Woodstock Fireview Catalyst Price Increase!

[Todd]

Holy crap! Was thinking of picking up an extra cat and noticed the price has doubled!

Fireview 205 Catalytic Combustor (SS)

The K-530-SS Catalytic Combustor is designed to fit the Fireview 205, manufactured 1996 - current. You can identify a Fireview 205 in several ways: 1. The loading door is a solid cast with no air vents, 2. Opening the top lid, the catalytic combustor is visible in the center The stainless st

www.woodstove.com

 

[Todd]

I inquired to Woodstock about this and this is their reply

Good afternoon Todd,
Yes, unfortunately it is accurate. Tom is working on writing up an official explanation to post on our website which will outline in painful detail the reasons for the required increase. In the meantime below is a brief overview.
The cost of raw materials has been crushing and in the case of the catalytic combustors the cost of the precious metals coating alone was essentially the price we were selling the catalysts at. That did not account for the raw substrate material, the cost to heat oxidize the material, the stainless steel framing or the labor involved. Each catalyst we sold we were losing money and that is just not sustainable.
The same is true for cast and steel parts. Last year we paid 50% tariffs on all of the cast iron (plus high transportation costs) and those tariffs fees are not refundable. While the tariff amount did go down for cast and steel, it is still between 15-25%, plus even higher transportation costs.
While all the cost of raw materials have been going skyward, we have also been subjected to extreme delays at the EPA. A few years back 10 state air regulators sued the EPA (you can read about this online) and the EPA in turn revoked the cord wood test method. This is the method that the EPA pushed and actually requested manufacturers test with to achieve the new 2020 emissions limits. The loss of the cord wood method meant that any wood stove that had used the cord wood method would not be allowed to request recertification (a perfunctory task), but instead would have to retest using the crib wood method at the manufacturers expense. The loss of the cord wood testing meant roughly 100 different stoves from multiple manufactures had to go through the retesting and certification process. In the past it might take a few weeks for the EPA to review a certified test report and issue a new certificate and it is now averaging over 8 months. This delay is important because without a valid certification the stove(s) cannot be manufactured and shipped once the certification expires. As an example we tested the Progress Hybrid for the new certification in Nov/Dec of 2024 but didn't receive the Progress Hybrid certification until early December of 2025. Last year during our busiest time of year we were unable to ship our two most popular stoves, the Progress Hybrid and Ideal Steel Hybrid (still waiting for the Ideal certification).
This should give you a quick glimpse into the ugliness of being a small manufacturer at this point in time. As Tom would say it is the most difficult set of issues that he's encountered in his almost 50 years of running this company.
Please excuse any typos and my apologies for a long answer to your seemingly short question.
All the best,

 

[begreen]

The situation sucks for all, but especially for smaller manufacturers.

 

[John Lehet]

I just looked, and the Progress cat has gone up to $325 (used to be, if I remember, $185). Still not in stock. I’ll get a spare one when they are available. I dropped in there I guess a bit over a month ago, and Lorin said they should be available in August.

Sucks to pay more, but I want the company to stay in business.

 

[reaperman1]

Tube stoves will be way more popular if the cat prices keep increasing. Id like to know just how much platinum is actually used in the average cat.

 

[Highbeam]

I just checked and the BK princess cats are still $240 shipped to your door in the us.

 

[stoveliker]

Tube stoves will be way more popular if the cat prices keep increasing. Id like to know just how much platinum is actually used in the average cat.

None I believe
Pd and Ru mostly I think.
Maybe Rh

 

[Todd]

Tube stoves will be way more popular if the cat prices keep increasing. Id like to know just how much platinum is actually used in the average cat.

Problem will be finding a tube stove that passes the new testing standards and regs. Many models have gone hybrid to pass. I see a trend.

 

[kborndale]

Problem will be finding a tube stove that passes the new testing standards and regs. Many models have gone hybrid to pass. I see a trend.

The trend towards cat stoves was to keep up with current environmental regulations. Now with our current administration going in the opposite direction on environmental regulations the trends may change.

 

[Ryan_C]

Everything keeps getting more complicated and expensive by the day. I have a hard time believing the handful of cords I burn each winter is the root cause of the world's troubles, but some bureaucrats say I need to pay for catalysts.
That said, I'd rather see a company charge what it needs to stay in business than discover they quietly stopped making stoves a year later.

 

[begreen]

Problem will be finding a tube stove that passes the new testing standards and regs. Many models have gone hybrid to pass. I see a trend.

Which standard other than to be less than 4.5 gms/hr. for non-cats? Now that there is no tax credit, what is the incentive for stove makers?

 

[Highbeam]

The trend towards cat stoves was to keep up with current environmental regulations. Now with our current administration going in the opposite direction on environmental regulations the trends may change.

Some cat stoves were designed that way on purpose to actually take advantage of the low clean burn abilities that only a cat can provide. They were using cats to do this way back in the 1900s.

Yes, many recent cat stove additions did it only for emissions or a token efficiency increase.

Even most of the remaining tube stoves have been compromised by high minimum burn rates in order to burn clean enough.

 

[Todd]

Which standard other than to be less than 4.5 gms/hr. for non-cats? Now that there is no tax credit, what is the incentive for stove makers?

I thought the 2020 regs were 2 GPH? That’s pretty hard for a non cat.

 

[stoveliker]

Which standard?

I don't think mfgs are rolling back their standards as quickly as the govt flip flops on things. If they would do so, they might be in trouble when a future administration reimposes similar standards as were present before they were recalled.
In my understanding continuity in goals is important for many businesses, and as a result, it may not pay off to restart manufacturing of lower-standard stoves again risking they would be outlawed within a few years again?

But maybe I'm not seeing the speed with which older model lines can be restarted.

 

[mr meener]

the goal of the communist EPA is to have everyone naked in a cave eating insects. imagine they destroyed some of the engines of toyota and honda the two best makers of car engines

 

[stoveliker]

Nah, no reburn or cat in a cave fire. Too polluting 😎

 

[begreen]

I thought the 2020 regs were 2 GPH? That’s pretty hard for a non cat.

Brain fart, I was going back to the 2015 reqs. 2.0 is for crib wood, 2.5 gm/hr for cord wood. 2.0 evidently is not all that hard. Englander has tube stoves in the 1.13 gm/hr range.

 

[begreen]

This may be moot at this point. The EPA has stopped publishing stove testing data. It is a thin shell of a department now.