Protection from overfiring

[jaredwolff]

I was curious to see if fellow stove owners were looking for better ways to protect their stove and, in some cases, their catalytic converters from overfiring. The wife of a fellow firefighter had over filled their stove last season burning out his brand new catalytic converter. I know there's some dialog on here about visually checking, how temperature ranges may vary by stove, and some of the fancy ones are self regulating but that stuff doesn't help when you're busy or distracted!

Any insights are appreciated.

 

[Sodbuster]

Rule number one, don't leave the room on a "hot" restart, and start fiddling with something else. That hot metal smell will remind you in a hurry that your air control is still wide open.

 

[bholler]

I was curious to see if fellow stove owners were looking for better ways to protect their stove and, in some cases, their catalytic converters from overfiring. The wife of a fellow firefighter had over filled their stove last season burning out his brand new catalytic converter. I know there's some dialog on here about visually checking, how temperature ranges may vary by stove, and some of the fancy ones are self regulating but that stuff doesn't help when you're busy or distracted!

Any insights are appreciated.

A thermometer with a programmable alarm

 

[jaredwolff]

Rule number one, don't leave the room on a "hot" restart, and start fiddling with something else. That hot metal smell will remind you in a hurry that your air control is still wide open.

And a good rule to follow! From what I read seems like the cause of most damage from other folks i’ve talked to (besides the damagae from having an actual chimney fire).

A thermometer with a programmable alarm

Ahh yea. I have heard of folks using thermometers with alarms with some success. There seems to be an art about where to place the probe though. A friend has a “custom” setup that he wired together. Sounds horrifying from the description of wires, probes, speaker, etc.

 

[bholler]

And a good rule to follow! From what I read seems like the cause of most damage from other folks i’ve talked to (besides the damagae from having an actual chimney fire).



Ahh yea. I have heard of folks using thermometers with alarms with some success. There seems to be an art about where to place the probe though. A friend has a “custom” setup that he wired together. Sounds horrifying from the description of wires, probes, speaker, etc.

Just get an auber insturments thermometer for a cat stove get a probe sensor and put it in the stock location. Non cat just go 18" above the stove either with surface sensor for single wall or a probe for double

 

[Ashful]

Rule number one, don't leave the room on a "hot" restart, and start fiddling with something else. That hot metal smell will remind you in a hurry that your air control is still wide open.

You must run only one stove in your house? My startup and reload times are filled with me running between wood storage (patio) and two different stoves at the far corners of the house. The timer on my smart phone is my life saver.

 

[begreen]

I'm a strong proponent for always setting a timer with fresh loads when you need to leave the room for any reason. It's too easy to get distracted. A persistent kitchen timer or cellphone both work fine.

 

[Sodbuster]

You must run only one stove in your house? My startup and reload times are filled with me running between wood storage (patio) and two different stoves at the far corners of the house. The timer on my smart phone is my life saver.

Yep, only one stove, and I like the timer idea begreen, like you said, it's so easy to get distracted.

 

[jaredwolff]

You must run only one stove in your house? My startup and reload times are filled with me running between wood storage (patio) and two different stoves at the far corners of the house. The timer on my smart phone is my life saver.

Do you just set it for 10 minutes so it reminds you to go back and adjust/close things up? We will have stove upstairs but also have one in the basement. The wood is out behind the house and on the driveway so there will definitely be some extended time between all those places.

 

[Ashful]

Do you just set it for 10 minutes so it reminds you to go back and adjust/close things up? We will have stove upstairs but also have one in the basement. The wood is out behind the house and on the driveway so there will definitely be some extended time between all those places.

Basically, yes. If I’m doing a cold start, and feel like leaving the door ajar at first, I will set it for 3 minutes. Then I go back and close the door, and reset it for 5 - 10 minutes, depending on how quickly it’s taking off (or health of the coal bed). On a reload, I skip the initial 3 minutes with door ajar.

 

[Highbeam]

And it’s totally fine to stuff the stove full. You just need to remember to set the controls for the cruise before forgetting!

 

[nola mike]

A thermometer with a programmable alarm

Do they make stovetop thermometers with an alarm? Even better, are there internet connected devices?

 

[bholler]

Do they make stovetop thermometers with an alarm? Even better, are there internet connected devices?

I prefer pipe temp over stove top. The pipe temp goes up much faster it will let you know about an overfire sooner. But auber has a magnetic sensor to that would work fine for stovetop. I dont know of any internet connected devices because i wouldnt want it anyway

 

[jetsam]

There are some stoves that are very difficult to overfire too. We are currently discussing this in the next thread over.

Little bit of a foreign subject to me these days since my stove doesn't do overfire and I only start it cold a few times a year- but I grew up with pre-EPA stoves and remember the overfire monster well.

My grandmother taught me that when you look at the stove in a dark room, it should have a nice red glow but you shouldn't be able to see it in a light room. I doubt she'd find many people to agree with her here!

 

[moresnow]

Do they make stovetop thermometers with an alarm? Even better, are there internet connected devices?

Internet connected?

I am beyond old

 

[bholler]

There are some stoves that are very difficult to overfire too. We are currently discussing this in the next thread over.

Little bit of a foreign subject to me these days since my stove doesn't do overfire and I only start it cold a few times a year- but I grew up with pre-EPA stoves and remember the overfire monster well.

My grandmother taught me that when you look at the stove in a dark room, it should have a nice red glow but you shouldn't be able to see it in a light room. I doubt she'd find many people to agree with her here!

We also just had a case where one of those stove that cant be overfired was. I do think something else was going on there but you shouldt get over confident. Things can still go wrong.

 

[Ashful]

I prefer pipe temp over stove top. The pipe temp goes up much faster it will let you know about an overfire sooner. But auber has a magnetic sensor to that would work fine for stovetop. I dont know of any internet connected devices because i wouldnt want it anyway

Agreed. I own two stovetop thermometers, but they're sitting on a shelf collecting dust somewhere, I stopped using them several years ago. A stovepipe probe thermometer and a cat probe thermometer are all I need to drive these stoves. Run it until pipe probe reads 500F, then close bypass. Come back in 5 minutes to verify cat probe is over 500F, and you're golden.

Can't wait until you fire your new BK this fall, bholler!

@jaredwolff, you said you're running a cat stove, but didn't mention the make/model.

 

[nola mike]

I prefer pipe temp over stove top. The pipe temp goes up much faster it will let you know about an overfire sooner. But auber has a magnetic sensor to that would work fine for stovetop. I dont know of any internet connected devices because i wouldnt want it anyway

pipe temp hasn't traditionally been an option for me because my liner disappears pretty quickly into the chimney flue. Maybe something with a wired probe would work better. I would love to be able to check the temperature while I'm in bed, or out in the neighborhood running errands.

 

[Ashful]

They make remote probes for wood stoves, but I used to just use a K-Type thermocouple probe and meter, for your situation.

 

[nola mike]

I've got a pretty good idea of how i need to run this stove. The thermocouple wouldn't alarm presumably. Where are the alarm thermometers?

 

[bholler]

I've got a pretty good idea of how i need to run this stove. The thermocouple wouldn't alarm presumably. Where are the alarm thermometers?

If you hooked the thermocouple up to an alarm it would. Auber insturments has thermometers with programmable alarms and several different sensor options.

 

[mdrew]

I think this is the thermometer they were talking about up there. I could use one for my Vermont Castings Encore with the probe sensor. My catalyst temperature sensor hole is impossible to see.
https://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=17&products_id=292

As for internet connected, sure! Point an IP camera at the sensor readout. Boom. I've done that janky thing before with some wine fermentation projects. Worked great. Stacking functions, multi purpose.

 

[nola mike]

Ha, that was exactly my first though @mdrew . I went down a bit of a rabbit hole looking for thermometers with alarms using thermocouples, etc.
Ended up wondering if you could build something that would work with a raspberry pi, which of course many geeks have already figured out. Aside from the Rpi, looks like you need a thermocouple amplifier board and thermocouple (~$25, https://www.adafruit.com/product/269).
There are a bunch of tutorials/scripts that you can use that will sms/email you when an alarm condition is triggered (https://community.spiceworks.com/ho...om-temperature-monitor-and-email-alert-system)
And, of course, you can always just log in to the pi to check the temp in real time. I'm going to look more into this...

 

[mdrew]

For projects like this, I usually ask my wife if there's anything else she'd like me to work on. Circling the drain with weird projects! I've got a pile of switches, led light, and wore I was going to make a "is my garage door open" indicator. Turns out, it's not high on The List. Ha!

 

[yooper08]

Do they make stovetop thermometers with an alarm? Even better, are there internet connected devices?

There are WiFi devices out there that you can do quite a bit with. You can either log the data locally or to the cloud. I eventually will get one.
www.thermoworks.com

The best advice is set a timer, I'll set one for 10 minutes. I always set one on my phone, even if I'm sitting next to it...I just make it habit so that I do it and don't forget the one time.