Harman "FireDome Combustion System"

[Ashful]

Can anyone explain the inner workings of the mysterious "FireDome Combustion System" advertised by Harman? Doesn't seem they want to share much tech info about it on their site.

Thanks!

 

[begreen]

AFAIK this is similar to VC's everburn system with secondary combustion occurring in a ceramic refractory chamber. Maybe Corey is online and can expand on that.

 

[Ashful]

The graph is very impressive. I can't help but suspect there are some disclaimers associated with it.

 

[BrotherBart]

Yeah for some reason their "Afterburner" has been renamed "Firedome". A down draft stove that pulls the smoke into a ceramic chamber behind the firebox to burn it.

 

[BrowningBAR]

The stove line I design will have a combustion system called "Thunderdome."

Instead of King and Princess models my stove models will be the Rockatansky and Aunty Entity models. The only problem I see with the Rockatansky model is that as it ages it will develop a drinking problem and say unpleasant things about Jewish people. On the plus side, the Aunty Entity model should age very well.

 

[Pallet Pete]

The air goes in the back through the bottom up around the front then down and out the back through the afterburner. the afterburner needs to be around 800 to 1000F in order to ignite which is a bit of a challenge because of how it is installed. We needed about 5 inches of solid hot red coal in order for it to ignite and stay lit any less and it went out. The afterburner sounds like a jet engine when it gets going but that is kinda cool in my opinion. It is not catalytic although it is similar in design. In contrast the Catalytic stoves cat need to be about 500F to ignite and stay lit which is much easier to attain. One advantage about our Harman tl300 we had was the coal life once established we could maintain an enormous coal bed for days sometimes not reloading for 1.5 days. The downside that caused so much problems was the ceramic afterburner itself was very fragile the slightest bump and it breaks which makes it a pain to get going again. If you buy one don't put anything in the afterburner hole at all not even coal the replacement is between 400 and 600 depending on where you go. The downdraft is a bit of an issue if you have a lot of abstractions and you can actually see flames coming back into the stove down through the afterburner on windy days It causes the afterburner to blow out and you won't realize it sometimes till you look outside. There stoves can be the best though we looked at 3 of them in use before we bought and man they where as good as blaze king in terms of burn time and heat output but all of the users said they had to adjust the flue up and down for a few months till it was right. Once it is right those babys burn good ! Our issue was customer service we would have kept ours except there customer service is like going through world war 3 to get anything done.

Hopefully this was not too biased. I just don't want anyone to buy without understanding the benefits and problems they can have.

Pete

 

[Pallet Pete]

This is the best drawing I can come up with from memory It is the layout of there stoves.

Pete

 

[Ashful]

Thanks, Pete! If you need to maintain 800F to 1000F to keep the re-burn going, it sounds like it's more similar to other non-cat stoves than a cat stove, with respect to achieving long slow burns.

If their customer service is less than excellent, I'll likely avoid the company altogether. I have no time for dealing with that.

Thanks again!

 

[kingquad]

If you want good customers service and long burn times with steady output, then buy a Woodstock. I personally wouldn't screw with downdraft stoves. They seem to be hit and miss. It's called "Neverburn" for a reason. Plenty of reading here about these types of stoves.

 

[Ashful]

Woodstock may indeed be where I end up, if for no other reason than a lack of other options, although "mellow" did just post a few other catalytic stove options in another thread. Now knowing just enough about cat and non-cat technologies to be a little dangerous, I'm scratching my head trying to figure out why nearly all of the mainstream stove manufacturers have moved away from catalytic technology. All I can figure is that it probably saves them a lot of headaches in support calls, as the non-cat stoves appear to be simpler and more forgiving for a newbie to operate.

 

[kingquad]

Woodstock may indeed be where I end up, if for no other reason than a lack of other options, although "mellow" did just post a few other catalytic stove options in another thread. Now knowing just enough about cat and non-cat technologies to be a little dangerous, I'm scratching my head trying to figure out why nearly all of the mainstream stove manufacturers have moved away from catalytic technology. All I can figure is that it probably saves them a lot of headaches in support calls, as the non-cat stoves appear to be simpler and more forgiving for a newbie to operate.

Aside from the things you mentioned, cat stoves are even less tolerant of wet wood than non cats. Fact is that MOST burners don't dry their wood properly. Somewhere along the line, cat stoves got an undeserved bad rap.

 

[Highbeam]

All I can figure is that it probably saves them a lot of headaches in support calls, as the non-cat stoves appear to be simpler and more forgiving for a newbie to operate.

I think you nailed it. Simpler and more forgiving. Only a very small population of people own woodstoves and of them, only a small percentage burn for primary heat which is where the cat stove really makes up for any drawbacks. For evening fires, or special occasions the non-cat is really a great tool.