Trashed my catalyst in two months!

I was cleaning ash from my 2 month old fire place insert and noticed that my catalyst was starting to crumble. I called my dealer and they are coming out to replace it, it’s covered under warranty but they will only cover it’s replacement one time.
Girl asked me over the phone if I read the manual, I read that thing forward and backward. She asked me if I overfired the stove? I don’t think I have? How would I know? She also said I may be stacking my wood to high in the stove is that possible? All very interesting can’t wait to see what the tech says. The stove has a catalyst thermometer but no where in the manual does it state it’s maximum operating temperature, only the temperature that it starts to operate at. No where in manual does it state maximum wood stacking height. I have only been burning well seasoned wood tested with a moisture meter. I understood from the get go that these catalyst are consumable items but 2 months? Wow! Maybe I just got a dud? I hope so... The girl told me they actually have a class once a week in the evening on how to properly operate your stove perhaps I should enroll to learn proper wood stove operation. So far customer service from my dealer been pretty good and I am very happy with my stove a Travis industries large hybrid fyre insert from Dean’s stove and spa...I’ll update once the tech comes out. (This Saturday) here are Pictutes of the insert and it’s crumbling cat. Best picture of the cat I could get with a active fire in the stove.

 

About 1700° is max. on my CAT thermometer, anything above that is 'too hot'. If mine hits near 1600° I open the bypass damper until it cools off. They should take some over-firing but not continuous over-firing. Continuous over-firing could cause the catalyst to crack.

Also opening the door without opening the bypass damper first can cause it to crack. But you usually utter some strange words in a foreign language then quickly slam the door shut because of the smoke filling the room before that happens.

The other problem that will destroy a catalyst quickly is to high moisture content in the wood. When you checked your wood with a meter was it in the center of a fresh split and was the wood at room temperature?

I only have a lot of flame on a start up or reload. Once the wood is fully involved I cut the primaries back to fully closed to maybe about 1/4 open. The idea is to have the wood glowing like the hot end of a good cigar when someone taking a big drag.

I sure some wiser folks will chime in here soon with better help.

 

Sumpin bad going on in your routine me thinks! Maybe? Maybe that class aint such a bad idea..... Looks like it has been thermally shocked to death. Possibly. Or you have uninvited excess air. Are you opening the bypass and primary air supply a bit prior to opening the loading door?

And possibly you just received a poor quality combuster. Fill us in on what the dealer verdict is. Good luck!

 

Good point. Does your insert have an ash clean-out in the bottom? They sometimes leak air into the fire box. I have heard of some folks actually welding the clean-out door closed because it leaks so bad.

 

Can it be removed? No more troubles.

 

Welcome Danny Rossa .. A cat lasting just 2 months something is wrong somewhere!

 

Most CATs are protected by some sort of frame to protect/prevent a split being inserted into the stove from doing physical damage to the cat. I can't tell from the pics, is it a ceramic cat or a steel cat?

 

Here ya go download this. I hope it shines some light on the subject.

 

Very informative

 

I read my owners manual carefully many times never mentioned anything about thermal shock, never mentioned anything about the flame hitting the combuster...is this common sense? Shouldn’t this be mentioned in owners manuals? They talk about not over firing but none of the aforementioned conditions. Thanks for posting this manual.

 

So how do you avoid thermal shock? I always opened the bypass before opening the door. Do you have to wait for the combuster to cool before opening the door to reload. The only reason I can see that my combuster failed was thermal shock, flames directly hitting the combuster, or a defective combuster.

 

Bypass open. Primary air adjusted to wide open. Give it a moment to adjust. Slowly open loading door. Do your business efficiently. Close it up and and away you go!
My routine. Not the same stove but a Cat stove non the less.

 

Thanks for the reply, what you described is what I was doing. I’ll be more mindful with the new one and hopefully it will last longer. Who knows could have been a dud unit...

 

Has the dealer been out to inspect/replace yet? There verdict?

 

Sounds like you are doing it correctly. It's possible you just got a dud catalyst. Stranger things have happened. You'll know more when the dealer checks it out. Also, don't forget to contact the stove maker and/the catalyst maker for more info.

If I had to guess; it got too hot.

 

I can't tell from the pics but is this a ceramic cat? I have a hard time believing you killed it that quickly based on the fact that you are obviously not a complete idiot
I suspect mechanical damage- like it was dropped sometime before installation or during shipping.

 

Ahhh...another good answer!

 

I wish the made a steel cat for mine.