Digital stove thermometers , I like em

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Oh yeah. I have punched in 00089 to get to the settings more times than I care to ever again. Setting it to to a do a thermocouple compensation just gets you accuracy at the point that you do it and better accuracy at that point. Going up is off and so is coming down. With a cold stove compensated it is showing a 70 degree stove to be over a hundred. A day after the fire went out.

I give it credit for registering accurate room temp uncompensated. But I can buy a room thermometer for two bucks. Not a hundred.

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what I am thinking though is I think I can get to a happy medium by resetting the parameters, I am not concerned at all about what it says when the stove is cold I am more interested in the high temperatures.
After having these for a little over a week I can run my stove buy them perfectly, and see everything it is doing from across the room.
Don't get me wrong though I know my stove and I could run it without any type of thermometers
I'm surprised you say you have Rutland magnetic thermometers, that are accurate, everyone I have had was at least 75 to 200 degrees off
 
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I wonder if the paint has something to do with the accuracy or maybe the magnet. I thought I read somewhere that there should be no paint where the probe contacts the surface. Mine is off by at least 60 deg when at 500 deg. Too low. It looks like this is the case with most of the digitals. I'll keep using mine but have to remember that it is too low.
I think the spring seems kind of weak, but if you get the spring too strong the magnet is not going to hold well because it doesn't hold as well when the temperature gets high
 
what I am thinking though is I think I can get to a happy medium by resetting the parameters, I am not concerned at all about what it says when the stove is cold I am more interested in the high temperatures.
After having these for a little over a week I can run my stove buy them perfectly, and see everything it is doing from across the room.
Don't get me wrong though I know my stove and I could run it without any type of thermometers
I'm surprised you say you have Rutland magnetic thermometers, that are accurate, everyone I have had was at least 75 to 200 degrees off
Those Rutland thermometers are complete junk. I've had two and both are inaccurate. I now use a Webber thermometer from an old grill. I use it as a probe. I just drilled a hole in the pipe and stuck it in. Everyone should have a probe thermometer unless you can't get to your pipe because external pipe temp is highly inaccurate.
 
Those Rutland thermometers are complete junk. I've had two and both are inaccurate. I now use a Webber thermometer from an old grill. I use it as a probe. I just drilled a hole in the pipe and stuck it in. Everyone should have a probe thermometer unless you can't get to your pipe because external pipe temp is highly inaccurate.
that's a good idea no problem put it in some ice water and check to see if it is registering like it should
if you have an accurate magnetic thermometer on a single wall pipe, it will serve you just fine as long as you double the temperature.
Is it overkill to have, 2 IR THERMOMETERS, 2 Magnetic thermometers, and 2 digital thermometers?
Whatever I don't care, us wood burners are just not like the rest of the world
 
Got a magnetic on top of the stove at the step- tracks right along with the IR unit- 4 years old- don't remember what kind what ever Menards was selling.
 
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Is it overkill to have, 2 IR THERMOMETERS, 2 Magnetic thermometers, and 2 digital thermometers?

No, I think you're just about right. I've got 2 IR, 2 stove top (now next to useless on soapstone), and one digital flue. Still like the flue over all the rest.

I checked my Auber flue thermometer last night and this morning, since the stove was stone cold for the first time in awhile. The flue was within a few degrees of the room temp both times, so I'm not sure whether the 50 deg off was referring to a surface sensor or not but mine is pretty darn close. How that translates when you are usually reading 650, who knows???
Testing or re-setting any thermometer far out of the range where it's used is a futile process IMHO. I still have my old mercury filled 'process thermometer' for chemicals that was supposed to be +/- point 3 deg at 100 but the scale only went from mid 80's to 110.

Maybe everybody should stick their stove top thermometer under their tongue to check it. :eek::eek: ;lol;lol;lol
 
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now next to useless on soapstone

upload_2015-3-21_17-45-53.jpeg
 
The problem is not the thermometer on soapstone, it's the actual temperature. You use a thermometer to know what is going on with the fire (when to turn it down, etc). Soapstone responds so slowly to the fire that a surface thermometer becomes irrelevant (next to useless). That's why I use the flue thermometer & an IR gun on the cast iron adapter.

If you used a surface thermometer and turned the controls down when it hits 400 on soapstone, your flue could easily be 1500.
 
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The problem is not the thermometer on soapstone, it's the actual temperature. You use a thermometer to know what is going on with the fire (when to turn it down, etc). Soapstone responds so slowly to the fire that a surface thermometer becomes irrelevant (next to useless). That's why I use the flue thermometer & an IR gun on the cast iron adapter.

If you used a surface thermometer and turned the controls down when it hits 400 on soapstone, your flue could easily be 1500.

I wonder how many people running without a pipe thermometer, or have an insert without anyway to measure flue temps, get things in the pipe excessively hot without ever realizing how much heat can go up the flue when things are allowed to rip.

On single wall pipe, I find the condar magnetic unit I run on the pipe goes up just as quickly as the condar probe.
 
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I am very sure that if I knew the temp in the liner on the 30 in the fireplace sometimes on full reloads I would be heading for the liquor cabinet. With a straw.
 
Guys with inserts? How about the dealer and factory rep telling you that you don't need a thermometer. Currently I have only IR, but I am planning on getting two thermocouples installed this year.
 
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I wonder how many people running without a pipe thermometer, or have an insert without anyway to measure flue temps, get things in the pipe excessively hot without ever realizing how much heat can go up the flue when things are allowed to rip.
THANK YOU;ex;ex;ex;ex Sadly, ignorance is bliss - well, until the chimney sounds like a train running full speed.

This reminds me of something 25 years ago. One summer evening I was standing inside our glass enclosed porch with the kids watching a bad storm go by. The rain started to come down horizontally and it sounded just like a freight train was right beside us. I casually said, "Let's get inside kids, this doesn't look too good". The next morning we discovered that two tornadoes had hit, one half a mile south of us and another half a mile north of us. The hill to our west had probably saved us. Ignorance is bliss.

Two summers ago, we had a similar experience, except I was away back country hiking with the kids. This time we had a wind sheer - almost a tornado but without the funnel. One hit 50' to one side of the house, another hit 50' on the other side. No damage to the house at all but we had over 100 trees blown down and the power was out for a week. My wife spent the night huddled on the toilet wearing my hard hat. I was 200 miles away and got soaked to the skin.

Maybe somebody is telling me that I should move.;hm
 
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I wonder how many people running without a pipe thermometer, or have an insert without anyway to measure flue temps, get things in the pipe excessively hot without ever realizing how much heat can go up the flue when things are allowed to rip.

On single wall pipe, I find the condar magnetic unit I run on the pipe goes up just as quickly as the condar probe.
Yeah it makes me wonder just what kind of flue temps I was getting with my dragon , before I got a thermometer , probably pretty dang hot when the smoke alarms went off !!!
 
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How odd, my Auber has been right on the money for the past 2 years. Wonder if it is a thermocouple issue. I have it on my stove collar at the moment and I am using this thermocouple with good results: http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=20_3&products_id=307

the probe thermocouple that I put inside my single wall pipe as far as I can tell it is just about right on, just a little over double what the surface temperature on the single wall pipe is according to the IR.
On the other hand the magnet mount stovetop probe appears to be reading about 50 degrees low according to my IR.
Of course I have no real way to tell for sure if the inside pipe probe is reading accurately because the only way I have to check is with the IR on the surface of the single wall pipe.
 
How far up the pipe should a probe be mounted (inserted);?
The farther away from the stove, the lower the flue temps will be, so what information is really gained from a single location probe?

Thanks.
 
Also, can a probe type ever be incorporated into a double wall pipe in some manner;?

Is the washer type mount only for single wall? And the probe ONLY for double-walled?
 
18" up from the collar is pretty standard for probe location.
A probe thermocouple is fine for double wall or single wall ( I have both).
I would use a probe rather than a washer mount.
 
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so what information is really gained from a single location probe?
The flue probe tells you precisely what is happening with your fire. A stove top magnet or IR reading on the stove is telling you what is happening with your stove. They are very often two different things.
For example, if you close your primary air down when your stove top reads 500, the flue could easily be 1200 or even 1500. That is a very dangerous zone for your stove pipe or chimney. Cast iron stoves will take 5 to 10 min. (my guess) to heat through the iron. Soapstone will take 15 to 30 min. By then, the damage has been done.

The other advantage of a digital flue probe is that many come with an alarm. You can set the alarm at whatever temp you want. That's great is you forget to turn down the air control or if you have overloaded the stove with very dry smaller splits and you have an overfire. I've had both and they can get very scary.
There's no doubt many people have had their flues way too hot and don't even realize it.

The other side of the coin is for people who burn low. You need to get the pipe/chimney gases hot enough to prevent and/or burn off creosote on the walls.

All these scenarios can be prevented by having a probe thermometer. It's the best $65. I have even spent on my stove.
 
Check your stove manual for location. My manual calls out 14 inches above the collar and specifies an acceptable temperature range for that location.
 
My rutland is pretty close to my IR reading .
 
Wish I could say that about the ones (yep, multiple) that I have owned.
I usually dont find a difference of more than 50 deg one way or the other,the IR is very precise. When im buying a guage I buy the one that is reading room temp ,iv noticed some read Zero,Its certainly not Zero deg in the hardware store.
 
Am i reading the correct listing , Is this digital gauge really $124.00
 
I usually dont find a difference of more than 50 deg one way or the other,the IR is very precise. When im buying a guage I buy the one that is reading room temp ,iv noticed some read Zero,Its certainly not Zero deg in the hardware store.

Did the same when I bought mine. Each read well to start over the full range, but ended up losing their ability to read things on the high end. I remember for certain 2 of them failed on the high end, think the third just plain broke at some point.

One of these days when I find an extra buck to drop for the fun of it, I'll grab a digital unit. In the meantime, the condar analogs have been doing well for years as compared to an IR and each other.
 
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