Craftsbury Catalytic Combuster Inspection / Pipe Temps

[mrwizard]

Hello All,

First post here. I moved several years ago into a new house and left behind a Jotul F500, loved it dearly.

I now have a smaller 1500 Sq Ft. house with a Hearthstone Craftsbury that I had installed two years ago. It does a decent job of heating the house, and I have been pretty happy with it so far. I am having the pipe cleaned this week, and decided to inspect my combuster to see how its faring. I have attached a picture after brushing it with a soft brush and vacuuming it out. Can someone with more experience here give me an idea to its condition? I don't want to remove it and have to deal with replacing the gasket unless I have to.

Also, when going from the F500 (No Combuster) to the Craftsbury, my internal pipe temperatures seem to be very low (180-220F) vs what I would run the F500 at (300-450F). I have the hole drilled into the double wall pipe with the thermometer inserted. Is this normal?

My center stove temps with the Rutland thermometer on top read 300-400F. I am purchasing an IR gun today to double check that.

Just trying to get a good idea as to what I should be seeing vs reality.

 

[begreen]

It looks ok. You can use compressed air to blow it out as long as it's not high pressure. If the cat temp still gets into the active zone and there's no smoke out of the chimney then it's good to go.

 

[mrwizard]

It looks ok. You can use compressed air to blow it out as long as it's not high pressure. If the cat temp still gets into the active zone and there's no smoke out of the chimney then it's good to go.

Thanks for the info. Little or no smoke out of the chimney during a normal burn with the cat engaged.