Wood master cleanfire

I'm always nervous about catalysts in the long term. ASME is nice though.
haven't seen one in person though.

Certainly a different direction than every other owb epa downdraft gasser. I like the modulating design based on the delta t of the supply and return lines, I assume that's how they will get away using the cat but I don't know how well it will work without storage. It is only 100k btu max output. I heard the price point is around 10k.

It looks pretty complicated, I saw one of their Flex-Fuel units once and had the same opinion about that boiler. Where you going to find an Austrian technician to fix the thing when you live in Butte MT.?

It does look complicated. Wondering how you get at the catalytic & HX area for simple cleaning & service, for one thing.

I've been kind of wondering for a while if a catalytic setup could be incorporated into a boiler. Seems it can. But then my thoughts turned to - with storage, why bother? Catalytics are used on wood stoves to gain long, slow burns (or maybe that is just a side benefit?). So if you can burn simpler, just as clean, with a gasification chamber - and not have to worry about what to do with excess heat because you have storage, I'm not sure the benefits are very clear cut.

I wouldn't consider this a "gassification" boiler. I believe they use the cat to get the high heat? Cat looks pretty easy to access from what they showed in the video. Just a cover in the back I the stove. I could be wrong but I think they are using a cat because of the "modulating output".

I wonder how well it works though during the shoulder season when the days need as few as zero btus per hour.

It is good to see that WoodMaster put some brain power into a "different" concept

I played around with catalytic designs myself for about 5 years.
My biggest concern is the longevity of the catalytic combustor.
If it is a ceramic type I don't see it to last more then 1 season, if at all, because it will see big temp swings, unless you use the torch all the time
If it is a metal type then the risk is that it will clog up very fast (finer mesh) because there is no automatic bypass for colder wood gas.

Also, I could not see any cleaning mechanism for the firetubes - you need them, plain and simple!

The cost savings on the water treatment will now go towards the catalytic combustor(s)
Wet wood, green wood or wood with a MC of >20% is the biggest enemy for catalytic combustors

For this unit to burn hot you need to integrate thermal water storage somewhere.
Smoldering will have a negative effect on the catalytic combuster

After all, with a couple improvements, this may well be a good concept.

The outdoor aspect will always be very appealing to many users