Tools to monitor stove, stove pipe and chimney temps, and draft

I would think an X HVAC dude would if anybody would...

 

Nope! No manometer here!

 

If I remember correctly BDF who is an engineer runs several thermocouples to tell him cat temp, Stove top, firebox and flue..

 

I did not see this thread until now.

Yes, I measure four points on my stove for temperature, at the top (inside) of the firebox, just above the combustor where a lot of people measure it, on the hottest part of the stove top and the flue temp., from inside the stove pipe. All measurements are taken with thermocouples and feed into a display and recording unit. There are posts which contain both photos as well as graphs generated by this setup but I just cannot seem to find any at the moment. You should be able to find at least some of these posts by searching for 'thermocouple', ' temp readout', 'temp graph' and similar searches.

It is certainly not necessary to do this and humans have been burning wood for heat for a long time without any measuring devices. But I do think these monitors help me to run the stove efficiently, and I think they really help a huge amount to learn how a new stove behaves.

I do not measure draft. My draft is a bit high and I put a key damper in the flue above the stove for those very cold times when I have trouble controlling the stove normally.

 

Some of you may be forgetting I burn wood and black rocks (anthracite nut coal).

These tools aren’t really necessary for burnjng the wood. I need hot enough temps with good dry wood to keep creosote from forming heavily in the chimney. We have that covered already and I don’t need the gadgetry for burning wood in the stove.

I’m doing this for two main reasons.

1. Not enough draft and the resulting coal gases building up in the chimney presents two hazards...CO2 poisoning and a possible thunderous explosion resulting in stove pipe blown off the wall and fly ash all over the inside of the home. We want to obviously prevent that. The only real down side to burning the black rocks.

2. The main reason...
I am going to be making changes to my chimney possibly by adding more height as well as shrinking the diameter of the chimney liner, insulating, etc. I want to see AND be certain how each effects how the chimney draft increased, if by much at all. I assume it will increase. How much is what I will be trying to find out.

The reason for the instruments is to record what my current set-up is doing and to record each individual change, added height, as well as shrinking the diameter which will increase the draft as well...but by how much...will be determined by the tools and keeping records.

How will this benefit me and the forum. Personal knowledge for all of us to use by seeing my existing chimney, how it functions now, versus how it the changes will affect chimney performance during and during some experimentation, as well as after final changes.

Myself and others stand to gain from seeing how certain might effect changes they might want/need to make on an old chimney as well.

It’s not about monitoring the stove so much as it is monitoring the engine.

BDF, I will search with the key words you mentioned and see what I come up with. I’d be interested in seeing your set-up.

 

Here is what I found in a search of BDF posts that have proved extremely helpful.

Now...what I'd like to find is something similar to this, but something that can give "real time" input to an iPhone app. Of course this is not needed for what I am trying to do, but I might as well kill two birds with one stove and use it to see "real time" adjustments of stove changes via the air controls and/or a pipe damper. The key is finding something affordable. The unit BDF is certainly reasonable enough in price if I can't find something to read in "real time".

BDF I am still researching some of the pages with the key words you mentioned, but your suggestions were really great help. If I can't find something similar to work with an iPhone app, then this will certainly work. Thank you!

 

Thanks for the kind words. I like to help if I can, and I have also gained a lot of knowledge from this forum along with a few chuckles.

As to the real- time app., I have not found one and I have been looking. There are quite a few multi- input temp. monitoring systems (hardware and software app.) available, in fact I use one I live very much for cooking. The problem with them for stove use is that they use thermistors for sensors and they fail at far lower temperatures than what wood burns at and especially the combustor. The sensors needed for wood stoves are thermocouples, which is simply two alloys of metal melded together to form a junction and because they are all metal, will withstand temps. upwards of 2,000F or even more in some cases. Thermistors are all toast by 700F and usually quite a bit lower than that. But even when used for food sensing I have fried more than one thermistor, especially the wires laying across the grate while cooking food. So I have been looking for some type of remote monitoring device, preferably with a phone app., that is thermocouple based and just cannot find one. Thermocouples are more expensive than thermistors and the circuit to sense them is far more complicated and sophisticated and I am pretty sure that is the reason they are not used for food cooking- few people would pay the additional money required.

I cannot find my earlier posts showing my recording unit, thermocouples or most of the graphs either. ?? No idea why that is the case.

 

Colder here. What's your temp? What ya burnin?

 

Great- I could not find that. And a few posts above is a graph made using the data from the logger. The stored data is useful to see how the stove burned overnight and can be used to tweak the future burns.

 

BDF I wonder if this would work???


What do you think? It appears it can be used as a hand held device that also transmits to iOS in real time, I think. I’m still looking and researching.


Would be nice to just download an app that accepts signals from thermocouples and gives temp data and allows logging the data, be it 2, 4, or 8 channels, right in the app and also works via Bluetooth to move information to a computer or monitor info on computer in teal time.

 

I do not see a photo or a link?

 

Works for me...

 

There is something on the left side of the screen holding back the cursor but I cannot see anything. Also tried Firefox and got the same results. ?? ??

Hoytman, can you send the link in a private message or via e-mail? Thanks.

 

Try this ... PerfectPrime TC0521 K, J, E, T, N, R, S type 4 Ch Thermocouple Thermometer

 

OK, got that link.

Unit looks good overall and will do everything the display / recorder I am using does.

One small downside is that the one you found apparently does not all external power in place of on- board batteries, I use an AC power supply ('wall wart') to power my unit and skip the batteries. But that issue can be worked- around by using rechargeable batteries and having a charger w/ spare batteries near the recorder. Provided it yields reasonable life on a set of batteries of course. The only downside to using rechargeable batteries is that when the batteries are swapped it will probably power- down and you will have to reset the internal clock / calendar as well as all the settings of the unit itself which is kind of a pain in the butt.

Assuming the Bluetooth works as advertised, that unit should work quite well for monitoring a wood stove. D/Ling the data will not be an issue because the amount of data is minimal, even after days and days of recording. If you do try it out, by all means please do update us on how it works for you.

 

Nope...not pulling the trigger yet. That was the first one I found after starting my own search. LOL!

I know what you mean about electric versus batteries. Electric certainly has its benefits.

 

You don't like that Smoke system?

 

Not sure what you mean.

 

The Smoke thermometer system that I linked earlier...

 

Nothing at all wrong with it. I just figure the boy will scarf it from me for his grills. He has relieved me of my cooking duties and my grills and added mine to his collection. He might let me use them.