Finally got the Encore cat "in the zone" - new member intro

Hi-

Thought I might introduce myself and say thanks to all for such a wonderful forum & site. In just a fwe months on here Ive learned sooooo much... I think I'm finally getting the hang of this catalytic burn thing.



Quick background... I'm not new to stoves, just new to EPA stoves. My father still has and uses a '79 Resolute that we heated most of the house with for many years when I was younger. Last spring my wife and I just bought our first house, that happened to come with a 10 year old Encore 2550 catalytic. The encore is definitely a different beast than the old resolute as I have come to learn.

Reading all the great info on here I did my homework. We got the install and fire dept inspection records from PO (ok), Had a sweep inspect it (freshly cleaned flue, install OK). Looks good so far.

Next was wood. POs left about 1/2 cord. Being on a small lot and not knowing how much I'd burn I ordered 2 more cords in late summer. Also got a mm. One was a lot of oak around 24% so I stacked that for this year. the other cord was typical wet at 30% so I put that aside for next. Also we took down a dead apple tree and I bought a Fiskars and split it myself just to see if I could. So now we have 1.5 cord for this year and 2 cord for next.

So now its time to burn. First fire during the early cold snap in October was a smoky mess. Even after an hour with 600F on the stovetop and damper down I get smoke out the stack. So I take out the cat later and find its in pretty bad shape, along with the secondary probe and fireback gaskets. So next step - new steelcat and a cat thermometer from Condar. Also replace the secondary probe. Luckily the fireback and hood were easy to get in and out (no warping). Refractory is in good shape except the access panel, that looks like the PO put in upside down (lip blocking the secondary air).

Next burn is much better. Smoke is mostly gone (some wisps that I decided was steam) and now Im getting real HEAT. Too much in fact. Hard to control and I got one over fire where the cat hit 1800 and started to glow. Even on low air it took a while to cool off.

So more reading. I think I got lucky and still nothing warped but the gaskets are suspect. POs had done the door and left the rest of the kit. So I did the griddle. then the ash door. And I tightened up the adjustment on both door handles. Now I have control! Adjusting the air actually makes a difference in cat temp and when I accidentally hit 1800 a second time I just turned down the air and it backed off in less than a minute! sweet!

So a few weeks later and I now really like this stove. I'm learning to trust that I can shut it down and so long as the coals are good it will low burn for hours and not go out. Had my first overnight burn with enough coals to restart last weekend, and have felt comfortable leaving the house. Even my wife, who really likes the ambiance fireplace is starting to like the stove too, though she wont try and operate it herself yet (75F instead of 68 inside is nice).

I also popped off the flue cleanout and had a look. Nothing but a light coating of fine brown powder and some brown flakes half way up. Lookin' good..

So that's where we are. Not heating 24/7 on this (gas is just too cheap and my steam radiators throw some nice heat too). Still planning to replace that refractory access and redo the fireback gasket.. but otherwise the stove is burning great and I'm really happy with it. Ive even got a fiskars, saw and protective gear and thinking about scrounging! Wife thinks I'm nuts but likes the heat.

My only complaint is not enough wood that I can burn this year (typical first year story, eh?).


Thanks to everyone on here, from another wood heat convert!!

-Jeremy in MA

Ray-

I had been burning the stove all day. Managed to time it so that it was due to reload around 9~9:30pm. There was a good 2-3in coal bed and I loaded it up full (not packed every cu in, but with ~18in splits stacked up to the griddle). Probably had 5-6 big splits in there, all hardwood. Let it burn for 15-20min then damper closed and turned down the main air to just a crack past fully closed. It was burning about 450ish. Pretty much no visible flames except for some small wisps at the back of the pile but the coals are glowing nice deep red.

At 6am the next day the stovetop was at ~200F and once you raked the ash down I got a small pile of coals, maybe two heaping handfulls or so. Not enough to start a split but I put a half dozen large (1~1.5in) kindling pieces on it and cracked the ash door and in 10min or so had the fire gong again.

So I figure I got probably 5-6 hours of good heat output, and at 8hours was able to restart without a match or paper.
(I'm lucky to have a 5' H x6' W x 4' deep mass of brick behind the stove to really store some heat)

-Jeremy

Glad to here my experience is of help, as I am just as new to this as most of you.


10 and 16hr burn times? On this stove? Even the manual doesn't claim that....

I'd believe 8-10 hours on this stove with ideal wood and new parts, but definately not 16.

I got an even better overnight burn yesterday in fact. Again I had a good heaping bed of coals around 8pm. Maybe too much but its coooold and the stove is just keeping up so I loaded her up. Probably 3 in coal bed and I put about 5 huge heavy splits. Probably mostly oak and the biggest one was a a 1/2 of an 8-9in round. Filled her right up to the griddle this time. Cranked it wide open to flame up and then shut bypass at 8:30. For a while its cruising about 1/2 air with stovetop around 550 and cat at 1250.

Come back around 9:15 and the cat temp jumped to 1650. I started to throttle it down and by 10 I'm at less than 1/4 air and the stovetop dropped to 450 but the cat is at 1700. So I shut her down completely. It just sat that way for a while so I went to bed.

When I got up at 6 there was still a good coal bed and 350-375 stovetop/650 on the cat. Open up the air and I got flames and the cat came up to 900! Thats 9 hours and it probably could have gone another hour or so and still been able to restart.

Ok so Ive got the long low burns down I think but I still seem to have trouble with the shorter hot burns without overfiring the cat. This thing seems very wood sensitive.

With 3-4 decent splits I usually have no problem maintaining a good hot griddle, but I find that if I either:

Load it all the way to the top on a big coal bed and get the entire load charred
- or -
Mix in some of the uber dry (sitting out for years, borderline punky) leftover wood I have

Then I will have very hot cat temps. I will have to keep the air below 1/4 to keep the cat probe under 1800 and the result is few to no visible flames and the griddle sometimes drops to 450. Then 1-2 hours into the burn what will happen is that (I guess ?) the wood stops the heavy out-gassing, cat temps suddenly drop to 1200-1400 and I can open her up to 1/3-1/2 which brings my griddle temps back up to 550-650. And then it will sit there for a couple more hours.
Im thinking its either my wood, or I have to let the coals burn down more.

Is this typical or am I being too paranoid backing off whenever the cat temp hits 1800? Nothing is glowing & Its a steel cat but condar says even those should be kept to 1700 or less. I'm still a little gun-shy from that one overfire I had.

Ray-
I'm in Holliston. Its about an hour up 495 from you, near the Milford exit. Our utilities are NSTAR here also. I agree their electric is pricey, but I cant complain much about the gas. Our rate is 77 cents per therm right now, which is a helluva lot easier to handle than the $3.00-4.50 per gallon I was paying for oil last 2winters in my old apartment. New place has a nice modern 83% steam boiler too, much better than the 50 year old uninsulated beast my landlord had. All told I'm probably paying less than half what I used to even though my house is minimally insulated.

We like the warmth of the wood too, however I found that last night I had to run the gas a bit to take the chill off the front rooms. Even though it was 75 in the central living room and 66-68 elsewhere, the uninsulated outer walls in the front rooms made it feel colder than it really was... my wife was freezing. Our house is only 1400 sq ft, but its 200 years old - half of its insulated to 1970s standards, half is barely insulated at all. Our heating load is probably closer to a 2000-2500 sq ft sized modern super insulated house.

raybonz said:

Sounds like insulation would pay dividends in savings and comfort level there.. Even a tiny draft can cause much discomfort.. I have a few to address in the spring/summer.. I have a 20+ yr old loghome (1st floor is log) and have to do some caulking.. The R-value of the logs is only something like R-11 but there isn't much I can do about that...

Ray

Click to expand...

I agree. Its just that most of what can be done without major demo has been done. The house is a cape with a single story addition (ell) in the back.

The back half of the house has been insulated as part of the last major reno which I think was in the 70s or 80s. Walls have R-13 bats and the ceilings have R-19. In both cases that's all that will fit. In the oldest main part of the house there appears to be insulation in one room downstairs that was renovated at some point. The other room downstairs has no insulation and plaster walls that are at least 100 years old. Adding insulation there would mean cutting holes and blowing it in.

The big problem though is the second floor. Its a cape so I have sloped ceilings and only about 4-5" of space for insulation between the drywall and the roof sheathing. There is a 2-3 inch layer of crumbling kimsul cellulose insulation in there from I believe the 50's, but to add more and maintain proper ventilation would mean dropping the ceiling. To add enough to make a real difference would mean loosing even more of the little headroom I have up there already (ceiling is only ~ 6.5ft)

Down the road we would like to someday to a renovation to the upstairs to add a bath, and maybe build out over the addition for more sq ft. If/when we do that I'll gut the second floor (except for the irreplaceable flooring and windows) and do the insulation properly. I suspect that anything less than that just wont make enough difference to be worth the investment and I'm worried about inviting moisture and ice damming if I try to blow in under the roof.
problems

In the meantime I've found and sealed just about every air leak with caulk and foam and made sure all the doors and windows are well weatherstripped. So far we have not had a gas bill over $160 so I'm optimistic.

-Jeremy