Digital Probe Thermometer for catalytic stove

[Todd]

Well, the probe just arrived in the mail so I went ahead and drilled the plate and installed it. I'll leave it as is and place my boot warmers next to it. If I want to cook something on top I can just remove the probe and lay the slab of stone back over it. Looks like I got the probe about 1" from the cat, instructions say it can be as close as 1/4". I ordered the 4" stem with 2" dial, the end of the stem sits right inbetween the cat heat shield and cast iron frame so it's right in the exhaust stream.

 

[KevinG]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread. I hadn't seen it before. Now I'm thinking about drilling the top of my Fireview for a cat temp probe, too. I need to order some gasket from Woodstock...hmmm, might as well throw in a probe!

Todd - you ordered the one from Woodstock?

 

[Todd]

I bought it from Condar since they had the 4" stem with 2" dial which worked perfect for my Keystone. I think the Woodstock probe is 6" stem and 1.5" dial but you can cut the stem down if you need to.

I came close to drilling through my Fireview last year but just couldn't bring myself to do it. I feel more comfortable drilling through the cast than the soapstone, I'm afraid I might screw it up and crack it.

I've noticed the Keystone takes a little longer to heat up to that 250 stove top than the Fireview did. Seems like all the heat was in the back of the stove. I did a lot of engaging at 200 or less and relied on flue temps. I think the cat probe will give me quicker engaging times and less time on reloads as well.

Another plus is the s/s cats being able to lite off at 400 instead of 500. It will be interesting to see where the probe temp is when I have a good bed of coals, it might still be in the lite off range and only need a couple minutes to catch before engaging again, don't have to worry about thermo shock with a steel cat and 3 year old dry wood.

 

[akennyd]

Hey Todd,

After reading more in the forums here and from personal experience, the condar probe thermos are somewhat inaccurate in that they tend to read higher temps when the bi-met spring on the back of the dial is heated up. If I am remembering correctly, I could blow cool air over the back of the dial on my condar and the temp displayed would drop... Your installation would seem to put the bi-met spring right inline to be heated up and give a higher reading. Just do a little experimenting by cooling the dial area and see if the indicated temp drops. I don't pay much attention to mine anymore... :^) I had really hoped it would give me another more reliable indication of what the cat was doing.

Hope you've been doing well,

Kenny {

 

[Todd]

Hey Todd,

After reading more in the forums here and from personal experience, the condar probe thermos are somewhat inaccurate in that they tend to read higher temps when the bi-met spring on the back of the dial is heated up. If I am remembering correctly, I could blow cool air over the back of the dial on my condar and the temp displayed would drop... Your installation would seem to put the bi-met spring right inline to be heated up and give a higher reading. Just do a little experimenting by cooling the dial area and see if the indicated temp drops. I don't pay much attention to mine anymore... :^) I had really hoped it would give me another more reliable indication of what the cat was doing.

Hope you've been doing well,

Kenny {

I've been doing well, hope your the same. Your right, there's been lots of testing here but they were flue probes not cat probes. I think the cat probes are calibrated differently, you can see the difference on the dial between the two. Not saying it couldn't be off but I'll figure it should be close enough and better than relying on stove top or flue temps.

 

[KevinG]

If I am remembering correctly, I could blow cool air over the back of the dial on my condar and the temp displayed would drop... I don't pay much attention to mine anymore... :^) I had really hoped it would give me another more reliable indication of what the cat was doing.

So you have a cat probe thermometer on your Fireview? Isn't there a hole pre-drilled for it in on the back of the stove? I looked on Woodstock's site but couldn't find more details.

 

[Todd]

I use to have the Woodstock cat probe and yes it installs in the back of the stove. As I recall the probe wasn't right up close to the cat and it was off to one side. I got rid of mine since it was hard to read and didn't think it was accurate. Everything I've researched about cat probes is they need to be close to the cat about 1" away or less otherwise your just reading exhaust gases not the cat itself.

 

[Tim IA]

Hey Todd.

You have mentioned the SS cats vs the ceramic ones. Do you now have the stainless one in your keystone? I'm curious how those will work out. Didn't know if they were available for the keystone and fireview, but knew they were going to be used in the new stove.

 

[Todd]

Tim,
My Keystone that I switched out the Fireview for last March has the s/s cat and also the new s/s scoop. My other one I bought the year before has the old scoop and ceramic cat. So far they both seem to put out the same amount of heat and stove top temps but the s/s cat does light off sooner. This new probe is on the stove with the s/s cat. The other stove is top vented and It looks more difficult to get a probe in the right spot so i'll probably leave as is.

 

[Todd]

Drilled out the top soapstone so the probe sits flush. How's it look? Maybe I should of went with a 2 3/4" instead of 3". It will be interesting to see if the probe reacts different being surrounded by soapstone.

 

[ddddddden]

Sweet!

You've got me seriously thinking 'bout tapping the top of my FV.

 

[KevinG]

I've been thinking about it but I can't just bring myself to do it yet. Maybe this winter when there's no outside work to do and I get bored! (sorry about the bad pun..heh heh)