Hearthstone vs Progress, bee in bonnet

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There's a pic of the Woodstock Cat thermometer in this post. Looks like a surface reader, not probe. If so, a standard Condar stove top thermometer will work.
 
That's all I see mentioned in the manual.

The catalytic combustor will start to burn the gases and particles in the smoke when the temperature of the smoke reaches approximately 500ºF, or after about 10-15 minutes of establishing a strong fire. Each stove comes with a surface thermometer. Use the surface thermometer to monitor your stove temperatures. The temperature on top of the stove is approximately 1/2 the temperature inside the stove, so when the thermometer on the stove top reads 250ºF, it is 500ºF inside.
You will find that after the combustor is engaged, surface temperatures will often rise considerably - evidence that the combustor is producing lots of heat!
 
That's what the sweep said, that they stopped including the probe thermometer. They updated the digital manual, but my printed manual says, "Each stove comes with a surface and probe thermometer."

He said it was too much, supporting people confused by the probe thermometer and high temps, I guess a lot of calls, "Help, my stove is 2000 degrees!"

I found the spot where it screws in. the manual says it's 1" downstream from the cat, so, yeah, there's a bolt plugging that hole.

On the second small fire break in fire, got it just barely hot enough for the cat to fire. It took a long time for the chimney to be smoke free when I engaged the cat at stove-top 250F. The stove top thermometer they gave me seems super accurate, tracks with my IR.
I sure wish I didn't have to go look at the chimney to see if it's fired.

Overall the stove was smokier at the chimney up until the cat fired than if I started a fire in the cold Jotul 3 CB, but then the Jotul is designed to burn clean without a cat in the mix.
 
You might find the engagement temperature for light off increase a bit as the Combustor ages. It starts out hyperactive and settles down. I put a new one in at the beginning of this burning season and it still lights off with 250F stovetop measured on the stone plate just in front of the top flue cap.

WS tried hard to make the combustor visible thru the window when they designed the stove but it just wasn't feasible on the Progress.
 
That's what the sweep said, that they stopped including the probe thermometer. They updated the digital manual, but my printed manual says, "Each stove comes with a surface and probe thermometer."
My copy of the manual is from 2019. I just checked Woodstock's site for the PH and see the probe section that you mention has been added. Thanks for the tip. I'll update my docs. It would be nice if they indicated the probe depth.
He said it was too much, supporting people confused by the probe thermometer and high temps, I guess a lot of calls, "Help, my stove is 2000 degrees!"
I can see how some folks are confused by the cat temps. BK and others have gone to showing just cat activity ranges now with no temperature demarcations.