NexGen Wood Insert - Missing Cat Combustor?

[TangoDown]

Hi all,

I recently picked up a NexGen Hybrid wood stove insert off Facebook Marketplace and installed it about 2–3 weeks ago. I’ve been burning with it regularly since then. My previous stove was an Avalon Pendleton, so I was expecting this to be a decent upgrade, but so far I’m not overly impressed with the heat output. It feels like I’m going through more wood than I should be, especially for a newer, modern catalytic stove.

I’m running into a couple of issues. First, toward the end of the night I’ll reload the firebox with wood over a good bed of coals and then close the air control down to about 90–95%. When I do this, I’ll only get about an hour to an hour and a half of secondary burn before the firebox fills with smoke.

I’ve gone through the manual quite a bit and can’t seem to find where the actual catalytic combustor is located in the stove, which brings me to my second concern. The manual shows a part called a “combustor retainer,” but my stove doesn’t appear to have this part at all.

Here’s a link to the part I’m referring to:

NexGen-Hybrid Combustor Retainer 250-05858

NexGen-Hybrid Combustor Retainer 250-05858

rockymountainstove.com

Is it possible that the stove I picked up is missing the catalytic combustor altogether?

For reference: the first five photos are of my stove, the sixth photo is from the manual showing basic maintenance, the seventh photo is the part linked above that I believe may be missing, and the last photo shows the stove cruising with a hot bed of coals

Thanks in advance!

 

[begreen]

It does look like the cat is missing. What is the year of this insert? The earlier versions of the Large Hybrid did not have this retainer.