Catalytic catastrophe?

Oct 12, 2019 11:36:23

This is the second week of snow here on the marge of Lake Laberge and it seems to be sticking. Time to start heating the house.

My house came equipped with a Blaze King brand wood stove, the type with a catalytic grid for re-burning any useful wood gasses in the exhaust stream. See image below.

This cat would be about 8 years old now, and I know their effectiveness diminishes over time, but this year I've noted a distinct drop in efficiency from the stove.

I suspect that house-sitters we had last year burned a fair amount of scrap treated lumber though the stove.
Does anybody know if that would cause bad hoodoo in the cat?

Oct 12, 2019 15:14:18

Doesn't sound like a good plan to burn treated, but don't know of specifics.

The cat in my parents stove is.. 20? years old. My dad had it out a couple years back, and it looked pretty rough. Really rough. But, no huge drop in efficiency any given year has been observed. It went back in and as far as they can tell is still good enough..

Can you get it out to take a look? Maybe they have managed to clog it physically?

Oct 12, 2019 20:00:04

Catalytic converters allow the combustion of wood etc at lower temperatures but increase the output of dioxins as they don't reach the high temperatures of a non-catalytic stove which destroys many of the dioxins released by burning organics.

Oct 12, 2019 21:13:18

Dillon, you are surely right. I'll pop the unit out when the stove is cool to have a look. Interesting to hear about your folk's older unit, I hope I can get mine to last that long!

Graham. I visited Wellington last winter. Lovely city! I especially enjoyed Garage Project and Tua Brewing. One thing Wellington doesn't have is -45c winters. I'm not sure if NZ has the same stringent air quality laws that Canada has, but I wouldn't be surprised, I was impressed with your country's efforts to contain invasive species (all those damn possums!). Thank you for your input.

Oct 12, 2019 21:53:10

I should maybe mention that my folks are in Victoria. Their stove sits at the bottom of the stairs providing primary heat for the winter, but the heatpump handles shoulder season and the oil furnace fills an annoying little gap when the heatpump can't quite, and the woodstove cooks them.

IOW, their burning season is no doubt quite a bit shorter than yours!

Hope you can get some pics when you have it exposed, would be interesting!

Oct 13, 2019 00:03:52

Chris Sturgeon wrote:

One thing Wellington doesn't have is -45c winters. I'm not sure if NZ has the same stringent air quality laws that Canada has,

Yes, Wellington is a coastal city and we don't have stringent air quality laws. Our lowest temp is just 0 deg C. However, other cities in NZ do have those rules but anyway I bought a ULEB woodstove which emits 0.2g/Kg in its reburning mode to do my bit for the air quality

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