After about 3/4 of last winter with it I’m fairly comfortable with understanding burning the Progress with just the stovetop thermometer, but for a few reasons I’d like to understand what’s going on in more depth. A lot of what I want to understand is how hot the cat is getting with a big load of fuel as I’m going to bed. Online I’ve seen some users with distortion in the steel that holds the cat on the Progress (and the cat gets bent too when that happens it). My chimney sweep got me a little nervous this summer as we were nerding-out about stoves. He has seen that in these stoves. I assume what’s happening in those cases is the cat is running hotter and longer than the supporting steel is meant to handle. I assume this happens mainly when the stove goes to black box mode if shut down too far, when the cat is getting fed all the smoke from all that fuel, but it’s a mystery to me. Is the cat raging hot when the stove is in the mode with a few dancing secondaries with a big load of wood? (it’s very beautiful in this mode, and I try to get this before overnight.) Also of course if I knew the temperature at the cat it would be a no brainer at start up to know when the cat lights off instead of wondering. I kind of stress about that a bit on a cold start. I know I’d stress about it less if I just let the stove get a bit hotter before I engaged it. Also I’ll have more information as the cat starts to age and get toward failing.
So, I’d like to/am determined to probe the cat and see what’s going on. I’ve never been able to get an answer from anyone about how to do this, few people seem to have done it. After having the stove and thinking about it, looking under the hood, taking out a bolt, it’s pretty clear to me that a probe goes in to the bolt hole (seems to be 1/4” but not sure how it’s threaded) nearest the chimney. The probe needs to be long, 8 to 10 inches, to get to the outlet of the cat, which is facing toward the front of the stove. Not sure if the probe would rest on the metal housing around the cat (with heat exchangers, so it’s already losing heat) or measure the exhaust gas. Auber has a 10” inconel probe for about $20 (WRNK-191), seems to be the one to get. However when I called the support person there had a very heavy ( Chinese?) accent, and between that and my hearing loss it was quite excruciating trying to understand very much of what he was saying. He was trying to tell me something about which part of the probe could take what temperature, but I really couldn’t get it and was too polite to say, “Please, could I talk to someone else?” I’ve also looked at a million inconel thermocouple probes online, quite a bewildering set of choices. For $20 I’ll try this Auber one first.
Nobody seems to make a non thermocouple (Condar type) probe that length. I called Condar.
As an aside, it’s super weird that this stove used to ship with a probe, but they stopped doing that. When I was at Woodstock after I installed my stove I had both Tom and Lorin in the room, a really nice chat, but when I asked about probing the cat they got kind of funny. There was definitely a look between them before Lorin said something like, “I find it’s easiest to run my stove based on the stove top thermometer, how about you Tom?” Which may be true, but still I want to know about what’s going on in the cat. I’m guessing they had too many support calls about it, or people freak out when the cat gets very hot, or both. And they didn’t respond to my “But what if I just want to know?” They just plain don’t support it, though the stove does have a bolt hole for a probe. I’ve gleaned that. I’m guessing there is nothing bad from my end about knowing what’s going on with the cat, except it may cause stress if I find the cat is going thermonuclear all the time. But if it is, I can’t deal with that situation if I don’t know.
I also haven’t probed the chimney. I’ve never worried about the chimney temp before, as I’ve had non cat stoves here for decades and the chimney was plenty hot, which kept it clean except for a bit of soot. The progress is sucking a lot of heat out before sending it up the chimney. I think my liner is uninsulated. That’s a good guess. Done before my time. The chimney seems to run pretty cool right of this stove. So I’d like to probe both.
There are inexpensive battery powered dual channel thermocouple monitors out there for < $100. Are these OK? They take mini plugs.
Auber also has a single channel wifi enabled monitor for about $200, which would be sweet (I guess I would use that one for the cat monitor), and then I’d need another box for the other probe if I did that.
So bottom line, thinking of getting a 10” and 3” thermocouple probe, cat and chimney, and then read those with one or two display devices. Seem reasonable?
So, I’d like to/am determined to probe the cat and see what’s going on. I’ve never been able to get an answer from anyone about how to do this, few people seem to have done it. After having the stove and thinking about it, looking under the hood, taking out a bolt, it’s pretty clear to me that a probe goes in to the bolt hole (seems to be 1/4” but not sure how it’s threaded) nearest the chimney. The probe needs to be long, 8 to 10 inches, to get to the outlet of the cat, which is facing toward the front of the stove. Not sure if the probe would rest on the metal housing around the cat (with heat exchangers, so it’s already losing heat) or measure the exhaust gas. Auber has a 10” inconel probe for about $20 (WRNK-191), seems to be the one to get. However when I called the support person there had a very heavy ( Chinese?) accent, and between that and my hearing loss it was quite excruciating trying to understand very much of what he was saying. He was trying to tell me something about which part of the probe could take what temperature, but I really couldn’t get it and was too polite to say, “Please, could I talk to someone else?” I’ve also looked at a million inconel thermocouple probes online, quite a bewildering set of choices. For $20 I’ll try this Auber one first.
Nobody seems to make a non thermocouple (Condar type) probe that length. I called Condar.
As an aside, it’s super weird that this stove used to ship with a probe, but they stopped doing that. When I was at Woodstock after I installed my stove I had both Tom and Lorin in the room, a really nice chat, but when I asked about probing the cat they got kind of funny. There was definitely a look between them before Lorin said something like, “I find it’s easiest to run my stove based on the stove top thermometer, how about you Tom?” Which may be true, but still I want to know about what’s going on in the cat. I’m guessing they had too many support calls about it, or people freak out when the cat gets very hot, or both. And they didn’t respond to my “But what if I just want to know?” They just plain don’t support it, though the stove does have a bolt hole for a probe. I’ve gleaned that. I’m guessing there is nothing bad from my end about knowing what’s going on with the cat, except it may cause stress if I find the cat is going thermonuclear all the time. But if it is, I can’t deal with that situation if I don’t know.
I also haven’t probed the chimney. I’ve never worried about the chimney temp before, as I’ve had non cat stoves here for decades and the chimney was plenty hot, which kept it clean except for a bit of soot. The progress is sucking a lot of heat out before sending it up the chimney. I think my liner is uninsulated. That’s a good guess. Done before my time. The chimney seems to run pretty cool right of this stove. So I’d like to probe both.
There are inexpensive battery powered dual channel thermocouple monitors out there for < $100. Are these OK? They take mini plugs.
Auber also has a single channel wifi enabled monitor for about $200, which would be sweet (I guess I would use that one for the cat monitor), and then I’d need another box for the other probe if I did that.
So bottom line, thinking of getting a 10” and 3” thermocouple probe, cat and chimney, and then read those with one or two display devices. Seem reasonable?
