Condar Temp Probe vs. The Thermocouple...

[fmer55]

nice work, i hadev an insert so i don't even use the thermometers but i found this to be one of the most entertaining string si have read........was hooked early then dissapointed by the delay from the 25th to 31st, but back she came, like a fire from the ashes....nice work!

 

[Todd]

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to loosen it up and adjust mine down 100 degrees to get it closer to Wess's thermocouple readings. I'm pretty convinced Condar's probe reads high after all the evidence. If that don't work I guess it's back to the old external temps.

 

[begreen]

A thermometer isn't doing it's job if it reports with a bias. It's either accurate within the advertised specs or not. If not, return it.

 

[BrotherBart]

Starts to sound like "If any part of the stove is glowing red, you are overfiring." is about as good as any of these overpriced things we have been depending on for many years. And I have more doubts about my IR thermo than I even do about surface thermos. I think it is whack at high temps.

 

[Battenkiller]

Starts to sound like "If any part of the stove is glowing red, you are overfiring." is about as good as any of these overpriced things we have been depending on for many years.

Well, that's the system that worked for me until I met everybody here.

And I have more doubts about my IR thermo than I even do about surface thermos. I think it is whack at high temps.

If you are getting erratic readings as the flue temps are rising, it may be due to turbulence inside the flue moving hot flue gases back and forth. My IR is about tens times as fast to respond as my magnetic ones and behaves like that during rapid heating. It seems very stable once the burn stabilizes. Yours may be different. I spent a rather princely sum for mine compared to some folks here, but I wanted a "last word" type indicator to use as an accurate reference instrument.

 

[Peter B.]

Quote: Condar Advertising

When properly installed, the FlueGard accurately reads flue-gas temperatures, with an error margin less than 5%.

Quote: Tim Pope - Vice President, Condar

You’re welcome; we aim to please here at Condar!

I can’t disagree with your analysis and comparisons and am glad to know you found that positioning the FlueGard a little higher on the pipe helped. I guess it best that it read a little high because I think most folks tend to burn too hot rather than too cool, so the indication is protecting the “high heat burners.”

On careful reflection, I have to say I would much prefer accuracy to 'protection'... thanks all the same.

Especially when accuracy is a specific product claim.

But I guess I'm hard to please.





Peter B.





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[pen]

On careful reflection, I have to say I would much prefer accuracy to 'protection'... thanks all the same.

Especially when accuracy is a specific product claim.

But I guess I'm hard to please.





Peter B.





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I agree.

The problem with this probe cannot be fixed by adjusting the face. The problem is the scale is incorrect. EVERY test we have tried to come up with shows these probes reading no less than 100 degrees high. Additionally, The safety zones (even if the probe were reading correctly) require a ridiculously low stove temperature if you are trusting the "normal" range at a level of 18 inches above the flue collar. In all, I think it is a heavy duty and consistent thermometer, that just needs a redesigned face to reflect ACTUAL values.

From what I have been finding with my stove is that my readings are "reasonable" with the thermometer placed 28 inches up the stove pipe directly into my 90 degree elbow. At this level on my stove pipe, my "normal" stove operation will fall within the "normal" limits of the thermometer. Here, the only time I go above their recommended temps is when I first load the stove and am getting the wood charred.

At this level, it pretty consistently reads 50% higher than my stove top. But obviously not even close to their stated 50% higher than external pipe temps. Of course, it's still 100-200 degrees off! It would really be better if there just weren't any numbers on it. Then I wouldn't feel bad about adjusting the face.

In all, for the guy reading this wondering whether or not to buy one, my recommendation would be this: If you do decide to purchase after reading the information presented here, install it much higher on your stove pipe than 18 inches if you want to be able to burn in the "normal" zone, then just ignore the numbers.

pen

 

[cmcramer]

Starts to sound like "If any part of the stove is glowing red, you are overfiring." is about as good as any of these overpriced things we have been depending on for many years. And I have more doubts about my IR thermo than I even do about surface thermos. I think it is whack at high temps.

How about the glowing red burn tubes in my Quadrafire 4300?

 

[pen]

Starts to sound like "If any part of the stove is glowing red, you are overfiring." is about as good as any of these overpriced things we have been depending on for many years. And I have more doubts about my IR thermo than I even do about surface thermos. I think it is whack at high temps.

How about the glowing red burn tubes in my Quadrafire 4300?

This is a bit off the original intent of this thread, but, the "glowing red" is referring to external stove parts. The burn tubes glowing is normal (and good IMO, means your are burning hot and clean)

pen

 

[Highbeam]

I went ahead and ran the flueguard up to 1200 last night for my initial warm up fire. Rather than install the meter in a strange place which will also throw off the lower readings I think it is best to just adjust my setpoints, or mentally moving the colors around on the meter face. We have actual data to show that 1200 measured = 1000 actual, and 500 measured = 400 actual. So simply running the stove between 500 and 1200 will get me what I want.

Maybe the real fear we should have is that Condar will someday correct their utter failure to perform per the specs and fix the meter. Then we will have people overfiring their stoves based on this thread.

The condar is a piece of crap meter that doesn't read as it should. Unfortunately it's the best that the hearth industry can do.

 

[begreen]

Based on my older style Condar, I think they can do a lot better. Hopefully this is just a bad batch. If it is reading badly, then time to exercise the warranty and return it for an accurate unit.

 

[pen]

Based on my older style Condar, I think they can do a lot better. Hopefully this is just a bad batch. If it is reading badly, then time to exercise the warranty and return it for an accurate unit.

Just asked Tim that myself.

My letter

Out of curiosity, is there any chance that the 2 probes I have received could be part of a bad batch?



Is each thermometer heat tested for accuracy before being packaged?



I have another friend with a 20 year old Condor probe that still reads dead on. I believe its serial number was 3-19?



I am just dumbfounded at the discrepancy with both probes, especially since they read room temperature where I would expect it, directly at the F at the bottom of the scale. Other than the design of the bimetallic strip and the size of the scale used, there really isn’t much to these that I can see failing. Especially for as rugged as they feel and look.

 

[firefighterjake]

Pen:

Does Condar have any idea that there is a large forum of avid woodstove users . . . users who buy stove accessories . . . who are watching and reading this thread and following Condar's response? I'm not so foolish to think that the hearth.com crowd is so large that Condar would be overly concerned about the bottom line sales . . . but it would be interesting to know what they would think about how interested many of us are in terms of the accuracy of these thermometers.

 

[pen]

I haven't talked with them about hearth.com, but I would think that as easy as this site is to find, that most anyone in the hearth industry should know about it.

Matt

 

[karri0n]

I think directing them to both this and the older thread is a good idea... I know I won't be buying a condar(surface or probe) thermometer any time soon.

 

[pen]

The company has offered to test the damaged probe in their furnace to compare results. Wes, I'll be shooting you a PM.

Matt

 

[Peter B.]

pen:

If you're going to the trouble, I'd advise you to send them the undamaged probe too... or Condar may want to conveniently blame the inaccuracy on the (original) shipping damage.

Of course, if they should happen to replace the damaged one with an ACCURATE one...

(I'd consider sending mine in as well, but don't want to cloud the issue just now.)

Peter B.

--

By the way, I agree with others who've suggested it - I think Condar should be made aware of this thread and the original "Is This Flue Probe..." thread.

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[Peter B.]

For those who may think the threads related to Condar probes are overblown, too strident, slightly hysterical or unfair to Condar, consider again that Condar has made a flat claim of accuracy within 5% of the actual flue gas temperature for their probes.

A user who believes the claim may well operate his/her stove in an unsafe fashion.

Once again, quoting Condar's own advertising:

"A woodstove without a thermometer is like a car without a speedometer."

I contend that operating a stove with a wildly inaccurate thermometer is unsafe, just as driving a car with a wildly inaccurate speedometer is unsafe.

Peter B.

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[pen]

By the way, I agree with others who've suggested it - I think Condar should be made aware of this thread and the original "Is This Flue Probe..." thread.

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I will bring it up in our next correspondence.

pen

 

[Battenkiller]

Once again, quoting Condar's own advertising:

"A woodstove without a thermometer is like a car without a speedometer."

I wonder if these guys are taking a page from the Toyota playbook. I can just see it...

"A car without a smoothly operating gas pedal is like..."


Maybe Condar will offer to fix them all with a shim? :roll:

 

[njburner]

Meh. I bought one of these probes just before the original thread was started. Having seen the original thread, I decided to wait on installing it.

The Condar response to date is less than impressive. So far, nothing in their replies makes me disagree with the consensus on this forum, i.e., the readings on the dials are hundreds of degrees wrong, which could be dangerously misleading.

Before I send my probe unopened back to Condar, does anyone want it for further testing? It's still in the packaging, untouched. PM me before the weekend if you do.

 

[jzinckgra]

As a novice woodstove guy (1st year burning) I have the Flugard probe 18" above the stove and have a straight shot out through the roof. I 'cruise' according to the thermometer at between 450-600F. Does this mean I've been burning at ~100-200F lower? Heck, a couple times I got the probe up to 1100F and got somewhat concerned that I might ignite some creosote in the chimney and quickly closed off the primary. Maybe that temp was actually ok for longterm burning? Being a novice I'm curious if I've been burning too cool all winter long.

 

[pen]

As a novice woodstove guy (1st year burning) I have the Flugard probe 18" above the stove and have a straight shot out through the roof. I 'cruise' according to the thermometer at between 450-600F. Does this mean I've been burning at ~100-200F lower? Heck, a couple times I got the probe up to 1100F and got somewhat concerned that I might ignite some creosote in the chimney and quickly closed off the primary. Maybe that temp was actually ok for longterm burning? Being a novice I'm curious if I've been burning too cool all winter long.

That's pretty much exactly my concern as well. Many people new to doing this rely on these tools. That is why I and the many others here have persued this so. We want to make sure that we really can trust these tools as advertised.

I'd say if I were you, I'd also have a stove top thermometer to verify that you are running your stove warm enough.

I think by using multiple sources of information (a stove top thermometer, a stove pipe thermometer, and your own good sense) gives you the best results.

Maybe it really is just a "bad" batch and mine is reading higher than others. But I know in my setup, with the probe 18 inches up the flue I am only running a stove top of about 450 degrees (barely going) and have a flue reading that is just entering the "too hot" zone of about 1000 degrees.


pen

 

[Todd]

Another thing to consider is Wes999 did the test on single wall pipe and I'm willing to bet temps are 100 degrees lower on double wall pipe because the cooler external temps. Even though Condar states their probe is good on single or double wall there is a difference in temps.

I adjusted mine down about 100 degrees so at room temp it's right at 0 or the line between brown and yellow. Now it's more inline with wes999 thermocouple and is exactly double my external temps except when it goes up over 1000, then it seems to run away.

 

[jzinckgra]

As a novice woodstove guy (1st year burning) I have the Flugard probe 18" above the stove and have a straight shot out through the roof. I 'cruise' according to the thermometer at between 450-600F. Does this mean I've been burning at ~100-200F lower? Heck, a couple times I got the probe up to 1100F and got somewhat concerned that I might ignite some creosote in the chimney and quickly closed off the primary. Maybe that temp was actually ok for longterm burning? Being a novice I'm curious if I've been burning too cool all winter long.

That's pretty much exactly my concern as well. Many people new to doing this rely on these tools. That is why I and the many others here have persued this so. We want to make sure that we really can trust these tools as advertised.

I'd say if I were you, I'd also have a stove top thermometer to verify that you are running your stove warm enough.

I think by using multiple sources of information (a stove top thermometer, a stove pipe thermometer, and your own good sense) gives you the best results.

Maybe it really is just a "bad" batch and mine is reading higher than others. But I know in my setup, with the probe 18 inches up the flue I am only running a stove top of about 450 degrees (barely going) and have a flue reading that is just entering the "too hot" zone of about 1000 degrees.


pen

I've got the Condor magnetic on the side and that will usually read ~300-350F. I can't put it on the top since I have a blower baffle that doesn't allow direct contact of stove top to firebox.