Explain how this happens

[elkimmeg]

How can the stove top temp hover around 425- 450 and the room thermometer still is gaining as the outside temps drop to 12?
This is with my VC Intrepid II cat stove with the Cat engaged.
Is the secondary combustion and the Cat area creating the heat while the stove top thermo stays constant? My experience I has been around 400 you are lucky to maintain heat maybe loose a degree or two. I am new (3 months still tweaking the stove use pattern) to using a cat stove or Intrepid. Is it the automatic control of the secondary air feed? Or both? Just wondering looking for an explanation?

 

[Rob From Wisconsin]

Secondary combustion?? I wasn't aware that a "cat" stove even
had such a provision. I thought it only pertained to EPA high-tech,
non-cat stoves, that utilize 2nd'ary & heat for a more thorough
combustion???

Rob

 

[Sundeep Arole]

How can the stove top temp hover around 425- 450 and the room thermometer still is gaining as the outside temps drop to 12?
This is with my VC Intrepid II cat stove with the Cat engaged.
Is the secondary combustion and the Cat area creating the heat while the stove top thermo stays constant? My experience I has been around 400 you are lucky to maintain heat maybe loose a degree or two. I am new (3 months still tweaking the stove use pattern) to using a cat stove or Intrepid. Is it the automatic control of the secondary air feed? Or both? Just wondering looking for an explanation?

If you have concrete or any thermal mass around the stove, it will absorb and radiate heat in cycles - and the heat radiated from that will cause the temprature to rise, until the cycle starts again. This is a phenomenon I notice regularly in my house with radiant heat in the slab. There is a period of time (right after dusk) where the home temprature is comfortably above the thermostat setting, even though temps are dropping outside. Now that we have a woodburning insert in a masonry chimney, we notice this effect in the early morning as well, when the load of fuel in the stove has almost burned down and the stove temp begins dropping. When the stove was radiating, the masonry around it (and there is a lot) absorbs the heat; when radiation from the stove begins to die down, the bricks radiate the heat into the house. Perhaps you have a very similar setup with a stove very near a large thermal mass? (broken link removed)

 

[DavidV]

Mine does the same thing HotFlame. just another move in the chess game.

 

[Todd]

Secondary combustion?? I wasn't aware that a "cat" stove even
had such a provision. I thought it only pertained to EPA high-tech,
non-cat stoves, that utilize 2nd'ary & heat for a more thorough
combustion???

Rob

I didn't think cat stoves had secondary combustion either til I bought one. I have lots of secondary dancing flames in my Fireview. The fire box must get hot enough due to the baffle and soapstone, and what isn't burned there it's burned by the cat. I can see now how the cat stoves are so efficient.

Also noticed when the stove is chugging along around 500 or so, the stove pipe temp is only around 250-300. My old Homestead would have about a 100-150 higher pipe temp. I was a little worried about these cool stove pipe temps and called Woodstock about it. They said it was normal and not to worry because the catalyst burns all the nasties that cause the formation of creosote at low stack temps. When I look at the exhaust out of the chimney it looks like a white steam kinda like my n/g furnace exhaust.

 

[Todd]

If you have concrete or any thermal mass around the stove, it will absorb and radiate heat in cycles - and the heat radiated from that will cause the temprature to rise, until the cycle starts again. This is a phenomenon I notice regularly in my house with radiant heat in the slab. There is a period of time (right after dusk) where the home temprature is comfortably above the thermostat setting, even though temps are dropping outside. Now that we have a woodburning insert in a masonry chimney, we notice this effect in the early morning as well, when the load of fuel in the stove has almost burned down and the stove temp begins dropping. When the stove was radiating, the masonry around it (and there is a lot) absorbs the heat; when radiation from the stove begins to die down, the bricks radiate the heat into the house. Perhaps you have a very similar setup with a stove very near a large thermal mass? (broken link removed)

Right on!
Since I had a new large brick hearth built a couple years ago I noticed this to. From a cold start up, it takes the house a little longer to heat up because the brick hearth is sucking up some heat. But once its up to temp it helps even out the heat by releasing heat after the stove temp drops.