Yes, wood stove combustion is quite variable, but not randomly or infinitely so.
I read a Dutch study that was analyzing emissions from wood stoves and boilers and retrofitting them with ways to clean up emissions, such as electrostatic precipitators. They used combustion analysis to determine how effective that was.
They broke down wood combustion to four stages, and analyzed particulates at each stage according to the combustion gasses being produced at each stage.
Shucks, UI'm sure most people reading this board could characterize several different stages of wood combustion, from igniting kindling and initial warmup of a cold stove through the dying embers at the end of the combustion cycle.
Not as easy as the combustion in a gas or oil furnace, which just lays therre and begs to be analyzed, but not rocket science either.
After all, testing agencies have been doing it in great detail for decades.
As I understand it, with catalytic stoves you typically have a long period of stable stove operation once the catalyst is burning. That would seem to be a good time to analyse the status of your combustion, for example.
Or perhaps someone is having difficulty getting the stove hot enough to start the catalyst burning. That would be a good time to analyze combustion, too. WHY isn't the stove getting hot? Too much combustion air carrying heat away (High O2,, low stack temperature. excessive draft). Too little air for combustion (low O2, high CO2, low stack temperature inadequate draft) Take combustion gas samples in the parts of the combustion cycle where you are having troubles.
I read a Dutch study that was analyzing emissions from wood stoves and boilers and retrofitting them with ways to clean up emissions, such as electrostatic precipitators. They used combustion analysis to determine how effective that was.
They broke down wood combustion to four stages, and analyzed particulates at each stage according to the combustion gasses being produced at each stage.
Shucks, UI'm sure most people reading this board could characterize several different stages of wood combustion, from igniting kindling and initial warmup of a cold stove through the dying embers at the end of the combustion cycle.
Not as easy as the combustion in a gas or oil furnace, which just lays therre and begs to be analyzed, but not rocket science either.
After all, testing agencies have been doing it in great detail for decades.
As I understand it, with catalytic stoves you typically have a long period of stable stove operation once the catalyst is burning. That would seem to be a good time to analyse the status of your combustion, for example.
Or perhaps someone is having difficulty getting the stove hot enough to start the catalyst burning. That would be a good time to analyze combustion, too. WHY isn't the stove getting hot? Too much combustion air carrying heat away (High O2,, low stack temperature. excessive draft). Too little air for combustion (low O2, high CO2, low stack temperature inadequate draft) Take combustion gas samples in the parts of the combustion cycle where you are having troubles.