summit said:
I have seen what i see as a disturbing trend in woodburning units over the last few years. Many producers are installing chessey ceramic baffles in the woodstove on the market. There are some (lopi, PE, jotul, woodstock) that still stick to steel, cast, and or bricks in their baffle which hold up to impact, but many out there do not. Napoleon, archgard, englander, hearthstone, dutchwest, regency, enviro, vermont castings ( the list goes on ) have a thin ceramic board which punctures easilly and flakes off chunks within a year of use.
I'm trying to figure out how to say this without sounding insulting. Please don't make assumptions, and insult people who design things unless you have a full understanding of why things are designed that way. It only makes you look cheesy. Companies are not always sacrificing quality for cost, and this is not a cost issue.
Those "cheesy" light panels are cheesy and light for a reason. These refractory panels are exceptionally light because they heat up very easily and act like a glow plug in a diesel engine, to improve the secondary combustion efficiency (though a diesel only uses the plugs to start). If your stove is operating up to temperature, that cheesy light panel will glow red hot as smoke rises and combines with the secondary air to produce the secondary combustion. This red hot glow serves as a "catalyst" to burn up the smoke. This is not a chemical catalyst as in typical CAT stoves, but you can think of it as a thermal catalyst. The panels are not made light to cut cost, but they dramatically improve the effectiveness of your secondary. Let me give you an illustration. When I first installed my 1401 insert, Napoleon used some light firebricks up at the top of the firebox. Those bricks would glow red when the secondary was in full swing. After a few years, the bricks started to disintegrate. By that time, Napoleon (Wolf Steel) had replaced the firebricks with these cheesy light panels. After this replacement, the stove's operating temperature went up by about 100 degrees with the same burn time. Why? Because the cheesy refractory panels improve the secondary performance enough to generate that much more combustion and heat.
If your complaint is about how fragile they are, then be a little more careful not to scrape firewood against them when you load up your stove. I find that the refractory panels, even though they are very light, are more durable than the firebricks. That is, the panels don't crack and disintegrate the way the older bricks did. Sure, my panels are scratched up on the inside from hitting them with logs, but I have yet to poke a hole all the way through them. And when I do, I won't mind replacing the panels. They are well worth it with the performance improvement they bring. They are a maintenance item like spark plugs. They are a delicate part that wears and eventually needs to be replaced.
