Need help with Encore 2040-C

[Mebenal]

My ash pan door is tight, very tight to open and close.
4 hour burns with the air closed and a full box isn't much. I know your stove is different but if I shut mine down for the night at 10pm I have a lot in the box at 8am and opening the air will clean my glass and I have to burn it down some before reloading.
If you really want to get excited have a meter with a memory function, it's a real thrill the next morning when you had it all calmed down and cruising and then see what it rose to while you slept.

Thank you.

So my meter has the memory function for highest temp recorded (and how long it was there).

Unfortunately I am too paranoid to let it "do its thing" while I sleep. Last night I slept on the couch in the living room to "supervise", sorry, babysit the stove.

So yeah, the very weird thing is, Turbo89 and gthomas785 helped me last week to get 6.5-7 hours out of my burn. But after "fixing" my ash pan gasket, back to 4 hours.

 

[gthomas785]

Yeah, the lighter/incense trick is a good complement to the dollar bill test, best done when the stove is hot and draft is strong.

I was surprised at how little air it takes from below the grate to cause this stove to run out of control. The air flowing through the coals turns it into a blowtorch very easily. That ashpan door needs to be super tight.

 

[Mebenal]

Yeah, the lighter/incense trick is a good complement to the dollar bill test, best done when the stove is hot and draft is strong.

I was surprised at how little air it takes from below the grate to cause this stove to run out of control. The air flowing through the coals turns it into a blowtorch very easily. That ashpan door needs to be super tight.

So, yesterday after "fixing" the door, i did my incense test again (i regularly do the incense test because its so easy to watch where the smoke goes) and the incense didn't get sucked into the ash pan door at all really, just flowed around under the stove before it dissipated.

This is why i didnt do a dollar bill test yesterday.

Also. Early on yesterday, I just put 3 quite small splits in, got everything nice and hot, closed the damper, and closed the air full off. Within 1 min, all flames were gone, and it just glowed nicely for a while. No backpuffing at all either. (normally I would have a lot of backpuffing when I do this)
So it led me to feel "wow, this is great, ive fixed it"

But it wasnt until I put a 3/4 full load of wood in, that I got the high CAT temps and seemingly excessive burning.

 

[Mebenal]

I do wonder if having my ashpan super full was masking some of my issues..... (it was full to the brim, ive been shoveling coals out the front doors if I needed to)

 

[Mebenal]

So, there's been a lot of talk of Cat temps all over this forum, and I'm hoping some of the long time owners of these stoves can break it down for me a bit. If you would indulge me with the following.

1. What peak CAT temp do you "regularly" get to?
2. What CAT temp would make you get nervous? @Woodsplitter67 i read that 1700 doesn't make you sweat, woah!

3. Why would the high CAT temp make you nervous? (what are the consequences? just a broken cat? or risk of chimney fire?)
4. If your stove CAT temps are into your personal "over the limit" temps, do you intervene? (if your primary air is already 0%)
5. If you intervene, what are your initial steps? (open bypass in short time frames, etc)
6. What is your "emergency, I need to stop this fire now" temp, and what would your action be?

Sorry, I know these questions have been answered over the many pages, but I find they are slightly scattered.

My stove is in the middle of our house, and I kind of fear that I will burn the house down if I don't run it properly, or know the steps/limits that are acceptable.

Thanks guys.

@Woodsplitter67 @Eman85 @AsylumResident @Turbo89 @gthomas785 @arnermd plus anyone else I forgot. But seems like you guys have been using these stoves for a really really long time.

 

[Turbo89]

1. Regularly up to 1450, not uncommon to see it drift up above 1550 on full loads, or hot reloads. (Look at the 2024 or 2025 VC thread, there’s lots of temp plots in there for this stove).

2. Above 1700, saw almost 1800 one time then spent the time to figure out what I did wrong / fix stove (leaking gaskets).

3. Above 1750.

4. Leading up to it (say creeping up fast above 1650) I would try to cycle the bypass and air control to bring temps down, without over heating everything else.

5. Alternate bypass opening (to lower air temp) and closed with air control to try to get CAT temp down. If unsuccessful I’d pull wood out using my welder gloves.

6. Practically speaking when the pipes glowing or pipe smoking, seems to be above 1750 for me… based on that one event. I’d take wood out, block the secondary Inlet with a piece of metal/magnet or shove one of those extinguisher sticks in… but I don’t have one, so really just pull wood out/block secondary air.

Once you figure out your leak and air control this shouldn’t be an issue; but it’s good to think about what you’d do.

 

[gthomas785]

1. Around 1450-1500
2. nervous? around 1700-1800. Not nervous enough to take drastic action though. I've tried that.
3. Two things I worry about are damaging the stove/chimney or causing a fire. (Regularly sweeping the chimney and having a key damper installed helps me be less nervous about the latter)
4. I have tried various interventions and learned that the best course usually is to let it ride with air shut. Opening the bypass while the stove is hot will heat up the chimney, increasing draft which can make the runaway worse. It will also flood the cat with cold air making it crack.
5. See above. My only true intervention, if I knew a bad chimney fire was actively happening, would be to throw 1-2 soaked rolls of paper towels into the stove. Risking damage to the stove and chimney, but hopefully putting out the fire.
6. This would not be based so much on cat temps but on other observables like flue temp and is the stove melting

 

[Woodsplitter67]

I answered another thread where someone got nervous, tried to intervene and overfired the stove.

No matter what I will do nothing but monitor the stovepipe. When my catalyst got above 1700 I just monitored the stovepipe to make sure it doesn't get to hot.

My catalyst will normally run 1000 to 1450 depending on how it was loaded.

When you hear that blowtorch sound that is your wood offgassing all at once and draft building. The temperature spike will last only a short time. The catalyst runs on burning smoke so when this load of wood decides to offgass all at once there is nothing really you can do. Opening the bypass and turning the entire box into a flaming uncontrollable mess is certainly not the answer, if you open the damper you might as well call the fire department.

The worst thing that will happen is you will shorten the life of the catalyst, maybe chew up the refractory a little.

My stove doesn't normally spike like it did when it went above 1700. Matter of fact I'm really sure that was the first time ever.

Im ok with getting an interesting burn here and there, its not something regular and you just sit back and make sure nothing goes south. Just monitor the stovepipe. definitely glad I have double wall.. that's for sure..

 

[skb31]

I like to run mine between 1100 and 1300. It’ll hit 1400 plus sometimes but nothing too crazy yet this season for me. Hit 1650 last year. Also, I never open my ash pan except once a season to clean out. I’ve opened it a total of two times since owning the stove. I leave it full for the burning season and just remove the little ash I need to remove with a small shovel I modified. My stove runs better with a full ash pan for me.

 

[Eman85]

So it led me to feel "wow, this is great, ive fixed it"

We've all had that feeling, sometimes it lasts a while and you feel like you've conquered the stove. And then.....
I feel like I've played every game there is with my stove. Mine is as old as they get, first model sold with a cat back in the late 80's. Had 1 roaring chimney fire back in the first years, block clay lined chimney, sounded like a jet was landing in the house. Made the mistake of leaving the ash pan open while emptying ashes with a good load in the box. Didn't burn the house down but it was exciting. Never had any temp gauge on the cat years back so I'm sure it went to the moon and back a few times, didn't burn the house down. I've run it for years with no cat, damping it down at night getting long burns and getting the black foam looking creosote on the cap, didn't burn the house down. My wife has run this stove over all of these years, she never burned the house down. I don't have an accurate flue temp gauge, I have a magnetic one that worked with the singlewall pipe I had. Now with DW I have the magnet on the flue pipe adapter so it's not accurate but I know at 500* it's hot enough. I've played the intake air game and usually turning the air down will drop the cat if I catch it quick enough. Many say to open the air to get the cat to drop, that's usually not the case for me. Only once have I toggled the bypass watching the flue gauge I have dropping the cat until the flue got hot then dropping the flue watching the cat rise.

 

[Mebenal]

Thank you all for your time, and responses.

How many of you leave your stove running when you aren't home for more than 4-5 hours?

 

[Turbo89]

That’s the beauty of wood stoves, once it’s cooking I’ll leave all day without hesitation.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

That’s the beauty of wood stoves, once it’s cooking I’ll leave all day without hesitation.

I burn 24/7. I heat my entire house with my stove. My stove will run all day with nobody home. That being said. I dont load it full and walk out the door. I load the stove set the air, let it settle in and my wife cuts the air all the way back before she goes to work. I come home to a stove full of coals and reload the stove.

Honestly I feel completely comfortable with my stove. I normally sweep 2Xs per season to be on the safe side. The only thing to truly worry about is the quality of wood. My wood is mostly in the 12-15% range and I still sweep a couple times a year. Putting subpar wood in the stove is the most worry some thing. Keep some chimfix handy to be on the super safe side..