Had the first hot fire in my Ashford 30.2 yesterday, yea filled the house with smoke and had smoke detectors working overtime. My question is I built the fire than added 2 pieces of poplar and 3 pieces of ash waited till cat termo showed well into the active zone than closed the bypass waited 10 minutes and dialed it back, burned great cat thermostat was almost pegged and cat was glowing orange, stayed that way for several hours, I decided not to add more wood and just let it burn down since it was first hot fire, but when it was just mostly coals and the cat thermo was still reading well into the active zone the cat was no longer the bright orange color and just went dark( I assume no longer igniting gases) is this normal or the sign of something being off. Thanks for any info
Question ,First hot fire in Ashford 30,2
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spudman99
Feeling the Heat
The cat will not always glow when working. So long as it is in the active zone it is working. Remember when the wood first burns it emits smoke. The purpose of the cat is to "eat" the smoke and reduce particulate matter escaping the flue. Once the amount of smoke decreases (or stops in the case of hot coals), then the cat is likely to go dark. At that point the stove is not emitting many particulates and thus complying with the EPA standards. So short answer is -- perfectly normal. Judge your stove by the active/inactive zones, that is all you need to do.
I agree with the above, the cat works when it's 500 F (or so) or higher. Glowing is only visible from 850-900 F and up.
So you have a range of temps where the cat works and you don't see anything. Just go by the gauge.
The cat will clean things up and provide additional heat in doing so.
So you have a range of temps where the cat works and you don't see anything. Just go by the gauge.
The cat will clean things up and provide additional heat in doing so.
Burnin Since 1991
Minister of Fire
Really liking it so far, fairly easy to use , puts off good heat and nice size fire box, I like loading North to south you can rally pack it full, easy to regulate the fire also. not new to burning, had Fishers, for years than more recently have had a couple Jotuls but this is my first experience with a Cat stove, so far so good
That's generally the way to do it. Because when loading E/W, round splits on top can roll forward and rest against the glass.
The glass itself probably won't mind that, but it makes a mess when you open the door.
Burnin Since 1991
Minister of Fire
That's great. I'm replacing an older stove next summer and I'm likely going to go to the Ashford 30.2 The N/S loading is the tipping point for me. My wife's only input was for a brown stove, which the Ashford has brown as an option.
I've looked over all the stoves I could, based upon what dealers in my area carried and we were pretty sold on a Hearthstone but only E/W loading convinced me to look elsewhere.
Ignore the mention of steel. Black body radiation is purely a mathematical function of Temperature and fundamental constants like h, Planck’s constant, and c, speed of light, and k, the Boltzman constant. And quantum mechanics.
At 1200F you can’t see the black body radiation because virtually none is in the visible spectrum, all the photons have a wavelength >700nm and they’re all distributed in the IR spectrum.
Even when the thing is glowing bright orange or even yellow, the vast majority of the energy is IR, not visible.
At 1000K (727C or 1340F), a BK King catalyst, with a surface area 10.5x5x2” sides = 105 sq in is radiating ~3.8kw or ~13000 btu/h. Just the catalyst, mind you.
The radiated power varies as the 4th power of the temperature. So if it glows bright yellow at 1600K, that’s 85,000 btu/h.
When there’s just big devolatilized hardwood coals, the catalyst still facilitates oxidation of CO to CO2. But that’s not enough heat to make it start glowing.
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While your calculation seems reasonable, there's no way the small surface area of the cat only is ever going to provide 85,000 btu/hr. I would wish...
Stefan–Boltzmann law - Wikipedia
Admittedly, my catalyst is usually radiating at about 1200K based on the color. So that’s only 27k btu/h.
Of course I have a bit of red-green colorblindness. …
True, but by definition a black body has an emission factor of 1, and no real material exists with that property. Stuff like Graphite with an emission factor of 0.95 is a good approximation, though. Steel can vary widely. The rather white base material of the cat is probably way off.
(That's also why more expensive contactless thermometers, aka temperature guns, which use this effect, often have a setting for the emission factor. But the lower it gets, the more inaccurate it gets)
My cat is steel, and the surface area of the steel mesh is small relative to the voids between. So when I am looking at my cat and guesstimating the color, I am mainly looking at the glowing gas - burning soot particles and organic compounds. Emissivity is an important fudge factor, but my estimate is that it’s at least 0.7-0.8 in the case of a steel cat.
I'm a physicist.
I have more than 2 decades personal experience judging (silicon) temperature from its color - and used dual wavelength pyrometers etc. which provided my learning feedback in doing so - BTW, I was able to see 550 C if I switched off lighting in the lab and switched off the ion gauge in the vacuum system.)
Your math works out afaics.
But, something is off as my cat surely is at times 1600 C. Yet simply by being there, I can tell it has never radiated at 85,000 BTU/hr.
I have more than 2 decades personal experience judging (silicon) temperature from its color - and used dual wavelength pyrometers etc. which provided my learning feedback in doing so - BTW, I was able to see 550 C if I switched off lighting in the lab and switched off the ion gauge in the vacuum system.)
Your math works out afaics.
But, something is off as my cat surely is at times 1600 C. Yet simply by being there, I can tell it has never radiated at 85,000 BTU/hr.
I also have a physics background (undergrad deg) and have resumed the last 6 years after quitting MD office work.
Anyway, I was using the dimensions of a King as an example. Since the Ashford’s cat is 20% smaller surface area, at 1600K it would put out ε x 68k btu/h. Whatever ε turns out to be. Which might vary for ceramic vs steel cat.
Anyway, I was using the dimensions of a King as an example. Since the Ashford’s cat is 20% smaller surface area, at 1600K it would put out ε x 68k btu/h. Whatever ε turns out to be. Which might vary for ceramic vs steel cat.
I could tell
Good to have more nerds here (or maybe I'm only saying that to myself...)
While you guys are being all smart here’s the reference chart I have posted by my stove to compare to my cat to
![[Hearth.com] Question ,First hot fire in Ashford 30,2](https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/img_0537-webp.344295/ "[Hearth.com] Question ,First hot fire in Ashford 30,2")
That's pretty borderline for steel. Good thing it's not an oxidative atmosphere.
I've run chemical high-temperature syntheses in a self-designed and built induction furnace with a watercooled glass reactor, so you could see the sample inside. I also used a pyrometer to guesstimate the temperature. I went up to 2500C in that thing. Believe me, even in an argon atmosphere not many materials stand up to that.
Visitors were always wondering why there were sunglasses staged outside my lab. Upon entering, they knew. That thing was like a second sun...
Edit: when we moved in the building maintenance wasn't too happy that my requests were: a dedicated 32kW power line into the lab and access to the building's water cooling system requiring double-digit GPM flow...
I do see the metal foil changing undulations when comparing pics of the surface of the cat from different times, consistent with the steel getting softer.
Lol, try a home made ebeam evaporator with a focused beam creating a puddle of liquid tungsten on an W cylinder.
I forgot the melting temp but I remember it was above 3000 C.
That's bright! So no crucible, just a puddle in a block of W.
I got welding goggles (a you could see whether the surface wobbled as that would lead to fluctuations in the flux).
This was at the university,.so safety wasn't the first priority ("if you smell wet dogs, run" -silane).
Lol, try a home made ebeam evaporator with a focused beam creating a puddle of liquid tungsten on an W cylinder.
I forgot the melting temp but I remember it was above 3000 C.
That's bright! So no crucible, just a puddle in a block of W.
I got welding goggles (a you could see whether the surface wobbled as that would lead to fluctuations in the flux).
This was at the university,.so safety wasn't the first priority ("if you smell wet dogs, run" -silane).
spudman99
Feeling the Heat
I once added baking soda to water and it got hot. I guessed like 140 deg and it was white. Can I call myself a physicist part time? (hehe)
We'll call you a honorable physicist.
What you experienced was the positive dissolution enthalpy of Na2CO3, the dissolution is exothermic.
Fun fact: sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3 has a negative dissolution enthalpy, i.e. water gets colder when the salt is dissolving.
Burning since 1991 Not sure which hearthstone you were looking at but i think they all have a front door, some have both a front and side door. Got used to north south burning in my Ashford 30. Just purchased a hearthstone Castleton which is a small stove and while I can only put a 13.5" log in I'm burning north to south. It seems to like it. As I cut and split my own wood it's no problem to cut it to that length. Might be a problem if you purchased cut and split wood. I've only run 6 stoves or so but i think most if not all would benefit from placing the wood in line with the main flow of air, as in, if the air enters from the front as many do to burn north to south. But as always, YMMV
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Burnin Since 1991
Minister of Fire
Here are my constraints: My wife wants a brown enamel wood stove. She also wants to get away from the standard steel woodstove look (see my avatar). I want to be able to burn 18 inch splits as I buy most of my wood from a seller. His wood is well seasoned and dry and 99% of it is between 16 and 18 inches. I want to be able to burn N/S. I want between a 1 3/4 cu ft and 3 cu ft box.
There are actually two different issues. First, I don't have the space for a side loader of any brand. My stove is in a family room, on an outside wall situated between 2 sets of windows. The stove is almost centered but I had to move it a few inches left to keep my clearances in the ceiling/ roof (single story).
A side loader right and I lose my indoor firewood storage. A side loader left and I lose my kindling and fuel starters. So if I decide to go ahead I now have a hearth that is no longer mostly centered on the widows. I would have to offset the stove and pipe to bring the hearth back to center and then the stove wouldn't look right.
My wife doesn't care for the external soapstone stoves.
The only two stoves from Hearthstone that fit the bill are the Manchester and Shelburne. The Shelburne exterior is 26"W and 21" D and take a max 18" log. That means of the 26" width only 18" is usable size then of the 21"depth only about 13" is usable so no N/S loading for me.
The Manchester has a nice 2.5 c/f box and takes up to 24" logs but I would have to buy a lock from Hearthstone and lock the left side door if I wanted a standard size ember protection hearth. That's just a non-starter for me.
And then there's the binding problem with the Hearthstone's, with either the bypass lever or air control, I forget which and I can't locate my notes on that.
To clarify, my initial post above #8 I should have not said that the Hearthstone's can't be loaded n/s as that's incorrect. They certainly can be loaded n/s as any stove can. The Shelburne can't be loaded n/s with standard sized wood and the Manchester has both a left side load and front load, meaning a Manchester requires a lock on the side loading door or extended hearth/ ember protection to the left side and front.
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