cat-clean burn hybrid?

[jpl1nh]

Just went up to woodstock stove today. Wanted to see what these stove really looked like. I must say, they truly are beautiful stoves. Wish they made a smaller version of the fireview, in my opinion, its the most beautiful stove I've ever seen. While touring the factory, we talked with some R&D guys who had a fireview crankin away at about 725 stove top! They had it hooked up to several different probes, and turns out they were playing around with the concept of introducing some extra oxygen, in the burn chamber, pre cat, kind of a secondary burn concept. What they were saying they had found so far was that if they got too much oxygen in, the post cat gases were actually dirtier than without any additional oxygen. My impression was that basically it left the cat with too little fuel to maintain combustion. However, they did believe that by getting a secondary oxygen flow fine tuned, ie reduced a bit from what they had there, and slowing the flow through the combustor, they might succesfully further reduce the emissions from their current cat only levels. I know one of you guys out there had postulated this possibility a few days ago.
I stopped in a stove shop today who sold Lopi, Hearthstone, Avalon, and Harmon. I commented that he didn't offer any cats. His answer was that they were more difficault to run and gave you only slightly better return, have to replace them...yada yada, yada. I left there thinking about how little thought we often give to the possibilities in the future, making assumptions only on the known limitations we have experienced in the past. First, I must point out that I'm not confident that this salesperson was that familiar with current cat technolgy, but secondly, we all might ask, do we have the best catalytic converters possible now?, or can new techology make them longer lasting, burn at lower temps, even better efficiencys etc. Are there concepts aside fron clean-burn, ever burn, cat technolgies, that we haven't even thought of. I love reading this forum, cause you guys keep thinking and putting out ideas. I think there is still plenty of room for future improvments, cat, non-cat, or even some hybridization like the folks at Woodstock were playing around with. Keep on playin, keep on burning, we've seen major changes in the last couple of decades that have made stoves better than ever. I'm excited that these changes could just keep on happening. One day you may say "Lets see, I put in 2 splits of oak day before yesterday, probably oughta check and see if its ready for more...." Oh yeah, and just ignore those folks at the stamp out wood buring web site. One good California wild fire makes all the wood stoves we're burning seem like fresh air. They are the ones blowing smoke, not us!

 

[webbie]

One concern with clean stages before converters is this - converters LOVE all those unburned gases, as they largely feed upon their own heat. So if you clean up the woodsmoke too much beforehand, you will have to make the converters much smaller or somehow else match the surface area in order to maintain critical mass.

Technology will march on, but probably not at the same speed that it did. Once you get to a certain point, improvements are tougher. We also have to sort our way through "marketing speak" (EBT, EverBurn, MachoBurn, SteroidBurn, CleanBurn) and whatever else the sale dept comes up with, and concentrate on whether the stove will do the job in our own particular situation.

 

[jpl1nh]

And, of course, whether the average person can easily use it!

 

[Roospike]

And, of course, whether the average person can easily use it!

I think that has a lot to do with what stoves are sold today. Just like the sales people telling you non cat is the way to go because .................. XXX reasons. There is step 1 to how wood stove are going to sell at the store front , secondly is going to be how user friendly and easy to run the stove is to the buyer , these are 2 of the big strikes against cat stoves and then there is a little more mataince to them as well. Add all this up and the magority is going to go the other way and the stove manufactures go with what sells .

We had some threads a wile back about stoves made and the number of manufactures ect , ect and in the thread it was mentioned that cat stove only now make up around 10% of the total sales of wood burning stoves. As we have seen everburn come into play i think we will see more designs in the future making stove a little better , but as Craig said , now there is less room for big changes then there was from the old pre EPA stoves.

More thoughts on the the comment of burning 2 splits and coming back 24 hours to reload , wood only has so many BTUs be lb per log so even with 100% efficient stove your still only going to get XX amount of BTUs.

Always looking forward to new technology.

 

[elkimmeg]

Vc is thinking of introducing (a super cat using everburn technology They claim to have produced the super cat, but not out of the common cermanic chemical base but using stainless steel

the cost to manufacture is too prohibited to find its way into todays stoves yet

 

[Todd]

Sounds like you had a great tour. Take any pictures? Did Woodstock say anything about a new stove in the near future?

I think in the next few years somebody may come out with some kind of cat/noncat/everburn combo. But like Roo says, they will have to make it user friendly to sell. Maybe our own Corie has a plan?

 

[Gunner]

With how popular they are with wood burning "guru's" IMO they could stand to benifit from something in the 3cuft range.

 

[Roospike]

With how popular they are with wood burning "guru's" IMO they could stand to benifit from something in the 3cuft range.

I agree , It might of been a stove i could of looked at but the limited size put it on the far back burner so to speak.

Unsure if they cant over come emissions to that size of firebox or what the case is but one would think it could open a whole new market to themselves with a larger size stove.

What was the talk a wile back about Hearthstone coming out a with a monster soapstone stove ..... what was the box size on it boys ? 4.5 ~ 5 cubic feet ?

 

[jpl1nh]

Todd, sorry, didn't even think to take pics, and no mention of a new stove in the future, though the testing they were doing certainly leads me to believe they are looking at ways to improve. For me, I would love the classic fireview look in a midsize stove. I like the keystone and palladian but they are both slightly contemporary looking. Obviously for others, looks like a stove even larger than the fireview might be in order, though I must say the fireview they had going full bore while we were there was throwing some pretty impressive heat! Roo, of course you're right, 2 splits will never carry 2 days (unless they can cuase a fusion reaction!) theres only so many btus in a pound of wood. But there is still theoretical room like the possibility to see if anyone can squeeze the efficiencies up past the 72% range. If its possible, a cat (perhaps VC's supposed "super cat for example) that fires off at a lower range for instance capturing more of that heat lost up the chimney in startup and refueling.