"Crumbled into ashes," or cracked? Why did you put in a new combustor if the old one is "working fine?" And what are the firewood myths you're trying to bust?
Hmmm, know why the Country Flame is prone to eat cats? A neighbor has a BBF and said his cat was cracked after one year. I just wrote it off to the fact that he's always opening the door to toss in a couple more splits, and figured he either shocked the cat that way or threw in some wetter splits a few times with a hot combustor and closed the bypass right away.
You would think. But if the stove is prone to eat cats, then the steel cat just distorts and delaminates to the point of being unserviceable. That's my experience anyway.If he has an old one that still works fine, he probably isn't throwing ice water on the cat or anything
You could always go steel if you have a history of crumbling ceramic, though.
By working fine I mean it's not crumbling, but it's not giving a good secondary burn. I got the new one from north line express, which showed a picture of a condar. When it arrived, the box said sand hill manufacturing. I called sand hill directly and was told the warranty was invalid since I didn't mail in the warranty card. I only got about 2 weeks use out of the cat. As for firewood myths, the first one I heard was 31 years ago. My neighbor told me that you can only burn oak and nothing else. I was skeptical so I started learning about trees and how to identify them. I burned about 30 different kinds of wood in my old appalachian 4n1 stove and found that any wood that is dry will give you some usable heat. I also discovered some real gems like hickory, locust, beech, sugar maple, persimon, Bradford pear, and most recently serviceberry. I also just discovered that I can split black tupelo by hand if the temp is down around zero.
Oh, and by the way, my stove is a clayton clay 60 built in 1989. The application charts list a 25 cell combustor for all pre 1992 clayton stoves. And yes, one half of the new combustor is in small pieces or dust. I would like some feedback on steel cats from anyone who has used one. I also bought one from clear skies but I have not tried it yet.
