You know your Rutland stove-top thermometer is broken when....

[joefrompa]

Your blower hadn't been turning on till it said 350-400 for 5-10 minutes, and now the blower turns on when the thermometer reads 200....

Is there any type of magnetic stove top thermometer that will not be a waste of my money?

 

[BrotherBart]

What you may know is that the snap disk that runs the blower is shot?

 

[joefrompa]

Hmm, where is that located? Honestly, my blower always was taking at least 20 minutes to turn on, so I could accept that too. However, the stove is currently behaving as if its at 450-500 degrees (I just had full-firebox secondaries for a few minutes) even though the thermometer is reading 300. So i'm still fairly certain I've got a thermometer issue...

 

[pen]

The needle / race for it could just be gunked up w/ soot / dust.

I can't speak for your thermometer but I can say my rutland's have been moved around a bunch because I'm just that sort of curious nerd and I like to see what my stove is doing in different places.

As that goes, last week I dropped one and it became a bit sticky (it believed everything in the world was 350 °F and was sticky before and I didn't trust it which is why I was moving it but the drop certainly didn't help any)

So, just before I tossed it into the waste I decided to autopsy the old girl out of respect to her good service.

Wouldn't you know but after I pulled the needle off I couldn't find a damn thing wrong with her other than my less than steady hand must have pushed the pin for the indicator a bit out of place.

I cleaned everything w/ a pipe cleaner, added some graphite powder, and put it back together at a reading I thought matched room temp. I put it on the stove and check it w/ the IR thermometer and saw it was reading about 25 degrees high so I pulled it off, let it cool a readjusted.

She's been working like a champ since.

Doesn't hurt to try if you are the curious sort.

pen