Used Defiant vs New Englander 30?

[Gunner]

The best cats are made of soapstone...sure they only light off at 600 deg but you only have to do it once. Because they are made of soapstone these cats will hold the heat indefinitely and remain lit for the duration of the burn season.


Seriously tho, why can't you admit that there is a higher maintenance cost associated with a used cast iron cat stove, compared to a new steel stove. You claim that there is longer burns, cleaner burns, 380 deg lite off, less gph, etc, etc but deny the maintenance or rebuild costs that may come with a used stove.

 

[BrotherBart]

I think over time we are going to find that their isn't a dime's worth of difference in maintenance costs of cat and non-cat stoves. I don't believe that the burn tubes/baffles of non-cats are going to last any longer than a good cat does. In fact it would be interesting to hear from some of the folks with older EPA non-cats regarding longevity of these items. I know that for the 30-NC the four burn tubes would cost $116 to replace all four and the two baffle boards would cost $130. If a cat costs $250 then the replacement costs for both would be the same. If we talk about stoves like the Summit the baffle is only available as an assembly and I know that can't be cheap and we are hearing already that those baffles aren't indestructible. Nothing is. Also with steel stoves bricks are going to crap out over time where with the cats they are mostly in iron and soapstone stoves so bricks aren't an issue.

The whole point being that there are "consumables" in any stove and over time one probably does not have a cost or maintenance advantage over the other.

 

[Todd]

Its statement that spout miss information baseless generalities without one shred of evidence, that I take exception to. Why spout off ,if it is quite evident you have no idea of what you are talking about? Riddle me this one Batman, please support you claim I do believe we are talking about the new Stainless steel Combustors found in the Blaze king stoves.

The combustors in Blaze King Stoves are still a ceramic Elk. The chamber may be stainless but the combustor is not. The catalyists are made by Sud-Chemie Pyrotek and are not stainless. They do have a stainless surround that holds the ceramic.

Catalysts are a ceramic embedded with the reactive elements namely platinum and palladium. They also require substantially higher temps than 320 degrees (At least 500F to start) to work properly. If you can come up with a catalyst that works reliably at 320 degrees F Elk, I'll pay you good money for it.

Read about the testing here:

(broken link removed to http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r00100/600r00100.htm)

The test is a bit old and I wish there were updated data but stove design hasn't changed that dramatically in the last 7 years.

OK, I remember reading this before. The stoves were all installed in either 1989-90. That's 17-18 years ago or 1980's stove technology! I think both have improved since then. I would like to see a real apples to apples test. Maybe something Hearth.net can sponser?

 

[webbie]

Amazingly enough, wood stove technology has not improved all that much since 1990 or so - more "evolution" than revolution. This is for a number of reasons including very low sales of wood stoves while oil was cheap. Also, manufacturers spent a lot of money and time passing the 1990 standards and certainly did not want to retest unless there was a good reason....

As an example, the mid-size Avalon or Lopi non cats of today are almost carbon copies of the 1989-1990 models...and a lot of other stoves were copied from these (HearthStone Phoenix, for instance)....

Some new work has been done since Y2K and now Katrina stepped up demand. I would summarize the "new" work as better tuning of the Resolute Acclaim type of "downdraft" system. This systems works well, but generates such high temperatures that earlier stoves had a lot of "melting" problems. Hopefully, this has been solved....or is on the way to being solved.

But, all in all, the stoves available today are not all that much different than the 1980's models. The Kent Tile fire (1985) and the PE's have more in common than just looks!