Stalled cat after reloads = stove top temp at 250F minimum and the flue drops around 325-350f - I'll go outside and see smoke (not steam) and smell it outside. To solve I reopen bypass for several minutes, get active flames established in the box, close bypass and cut draft but not too much - seems If I maintain 400f flue temps I will not have a stalled cat- work draft down slowly. This process can take much more time than my fireview and I might have to do this cycle a few times on the hybrid.
When you say flue
drops to 325-350, do you mean the pipe temp, or some other measurement? When my cat is running, my "flue temp" (measureed with the magnetic temp gauge about 12" above stove on single wall pipe) hovers between 200 and 300, ussually between 225 and 250, and it stays there unless I get a real blazer going with lots of small wood and air turned up. I'm just trying to understand how you are measuring things to compare. My pipe gauge at 200-250 means the flue gasses are 400 to 500 degrees inside (about double outside pipe temp).
Smoke smell - I get that too. I have a new gasket to install whenever I get a good time to do it, but not convinced that it is a door gasket issue as my existing one seems fine to me.
Check that other thread listed above with other possible problems (mising bolt or something...).
Stovetop temps - I measure just to the side of the flue exit (I vent vertical). Generally my running temps there have been in the 400-500 range with the air just about fully closed (on warmer days I leave it a crack open). I am now running the shielded cooktop and find the temps in the middle are about 120* cooler than the thermometer area (checking with IR gun). The side stones tend to be a bit (20-60*) hotter.
That 's about what I see, except my top flue collar only gets up to 400-500 when I'm burning a pretty hot fire, otherwise it's between 325 and 400 normally. But the side top stones are ussually about 20 to 50 degrees hotter than the center stone. And the stone is always 100+ lower than the metal flue collar and cast iron on the rear of stove.
My burn times are legendary for a PH - in a negative sense. Can't explain it, but everything seems 'right' in terms of the way the stove burns and everything but even with the monster splits I can't get an easy reload much after 10-11hrs. Sure there are a few coals in there 12-13 hrs later, but not enough to really load and go. I wonder sometimes about the definitions of the timings that folks report. However, I am getting a lot of heat and overall seem to be burning about the same amount of wood as I did with the FV so I am not complaining. We are doing 3 loads a day now that it is colder out (i.e. temps in the low 30's or less during the day) and that compares to 4-6 a day in the FV (smaller stove after all).
I define "burn time" as the lenght of time from load, to the last time I can re-load without needing to add kindling or a fiewstarter/match... so in otherwords, enough red coals to start new logs. I normally get 10 to 12 hours, wtih what I would call a 1/2 load. That is, I fill the box about 3/4 the way up to top, BUT, the splits are anywhere between 14 and 18" long, so they do not coem anywhere close to reachign the full width of the box, so there is alot of empty space on one, or both sides. Sometimes when I have very short splits, I'll fill that side space in with a small split or two.
When I load with longer splits, 18 to 22", then I get 12 to 16 hours depending on the size of splits, and type of wood. I have noticed the size of the splits makes a BIG difference. Also how you load the splits. If you have smaller splits, you can lenghten the burn time by packing them in tight. If there is alot of airspace betweem them, they will burn much quicker.
Those burn times are pretty much on par for what I see. A full load of 16" splits (oak/honeylocust) at 9pm will be down below 250F by 5am the next morning but lots of coals for a reload- lesser woods perform similar as far as temps but less coals after 8 hrs.... The fireview has a better top temp after 8 hrs but the PH is getting the house warmer. Part of the problem is the short splits, but that's what I have for now.
To be honest I was expecting better burn times but would be satisfied with the stove if my other issues could be resolved.
Something intersting I found last week kinda by accident you guys mith want to try with the shorter splits. Normally I load the short splists in the middle of the box, with 4-6" empty on each side of them. Well, one day I slid them all in not paying attention, and pushed them all all the way back to the other side of the stove. So I ended up with a significant empty space on the door side of the stove, 8 or 10" wide, floor to ceiling. So I took 3 medium to large splits, that were very short (12" or so) and layed them in N-S to fil that empty space. Well, I barely had any red coals on this reload, and somehow the big E-W splits I had pushed all the way in smothered most of the coals out. But the coals under the N-S splits close to the door lit up, and started the N-S splits up. After a few minutes, they got goping pretty good and the stove got up to temp so I closed the bypass and shut down the air, with only 1/4 of the stove burning(the N-S splits), close to the door. Next check of the stove was 12 hours later in the late morning, I had a nice fire still going, not just coals! It seemed as if it burned like a N-S load in a BK or something. It burned from right (door side) to left slowly down the logs. Tmnep in the hosue was normall all night, and the stove was still very hot. It burned for about 4 more hours before I reloaded that day, and I re-loaded on a large hot bed I could have leet go longer.
This could be an actual technique for a long burn, instead of accident.
