By Chance

dego · Feb 3, 2007

Hello all,
I've been lurking for a couple of days now and I decided it was time to register and post question.
I experienced a rather freakish occurrence last Sunday. While loading up my 10 yo Osburn 2400 I noticed 2 cracks had developed in the cook top, emanating from the smoke pipe hole outwards, towards the center. One crack was 4" long, the other 2.5". They hadn't opened up very much, but they were visible. Of course, I became very concerned and immediately began a search to find another stove. As you can see in my sig, I am now a proud owner of a Summit, and boy, what a stove it is. More on that in a bit.
The cracks in the 2400 appear to have started exactly where the fire stop plate is welded to the bottom side of the cook top. I cannot confirm this, as I haven't yet taken the baffle apart to really have a good look. I will get at it this weekend. I always burned the stove as the book stated, allowing the secondary burn to start and throttle the stove back to anywhere between 25-50%.... depending on the temp outside. The stove was never over fired. I have always burned seasoned (I am always 2 years ahead with my wood) hardwood, consisting of maple, oak, ash and white and yellow birch. All of my wood is spilt and piled for 1 year on pallets and then moved into the wood house for the upcoming season. I built an 8X16 shed roof style wood house, which I can store about 6-6.5 cords of wood in, so there is never an issue with my wood not being seasoned.
What I would like to know is, has anyone ever had this happen to their Osburn before? If so, may I ask what was done with respect to warranty and such? I am currently corresponding with the warranty people at Osburn and they are very concerned about covering their own backside with my stove...meaning they are desperately trying to disprove my claim. I am fully aware of Osburn warranty; in that they do not cover the plate material the stove is constructed from. I am concerned though that this could be a defect which they may/should be wary over. Imagine a stove owner not as lucky as I to notice the cracks. I do not want to think of what would have happened it those cracks split and opened up and 3 am when my family was turned in.
So, I spent the afternoon on Sunday researching what was readily available in my locale. I opted for the PE Summit, primarily for the EPA rating and the heating capacity. A couple calls on Monday and I bought the stove that night.
Initially I was skeptical because of the size difference between the 2400 and the Summit. If the Osburn was the papa bear, the PE was certainly the baby!! But, the Osburn never did perform like the Summit….it kicks!

Roospike · Feb 3, 2007

WELCOME to the forum dego

The difference in size from the Osburn 2400 and the Pacific Energy Summit is .2 cf ( 3.2 vs 3.0 )

What was the final outcome from Osburn on the crack.

If a stove is going to crack the weldment points are going to be the first to show an issue.

Do you have any pictures of the crack on the Osburn?
The stove being 10 years old i dont think Osburn would of covered the issue anyway. The Pacific Energy stove have a lifetime Warranty on workmanship so you shouldn't have any future stove problems like this again. Sounds like you have more than enough experience in wood burning.

Glad you decided to post and share your experience. Welcome around the fire pit Dan.

Larry H · Feb 3, 2007

Dan -
Your experience may not be as freakish as you think. I had a similar problem with one of my stoves where a small 1&1/4 long crack formed at the lower left corner of the door opening. It is an area where (2) 1/8 inch pieces of angle come together and are welded on the backside to form the knife edge seal for the door gasket. I called the manufacturer since the stove is only 2 years old, and like your situation has never been overfired, my wood is always 2 years out, etc., and was extremely pleased with the response from the manufacturer. Finally joined the forum after having lurked and learned a ton here as well. The manufacturer is ESW, and their tech support is great. They offered to pay the bill for a mobile welding company to come to my house and fix it. However, since I build and race cars (Watkins Glen is my home track) I own a mig welder and discussed with Brandon from ESW my repair plan since it was going to be easier for me to weld it myself. Anyway, the stove is back in service and keeping us warm (it's currently 9 degrees F outside) and all is well. You can bet that I will frequently inspect both my stoves for such problems from now on though. I don't know too much about metallurgy, there are others here who could probably explain why this happened better than I can. Good luck with the PE.
Larry

dego · Feb 3, 2007

Thanks for the welcome Roo. This board seems to be an excellent source of information all around.

I grew up in a wood burning home, many different stoves back then. Dad is partial to Napoleon; he uses a 10 year old 1400 now. Back when I was a kid he had a flamethrower non EPA air tight Napoleon, he used to burn everything in it!! Old couches, rugs.... anything he thought a BTU could be squeezed out of, he burnt. Many times I laid in bed wondering when the chimney was going to fall in on itself!! He is much better now, having opted for an EPA stove. He doesn't pollute anymore, which is a good thing.

I have used basically 3 stoves since buying my home 13 years ago. A Brooklyn, which are fabricated in Lunenburg Nova Scotia. It was a barrel shaped, pseudo airtight. That thing would heat my 2000sft home no problem. It liked wood though, better part of 7 cord per year. I sold it to a guy last summer who has since fabbed a stainless door w/ a window. It looks extremely sharp.

I bought the 2400 in 1998 and used it until last Sunday. It was a champ of a stove; a little maintenance intensive though, with the t-bar supports every 2 years and the fiber blanket 2 years ago. When that thing warmed up and settled in on the secondary burn, it definitely did the job. I did however notice the stove was starting to become less efficient over time. It would not burn the bed of coals down. After a good 4-5 hour burn at 35-40% throttle, the firebox would be ½ to 2/3 full of coals, and even if I opened the draft more, it would cool off to the point I would have to shovel the coals out to make room for my next load.

With the Summit, it burns the coal bed down after each load, in a cigar fashion, which is a sure sign of a better-constructed and engineered unit. I just purchased a smoke pipe thermometer today and at 25% throttle in good secondary, the double walled pipe is reading between 290-350F, which is low end in the “good burn” scale. Even with the .2 sqft reduction in firebox size, the Summit is performing better than the 2400.

Just today was I able to find the time to take pictures of the cracks, which I emailed to the warranty person at Osburn. You are right about the location of the cracks Roo; both started where the welds of the fire stop plate ended. Very scary. I tried to take a picture to show the deflection that occurred in the area between the cracks but my digi cam does not have the pixels to show that detail. I estimate 2-3 thou variance between the area of the cracks, which is about 6-9 inches. Hopefully the following pictures will demonstrate.

As you can see in the pictures, the cracks are very prevalent. The fire stop plate is not warped, actually, I was amazed the shape it is in. The bottom side of the cook top in not charred, which would indicate abuse, such as over firing. It seems that it is definitely a design flaw and a shame that a good old stove, with many years left in it, is destined for a plasma cutter (unless Osburn will buy it back from me!?!).

Any comments, pointers or guidance will be graciously accepted. I will keep all updated whether Osburn accepts responsibility and accountability of this.

Dan

Corie · Feb 3, 2007

Classic stress concentration cracks due to the welds.

dego · Feb 3, 2007

WaterBoss said:
Dan -
Your experience may not be as freakish as you think. I had a similar problem with one of my stoves where a small 1&1/4 long crack formed at the lower left corner of the door opening. It is an area where (2) 1/8 inch pieces of angle come together and are welded on the backside to form the knife edge seal for the door gasket. I called the manufacturer since the stove is only 2 years old, and like your situation has never been overfired, my wood is always 2 years out, etc., and was extremely pleased with the response from the manufacturer. Finally joined the forum after having lurked and learned a ton here as well. The manufacturer is ESW, and their tech support is great. They offered to pay the bill for a mobile welding company to come to my house and fix it. However, since I build and race cars (Watkins Glen is my home track) I own a mig welder and discussed with Brandon from ESW my repair plan since it was going to be easier for me to weld it myself. Anyway, the stove is back in service and keeping us warm (it's currently 9 degrees F outside) and all is well. You can bet that I will frequently inspect both my stoves for such problems from now on though. I don't know too much about metallurgy, there are others here who could probably explain why this happened better than I can. Good luck with the PE.
Larry

My first incling was to weld it up Larry, but given the climate of insurance companies today, I did not want to take the chance. If anything was to happen to the stove and it set fire to my house, rest assured, the insurance scammers would spend tens of thousands attempting to prove that the weld was the cause of the problem. I never slept a wink Sunday night after I discovered the cracks...I continued to burn small fires because it was so cold out. The PE cost me 2k (don't forget I live in the land of the Northern Peso!!), which is not chump change this time of the year. Luckily I had it, or else I may have welded it myself. It infuriates my that a $1400 Osburn 2400 has a self life of 10 years. Something doesn't seem right there.
Good thing is, I now have one the the premier stoves available on the market and it impresses the he&^ out of me everytime I look at it.
Thanks for sharing your experience; nice to know I'm not alone.

Dan

Roospike · Feb 3, 2007

First problem with the Osburn crack issue is that this piece was welded where and how it was. As we know steel when heated expands and contracts , just no two ways about it , with this piece welded where it is its just bound to happen and looks like a design flaw to me , when the steel expands and contracts the welded piece is not going to let this part of the steel plate move as it should and in turn the steel plate cracks.

The only way i could see fixing this issue is to have the steel piece cut out and smoothed , take the cracks and V groove them out with a drill hole at the end of the crack to stop and further cracking. Plug weld the drill hole at the end of the crack and then weld up the V groove were the cracks are. To replace the heat shield it actually needs a better design but a couple small steel bolts could be welded to the bottom of the plate and some ring holders welded to the steel piece and bolt the steel piece in , what happens now it it lets the steel piece float as the body of the steel stove expand and contract.

Now with that said dego, take a look inside your new Pacific Energy Summit stove , what you will notice is the side rails above the brick on the sides "sit" into holders ( not welded ) and the secondary burn chamber "sits" on the side rails .........this is called a floating burn chamber , so what issues you had with the Osburn and the design flaws are not there to happen on the PE Summit so when the stove heats and cools / expands and contracts the parts of the PE Summit are allowed to move and does not cause stress points of your stove.

I would do what i could to get Osburn to buy back the stove , pro rate it or replace it if possible then sell it and to take the money and run.

If you are looking to fix it if all else fails take my points of interest mentioned above to fix it right. When welding make sure not to have any "under cut" in your welds as it will cause stress points and when the cracks are welded up to grind and sand smooth .

Good luck on the Osburn issues , with the Pacific Energy Summit you NOW have is one hell of a stove to keep you warm with a lifetime warranty to back you up. Throw another log on the fire Dan.

dego · Feb 3, 2007

All good points brother. As far as the repair you described, exactly what I will do should I find myself keeping the stove. I have a buddy who is a great welder and he has already explained the steps to re-enforce the area fully. One suggestion he had was to replace the fire stop with a tee shaped stop, with only one leg welded to the cook top. The weld would run away from the smoke hole, instead of across it, so to speak. He mentioned the stress that caused the fractures was the close proximity of the fire stop to the hole. That area flexes much more during the heat/cool down cycle due to the 6 inch hole and that was likely the root of all evil. I could do all that or I could simply go look at a new 2400 to see what they have done to solve the problem.

I know I mentioned a plasma cutter in my post above, but in all honesty, I am a bloody packrat!. I'm already formulating a plan on how to convert the old girl into a hydronic heater for my garage. I'm thinking water coils placed between the sheet metal sides of the stove and firebox, which would then feed into a chimney made by inserting a 6’ well casing into a 10’ casing, butt welded and pressure tested to 90 psi., 1 circulator, 1 zone valve, 2X10 fin cast rads and 25-30 gallons of water and I have cheap heat for the shop!! A poor mans Wood Doctor!

I digress, I can’t convince myself that Osburn will come clean and allow themselves to be held accountable. I will talk, using big words, but that is all I am able to do. It is the old buyer beware thing and I am cracked that I have heralded these stoves for so long. Hopefully none of the people I ever talked to were actually stupid enough to buy one.
The design of the Summit firebox was one of the many sellers to me. The extended burn technology is a good idea. This type of ingenuity should make cat stoves a thing of the past.

Keep the comments coming

Dan

webbie · Feb 3, 2007

No doubt it is cold up there and you actually use the stove. Not sure what the Osburn warranty is, but most do prorate after a few years. Given the age and condition of the stove, I would guess the most one could expect is some contribution toward a welding and grinding job. This is how I would repair the stove and it is likely to be a good repair - for many more years of service.

As far as the PE, we want to hear back after you've put 8 years onto that one!

dego · Feb 3, 2007

The warranty does not cover 'material failure'. They do however, cover 'welds'. I read the book no less than a dozen times on Sunday. That being the case, through my somewhat informed deduction, it was not the material that failed, but the design.....therefore the designer should accept the responsibility. But again, I am not that naive to think a company will willingly accept responsibility for a defect that happened after 10 years of champion service. I'll see what happens.

Should I hang onto the stove and repair it, I could never sell it. My conscience would not allow it. That is why I would convert it into an outdoor boiler affair, or maybe even a planter for my wife. Perhaps I'll rebirth it into a smoker, betcha I could smoke 3 hog bellies and 4 or 5 mackeral at a time !!!

The PE is getting 2 thumbs up from me right now. It is about 25F out right now, light to moderate NW wind and clear. In the basement, the stove is just settling down after a hot, 2.5 hour 'cave' burn. It is a solid 80F and 75F upstairs. Not quite underwear wearing hot, but certainly makes the cool nights more bearable.

restorer · Feb 4, 2007

dego said:
Thanks for the welcome Roo. This board seems to be an excellent source of information all around.

I grew up in a wood burning home, many different stoves back then. Dad is partial to Napoleon; he uses a 10 year old 1400 now. Back when I was a kid he had a flamethrower non EPA air tight Napoleon, he used to burn everything in it!! Old couches, rugs.... anything he thought a BTU could be squeezed out of, he burnt. Many times I laid in bed wondering when the chimney was going to fall in on itself!! He is much better now, having opted for an EPA stove. He doesn't pollute anymore, which is a good thing.

Dan

Welcome Dan:
Join the well of knowledge. By the way thanks for adding a new acronym to old stoves. We now have smoking Dragons and Flamethrowers

You will get your answers here.

dego · Feb 7, 2007

I heard back from the warranty person from Osburn today. He agreed that the cook top is pooched and did not recommend a repair. That is a good sign. Here is the exact reply. He is a French Canadian and therefore his English ain’t that good:

“ Hi,
there is no easy way to fix it. The top have to be removed the top and replaced with a new one. We can send you the parts and job been done locally or you can ship the stove to our production plant, but you will have to pay for shipping back and forth. If you know a good welders shop it could be done, but it's almost a day of job.”

Now, as I mentioned previously, fixing the stove is not really an option of mine. In my minds eye, to do this properly, the stove should be sent back to the production plant, repaired, recertified (Warnock Hersey, UL and CSA) and then sold as a repaired unit. As he said, it would be my responsibility to ship the stove to and from. In Canada shipping heavy items like a stove would be astronomical….close to 1k I suspect. On a repaired and recertified, 10 year old 2400, I would be dreaming if I thought I could get close to $500 for it. This does not make sense to me.

If I were able to get them to send the repair parts gratis under warranty, I would still have to pay a shop 1-2 days labor, at $35-40 per hour for the repair. I am quickly approaching $500 and this option is not cost effective to me. So, I figure I have a 525lb boat mooring sitting in my basement!!

I suppose my only option is to go after money, or some kind of compensation. It is brutally obvious to me that Osburn recognizes their fault. The crack was almost certainly caused by a design failure. I feel I cannot be expected to suck this up. Dammit, the unit was only 10 years old! I may suggest they pay to have the stove shipped back to their plant for testing/examination by the R&D section, and pay me a sum in restitution for buying a substandard product 10 years ago. I apologize for my negative words, but I truly believe it is warranted.

I will present this to them and see what they say. I get the impression from the email that they may be willing to talk.

On the plus side, the Summit is absolutely amazing. It is –15C out tonite and a very comfortable 20C in the house. I forgot to mention earlier, I own a 2000sqft manufactured log home, which has issues. On a windy night it will blow out candles on the kitchen table !!!

Not really, but it is not the tightest house ever built. I don’t mind that so much though, I could not imagine living in a stick-framed house, wrapped in plastic. I buy my firewood cheap, $80 per cord in 8 foot lengths. My yearly heating costs are lower than 2 tanks of oil. This time of year, a couple of my buddies have their tanks filled every 3 weeks!

Roospike · Feb 7, 2007

dego said:
I heard back from the warranty person from Osburn today. He agreed that the cook top is pooched and did not recommend a repair. That is a good sign. Here is the exact reply. He is a French Canadian and therefore his English ain’t that good:

“ Hi,
there is no easy way to fix it. The top have to be removed the top and replaced with a new one. We can send you the parts and job been done locally or you can ship the stove to our production plant, but you will have to pay for shipping back and forth. If you know a good welders shop it could be done, but it's almost a day of job.”

Now, as I mentioned previously, fixing the stove is not really an option of mine. In my minds eye, to do this properly, the stove should be sent back to the production plant, repaired, recertified (Warnock Hersey, UL and CSA) and then sold as a repaired unit. As he said, it would be my responsibility to ship the stove to and from. In Canada shipping heavy items like a stove would be astronomical….close to 1k I suspect. On a repaired and recertified, 10 year old 2400, I would be dreaming if I thought I could get close to $500 for it. This does not make sense to me.

If I were able to get them to send the repair parts gratis under warranty, I would still have to pay a shop 1-2 days labor, at $35-40 per hour for the repair. I am quickly approaching $500 and this option is not cost effective to me. So, I figure I have a 525lb boat mooring sitting in my basement!!

I suppose my only option is to go after money, or some kind of compensation. It is brutally obvious to me that Osburn recognizes their fault. The crack was almost certainly caused by a design failure. I feel I cannot be expected to suck this up. Dammit, the unit was only 10 years old! I may suggest they pay to have the stove shipped back to their plant for testing/examination by the R&D section, and pay me a sum in restitution for buying a substandard product 10 years ago. I apologize for my negative words, but I truly believe it is warranted.

I will present this to them and see what they say. I get the impression from the email that they may be willing to talk.

On the plus side, the Summit is absolutely amazing. It is –15C out tonite and a very comfortable 20C in the house. I forgot to mention earlier, I own a 2000sqft manufactured log home, which has issues. On a windy night it will blow out candles on the kitchen table Not really, but it is not the tightest house ever built. I don’t mind that so much though, I could not imagine living in a stick-framed house, wrapped in plastic. I buy my firewood cheap, $80 per cord in 8 foot lengths. My yearly heating costs are lower than 2 tanks of oil. This time of year, a couple of my buddies have their tanks filled every 3 weeks!

So when they said the above statement they ment YOU or THEM to pay for the labor? Sounds like you are ment to pay the fiddler.

I would start thinking of maybe a settlement price you both can agree on. What ever it is , its going to be low to you and high to them.

Roospike · Feb 7, 2007

You can also call around to fabrication shops to see what they say.

In my fab shop if i had the pre built parts already on hand i could cut off the top and weld the new one back on with in an hour ( 30 minutes with no problems ) but normally a fab shop has a minimum 1 hour charge.

Just some extra FYI to load in your head.

restorer · Feb 7, 2007

Roospike said:
You can also call around to fabrication shops to see what they say.

In my fab shop if i had the pre built parts already on hand i could cut off the top and weld the new one back on with in an hour ( 30 minutes with no problems ) but normally a fab shop has a minimum 1 hour charge.

Just some extra FYI to load in your head.

Another thought. Sell the potentially good stove. By that I mean, sell the stove as-is with the parts to some one willing and able to do the repairs. I've bought many projects over the years with replacement parts included that made the deal. Save the buyer money and gets you off the hook for selling a dangerous stove.

elkimmeg · Feb 7, 2007

This type of ingenuity should make cat stoves a thing of the past.

Here I was thinking I was doing my best by burning the cleanest most effecient stoves on the market, Nearly 80% effeciency. I now find that
I must be missing something. My Cat combustors keep on firing off down to 380 degrees. They are burning and extracting heat from smoke, that other stoves can not approach. I do not need internal stove temps of 1000 degres to burn smoke, like non cat secondary stove do. I can burn them using 62% less heat and contiune burning the particulates in temps a non cat stove could never achieve. So what makes them a thing of the past? Why would major manufactures get their cat stoves re-certified till year 2011? Why does one of the highest quality manufactures still employ the past technology Woodstock? Man all Woodstock owners must be pissed, their stove preforms so much cleaner and more effecient than the non cat competition. All auto ownwer are pissed because they want to burn leaded gass and polute our enviorment. Combustor technology has made advancements, be it in our autos or stoves . Tell me one part you can replace in a Osburn or PE that can extend your burning preformance 25%? My Stove, combusor.com ,do from ignition of 550 now lowered to 380. It has expanded the combustor and secondary burn range 25% What add on or replacement part can do the same for non cat stoves? I know there exist a super cat that is reputed to last longer and burn cleaner that any on the market today. Early rumors are, that it burns even more particulates, extracting more heat out of the smoke.

So what do you know that major manufactures are re-certifing cat stoves and investing quite a bit of R&d into cat research, they should know ? Enlighten us with some facts please?

Roospike · Feb 7, 2007

Makes you wonder.

Out of the 562,000 wood burning stoves sold a year (2005 stats) I wonder how many of the total are cat combuster stoves ? 15% ? 10% less ?

Not a lot of stove manufactures making cat stoves , the ones that did are changing over and have very few if any cat model at all in there line up.

I think bottom line on cat stoves is there harder to operate for the the majority of buyers and also the clean burning of the cat stove degrades after a few years and replacement is needed in up to 6 years , Performance at the end of 6 years when needing replacement is down 50% of what it was when new and that is assuming only the cat combuster is bad.

Another issue with stoves is the majority with wood being bought and also self cut is that there is going to me a bigger majority of people burning less then good seasoned wood then people actually burning 2 year well seasoned wood. We know what happens to a cat combuster with wet and or unseasoned wood , thermal shock , cracks ,combusters degrade twice as fast ad they should , clogging , not being cleaned and maintained yearly .

With all the wood being sold today there is a very small % that that the wood is actually fully seasoned , not good on cat combusters.

I've noticed on my secondary burn chamber (non cat ) that the less the wood is seasoned the more secondary burn i get. This would be 2-4 years seasoned VS 9 months seasoned. Unless being significantly overfired and bad user error ( forgetting to shut the door) it would be real hard to damage or degrade a secondary combustion non-cat stove.

Elk , I would defiantly put you in the top 5% of pro wood burners but the big majority of wood burners are not as anal as we are about perfect high efficient wood burning. The stove companies are not marketing the top 5% , there marketing the 95% and the other 5% just fall in place.

elkimmeg · Feb 7, 2007

My intrepid combustor cost $59 It is cleaned 3 time a year most of the time it is excersise in cleaning one that does not need cleaning. ESw guy has a fine working combustor going on 13 years

All stove preformance is reduced due to acccumulations of fly ash. As for harder to work many, here would welcome set the igniter and for get 8 plus hours of productive heat, nothing to do, no baby sitting or re loads. Recent past post all wished they kept there cat Stoves .for ease of use over the newer extra burn type technology

Currently the Intrepid is a cat Encore and defiant then the cast Dutchwest Large medium and small a have cat models. All models of Woodstock are cats Blaze kings are cats.

Like any stove maintance is the key to cat preformance and longevity. Did you know one can restore a cat boiling it in 1/2 water and vinigear solution? Btw I do have the original 20 year old cat from my Intrepid. Guess what it works fine no honey comb degration still intact. The 7 years is a warranty issue. Many cars drive past their warranty time and are not discarded and replaced. My 1964.5 mustang was a daily driver, up till I sold it a few years back.

You are probably correct in the percentage of cat stoves sold. Non cat technology has approached the cat stoves in effeciency but in general cat stoves burn cleaner longer and more effecient
If I have to spend $60 every 3 years to do it, that' a small price for burning cleaner. Wifes tale they are harder to opperate. How many post do we have where the non cats are so draft sensitive that they do not function at peak effeciency. Very few post complaining about Cat stove draft requirements. I can't remember one. I submit, they are more forgiving now and less work to opperate. just about set and forget.. As for working it the way a stove should be. I should not be in the top 5% all should strive to do the same if they did we would have very few post to respond to For that matter if one took the time to read their manual we would have a lot less post period.

BrotherBart · Feb 7, 2007

elkimmeg said:
This type of ingenuity should make cat stoves a thing of the past.

Click to expand...

Here I was thinking I was doing my best by burning the cleanest most effecient stoves on the market, Nearly 80% effeciency. I now find that
I must be missing something. My Cat combustors keep on firing off down to 380 degrees. They are burning and extracting heat from smoke, that other stoves can not approach. I do not need internal stove temps of 1000 degres to burn smoke, like non cat secondary stove do. I can burn them using 62% less heat and contiune burning the particulates in temps a non cat stove could never achieve. So what makes them a thing of the past? Why would major manufactures get their cat stoves re-certified till year 2011? Why does one of the highest quality manufactures still employ the past technology Woodstock? Man all Woodstock owners must be pissed, their stove preforms so much cleaner and more effecient than the non cat competition. All auto ownwer are pissed because they want to burn leaded gass and polute our enviorment. Combustor technology has made advancements, be it in our autos or stoves . Tell me one part you can replace in a Osburn or PE that can extend your burning preformance 25%? My Stove, combusor.com ,do from ignition of 550 now lowered to 380. It has expanded the combustor and secondary burn range 25% What add on or replacement part can do the same for non cat stoves? I know there exist a super cat that is reputed to last longer and burn cleaner that any on the market today. Early rumors are, that it burns even more particulates, extracting more heat out of the smoke.

So what do you know that major manufactures are re-certifing cat stoves and investing quite a bit of R&d into cat research, they should know ? Enlighten us with some facts please?

Ok. Now I am a little confused. VC says in the manuals for their new cat stoves to use a surface thermo and to engage the cat at a stove top temp of at least 450*. On my non-cat the secondary burn starts firing before 450* stove top temp and becomes steady between 450* and 500*. I don't see a lot of difference here.

Sounds like that VC has to be kicking around a thousand degrees in the firebox also. And I don't have to remember to engage the cat. Hmmm... I don't have to remember to engage it on my cars either.

Roospike · Feb 7, 2007

All good points Elk.

It would be great if wood dealers had properly seasoned wood and it would also be nice if more mataince was done to keeps stoves up to par. I wonder how many cat stove users actually clean there cat combuster twice or even once a year? I wonder how many clean them at all ?

He(( , I've seen door gaskets that looked orignal to a 25-30 year old stove so it makes you wonder.

elkimmeg said:
Recent past post all wished they kept there cat Stoves .for ease of use over the newer extra burn type technology

You must be talking about all the black post and different threads of problems of the new Vermont Castings Dutchwest Everburn stove.

Gunner · Feb 7, 2007

Welcome to the forum Dego, to bad about the osburn...hopefully you get what is fair.

I wonder if they have changed the design at all in the last 10yrs? You can't be the only one this has happened to.

This got me thinking, to all those with a "CLASSIC" PE model have you ever removed the outer enameled surface to inspect the steel plate beneath?

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