Can't get Appalachian stove hot

[Chad984]

Can you do me a favor and take a picture of that top screw, curious to see how it looks as I might drill the top of my bay 52 in the same location.

When looking at the stove, there is a philips head screw about 2" to the left of the damper. I'll get a pic

 

[Chad984]

Oooooooh now I see - this all makes sense.. Its a double wall ed stove with a blower isnt it? So the actual top of the stove you see is just the outer jacket, and under that is the airspace the blower forces air through, and then the actual top of the firebox (which is probably VERY hot when that cat is cranking).


Now it makes perfect sense. Yeah you would never see the top get very hot because its not in direct metal to metal contact with the firebox.

Yep, best get a probe thermo, and maybe a flue thermo too.

Thats exactly what it is!

 

[Chad984]

I also am using the 52 Bay (larger than the stove the OP has) as an insert. As Mellow explained, the stove top temperature does not get that hot. Using an IR gun I have measured the temperature all over the front of the stove. The hottest spot is directly under the air vents where I have seen close to 400 degrees. The stove emanates very little radiant heat as nearly all the heat is being produced by the catalysts and blown out into the room.

So how it heating? When the temp was down to 23 the other night and reached a high of 34 during the day I had a hard time getting the house temperature to 64. I have a learning curve ahead of me but based on this experience I have some serious concerns that the stove will not be able to heat my house any better than my previous 1.8 cf non-cat insert which did produce a fair amount of radiant heat. Pittsburgh winter temperatures can go down to the low teens at night and single digits are not out of the question so I am wondering if I made the right decision with this stove. I assumed that with an additional cubic foot of wood space it would definitely generate more heat but I am now beginning to question if any insert will sufficiently heat my house.

I can give three very definite positives over my previous insert:

1) I don't need to reload it during the night
2) I am getting hardly any dust in the house.
3) I can already see wood usage will be lower during the shoulder season.

However, I'll need to learn some way of getting more heat of out of the stove without damaging the catalysts or else I'll have to suck it up and pay the gas company to assist my heating needs.

How big is your house? the other day it was about 30* and got down to 20* overnight and when i came home from work, my wife had it about 77* and when i woke up in the morning, it was 72. My house is only about 1000 sq ft. It does burn pretty well, i can load it up at about 11pm and by 7am there are some pretty big coals left and it will fire right back up. Its my first stove so i cant compare it to anything else. A local store was having a good sale on them and i thought for $1500 it was the best stove i was going to get for the money.

 

[Chad984]

Well, thanks for all of your help! I moved the magnetic stove top thermometer all over the place when a light bulb went off in my head. why not put the thermometer next to the screw where the cat probe is supposed to go. Once i did that, the temp on the thermometer went from a little over 300 to 525. Looks like the cat probe is a must indeed!

 

[Woody Stover]

Flue temps got to about 800, so i shut the damper about half way. I let it burn like that for about 30 min and stove temps maxed out at about 425. Closed the damper fully, left air controls on the door fully open and stove temps went down to about 350 in a short period of time.

If that's 800 on a magnetic surface thermo, internal temp may be almost double that, and should not be sustained for any length of time.
I've had good luck getting the Buck 91 to heat up when I shoot for some decent flames in the box, with the air as low as possible. This seems to heat up the stove quicker, probably due to less of the heat going up the flue. I've got the stove thermo on the front next to the bypass rod, which is tied for the max temps I have found on the stove with an IR gun. Stove will be about 350-400 when I close the bypass, but I've seen up to 500 when the stove is cranking. Usually, though, it's somewhere around 350 when cruising early in the burn.
I close the bypass when I've got 850-900 on the cat probe and let the load burn in a little more before cutting the air to cruise level. If I see the cat temp rising over 1000, I'm pretty sure it's lit off. Sometimes I can see the cat glowing through the bypass rod hole at this point.

 

[wood4free]

How big is your house? the other day it was about 30* and got down to 20* overnight and when i came home from work, my wife had it about 77* and when i woke up in the morning, it was 72. My house is only about 1000 sq ft. It does burn pretty well, i can load it up at about 11pm and by 7am there are some pretty big coals left and it will fire right back up. Its my first stove so i cant compare it to anything else. A local store was having a good sale on them and i thought for $1500 it was the best stove i was going to get for the money.

The temperatures you are maintaining with the 4N1 XL are excellent. Sounds like the stove is going to work out very well for you.

My house is about 1900sf built in the 1950's with mostly original aluminum frame single pane window and marble window sills. Three of the windows downstairs where the insert is located are large (87"X 49", covered with plastic film). Downstairs is very open and living room is located directly above a 2 car garage. I expect I would be having the same problems had I paid a lot more for a Blaze King Princess insert. My guess is I need a stove that produces much more radiant heat. Guess I should have taken delivery of the Progress Hybrid two years ago at introductory pricing but requested my deposit refunded as I just didn't want to spend so much money and at the time didn't want a 700 lb. stove taking up space in the living room. I would probably consider the new Steel Hybrid but the rear exhaust requirement of 28 1/2" is too high for my 27" lintel. I'm just going to make the 52 Bay work the best it can and use the gas furnace to help out when it gets too cold.