well just off hand, something that would allow air into the firebox other than through a 'controlled' draft like say broken glass, or a cracked weld? Of course that problem isn't exclusive to an electronic controlled stove, but would require something more than just shutting down the air intakes to avoid a potential catastrophe. Your example of a failsafe - I assume something along the lines of the intake air control being spring held shut, and a stepper motor or something like that to open it by a computer-controlled amount requires the motor to disengage for the failsafe to work. If the problem was in the motor itself or glitch in the control where by the motor was powered to open it fully, then a simple mechanical failsafe might not work. Watchdog timer... do pellet stoves incorporate such failsafes? I think we might be getting too complex for the intended market. I guess my point was that the tech is relatively simple to automate controls of a woodstove and that they could probably outperform pellet stoves, especially if made to hold as much or more fuel than a pellet stove. Got to be a reason it hasn't been done and I assume it had to do with liability but just a guess. Might have been a great senior project back in college had I been into stoves then, but well since I was living in an apartment in the city woodstove wasn't even on my mind then.

 

Well, I am only addressing fail- safing (is that a word?) the automation side, not the entire stove.

Pellet stoves are much more inherently fail- safe for two reasons: as you mentioned before, there is little fuel available (involved in the combustion process-the hopper does not matter) and as they always burn on high output, they simply cannot burn too hot. Secondly is that the auger must turn to feed fuel; if any part of that device fails, there will simply be no additional fuel supplied and the stove will simply run out of fuel.

And yes, it does get a bit complicated but mostly the big problem is trying to retrofit so many different stoves with one device. A stove designed and built to incorporate automatic starting, a high- burn rate, self- closing bypass and then draft control based on need would be far better IMO. But as wood stove manufacturers are successfully selling stoves without these functions, there is no reason for the current system to change. And just a tad of automation in the form of a heat sensitive 'detector' (the bimetal spring) and a simple swinging damper such as both the Blaze King and ancient Vermont Castings designs used does seem to work pretty well.

Brian