In this regard, it's likely that a well-designed "from scratch" catalyst stove may perform slightly better, but everyone who's been involved in this project feels that such tradeoffs are easily compensated for by the cash saved when you retrofit instead of buying new. [4] Hotter air (both primary and secondary) means better performance. A catalytic converter can reduce the ignition temperature of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons from upward of 1300°F to the 500-700°F range. Catalytic RV Heaters Offer Safer, More Efficient Warmth. order to make it easier to start it is possible to use a flameless heater in which the vapor from liquid fuel (gasoline) is oxidized by the oxgen of the air in the presence of a catalyst. By paying with a credit card, you save an additional $5 and get 6 issues of MOTHER EARTH NEWS for only $12.95 (USA only). It takes NO power and a minimal amount of propane to run meaning it saves us lots while providing plenty of warmth on even the coldest days and nights. Wood heating, for all the satisfaction it brings, involves a lot of hard work ... and anything that could trim the burden of cutting, splitting, and hauling fuel or reduce the frequency of chimney cleanings would be more than welcome to just about any stove owner. Sleep Comfortably In Your SUV Or Truck With This Kickstarter Success, The Transition Bus Provides A Practical Model For Green Bus Conversions, Picture Of The Day: $700 DIY Micro Camper, Build An Ultra Lightweight Teardrop Trailer With This Kit From A Boat Building Company. (See Testing Chemical Chimney Cleaning Products). Operation. Of course, one of the limitations inherent in retrofitting an existing stove with a catalyst is that the heater's firebox has not been specifically designed to optimize the muting of air and smoke. Here are 27 homemade wood burning stove and heaters plans you will love to build at home. (In any event, the results reported here shouldn't be viewed as being any more accurate than that 4% figure. A sample wood stove catalytic converter package for retrofitting most stoves. Well, we're glad to say the latest wood stove catalytic converters and secondary-combustion stoves do seem to fill the bill. A catalytic heater is 99+% efficient compared to our furnace which is only 60% efficient. After doing some research, I've found that the best bet to keeping a large part of the condensation at bay is having … If you need a quick turnaround or only want to rebuild a few heaters at a time, then our shop service would be the better option for you. (A heavily draft-restricted fire, of course, is almost entirely in that dirty, smoldering state.). If flames from the fire are allowed to lick directly onto the monolith, the ceramic may crack as a result of thermal shock. ), Averaging the figures recorded during ten burn cycles (which included from one to four fuel loadings each) with the catalyst and ten without, we witnessed an efficiency increase of 15.6% when the unit was in place. Secondary-air preheating is accomplished by pulling the air through the fire zone to the catalyst and, by all indications, has been quite effective. By turning on the heater, you charge the plate, and the electrically charged plate causes the chemical process to speed up. This kept the amount of waste heat from the blower roughly equal at all times, but also made it more difficult to get the catalysts lit off since so much heat was being extracted from the stove's back wall. Sign in with your online account. The catalyst is typically an electrically charged, platinum-coated plate. This eliminates the largest drain on your RV’s electrical capacity allowing you to save your precious volts for such things as the TV and computer. And one of the major obstacles to accomplishing that goal is the very nature of wood itself. (And Why You Need One), Go Off-Grid In The New GoSun Solar-Powered Tiny Home, 10 RV Kitchen Accessories That Save Time & Space, 10 Winter Camping Items You Shouldn’t Travel Without, 7 Best YouTube Channels For New RV Owners, Camp Among Giant Redwoods In Northern California, RV Industry News: What RV Owners Really Want To Know. Consequently, we think that our figures are probably in the ballpark, and that you can expect creosote to deposit in your chimney much more slowly once you've installed this catalytic converter. Its stable, detachable base provides a strong stand for the heater. We did, however, obtain results that repeated to within 4% when the measured burn rates were equal. Later, when the bulk of the burnable combustion waste is carbon monoxide, temperatures will drop, but the catalyst will still be doing its job for almost as long as coals remain in the firebox. There’s going to be periods of time when your catalytic heater RV isn’t in use, particularly over the warmer months or when your RV is in storage. Turn the stove upright, turn the lever to "high", and pour some denatured alcohol on the dome as a primer. How To Fill Up A One Pound Propane Bottle - The Right Way and Save $$ - Duration: 10:53. Under all burn conditions, there was always an adequate air supply remaining at the converters. Ideal For Burn Ban Locations, Try the RV LIFE Pro Bundle FREE for 7 days, RV Mods – RV Guides – RV Tips | DoItYourselfRV, What Is An RV Propane Regulator? At the beginning of each phase of the study, we installed a new, lower stovepipe connector that had been weighed. At that temperature, the catalyst died after a few minutes of activity. The furnace also drains our battery quickly so when we are boon docked in Arizona winters, the Olympian Wave will be a life saver. For example, a 15.6% gain for a heater operating at 55% efficiency would raise its total output efficiency to 63.6%, an actual increase of 8.6 points.). Like to read more content, Join the Mother Earth News Community Today! Since that issue went to press, B.V. has accepted a position directing engineering at Buck Stove Corporation, and the final prototype was developed and tested in cooperation with that company. A catalytic heater is a flameless heat source that uses chemical reactions to break down molecules and produce heat. Now, however, there are two sources of supply open to MOTHER EARTH NEWS-readers who wish to build a retrofit unit like ours. The automatic control markedly smooths the temperature curve of the catalysts, eliminating many of the sharp rises and drops in temperature that normally occur in a converter. The ceramic blocks are encased in a steel box that pins them against the metal of the heater's firebox (a layer of Interam gasketing insulates the catalysts, seals any small gaps, and protects them from possible damage caused by contact with the steel). In the test stove, for instance, a burn rate of two pounds of wood per hour produced a stack temperature of 250°F at the exit to the stovepipe. 15:09. As a final precaution when using catalytic converters, you'll have to avoid burning anything but natural wood and perhaps a little newsprint (without colored ink) to help light your fires. Furthermore, if the energy that's converted as the smoke is burned in the ceramic monolith can be extracted, there will be more heat released into the room. Some catalytic heaters are manufactured with cut-off switches that monitor the oxygen level. Oven troubleshooting and system optimization. And in the late 1970's, engineers at Corning Glass Works (then a major producer of ceramic monoliths — a trade term used to describe the honeycomb structure — for cars) recognized that the emissions from woodstoves were similar, in many ways, to those from autos. It's very important, however, to be certain that the sides of the metal casing around the catalyst are well sealed to avoid any unintended bypassing by either smoke or air. That way, any mechanical or operator problem will err on the side of safety. Still, one obvious limitation involved in using rectangular catalysts is that the outer corners are often not as active as are the more central areas of the monoliths because the flow patterns and/or mixing are not perfect. Only 5 left in stock - order soon. Survival Skills, Garden Planning, Seed Saving, Food Preservation, Natural Health – Dozens of courses, 100+ workshops, and interactive Q&As. Before the catalytic reaction that produces heat can begin, the catalyst bed must be preheated to approximately 250° F (121° C). First, the stove was run for approximately 150 hours with the package in place. Models: Catalytic Safety Heater EFFECTIVE DATE: JANUARY 2009 Your Olympian ™ heater is designed and built to provide years of comfortable, radiant heat and economical LP Gas consumption. The stove was set in a small, well-insulated room that was equipped with blowers to extract air and a generous inlet to admit air at the ambient temperature in the building. The Coleman SportCat catalytic heater is a safe, portable propane tent heater that is ideal for cold weather camping. A catalyst will start burning the smoke coming from the fire when it has reached a temperature of between 350 and 600F. This figure is higher than those developed by some stack-mounted catalysts, but is a little lower than those achieved by some well-designed catalyst stoves. Hi, thanks for stopping by. If your heater has a heat shield make sure it is in place before the heater is light. Camco Olympian RV Wave-6 LP Gas Catalytic Safety Heater, Adjustable 3200 to 6000 BTU, Warms 230 Square Feet of Space, Portable and Wall Mountable. In the presence of a catalyst, which is within the heater, counter-current combustion or catalytic combustion occurs when natural gas (or liquid propane gas) in the presence of oxygen creates carbon dioxide, water, and heat. [5] A well-sealed, strong bypass valve is mandatory. The combination of the two rectangles and the steel box takes up 2 inches of firebox space to a point 6 inches above the stove floor. Furthermore, the chance of relighting the catalyst after fuel reloading was an iffy matter at best. Log in Approximately five minutes after the bypass is closed, depending on the specific stove and the intensity of the blaze inside, the heater can be damped down to achieve the burn rate you need. The heaters are built with an automatic Piezo electric sparker that lasts about 20,000 starts. We positioned an array of thermocouples along the back side of the baffle to sense extreme temperatures, and found that the readings consistently stayed below 1000°F. Because we knew that there would be experimental inaccuracies, we made every effort to err on the conservative side. From there, the container tapers down to a 3/4" passage, which takes up only an inch of firebox depth up to the top of the back wall. Page 1 WARNING: CAREFULLY READ THE FOLLOWING INSTALLATION INFORMATION. On the other hand, the worst run without the catalyst compared to the best run with it shows an improvement of better than 20%. The overall weight of the creosote in the catalytic mode was about 20% of that found in the conventional mode. Oxygen is used during the heating process and some production of carbon dioxide gas which can lead to a deadly gas build-up if the air is not refreshed. 1) Homemade Wood Stove Made From Scrap. [LEFT] The creosote developed in the stovepipe without the catalytic converter is much denser and far more difficult to clean off than the material left in the stovepipe when the converter was used. [2] Avoid flame impingement on the catalyst. The crew's experience indicates, however, that the basic concept can be applied to just about any roughly cubic metal (steel or iron) woodburner. This post may contain affiliate links. If all stoves were the same, we could tell you exactly how to build a bypass valve for yours. I also hope to save on propane usage.” Our testing methods were quite basic and somewhat limited in scope and accuracy when compared with the sophisticated calorimeter rooms used by some laboratories. Generally speaking, catalytic heaters are safe to use in tents if you have lots of ventilation. The monoliths mount side by side, low on the stove's back wall. This easy catalytic RV heater mod with freestanding base and mini-propane bottle saves energy and lowers interior heating costs during every camping season. When Not In Use, Keep Your Catalytic Heater RV Covered. We have no way of knowing whether this variation is due to experimental error or an actual change in the stove's operating efficiency, but it could easily be either or a combination of the two. Leave the connection for 5-10 minutes until the catalytic … But with the help of sound advice from a Corning Glass Works engineer and his oxygen analyzer, it was determined that specific provisions for secondary air weren't needed. Already a Member? [3] There must be adequate oxygen at the catalyst. 87. In a typical catalytic heater setup, natural gas or propane will sit inside of the heater up against platinum or platinum-type metal. Until recently, it hasn't been easy for an individual to acquire catalytic converters for a do-it-yourself design. For that reason, there must be a valve that allows you to shunt smoke around the catalyst while a new fire gets going and whenever the stove's doors are opened. As a result, catalyst life should be extended when the thermostat is used.). Unfortunately, as many of those experimenters have found out, heat exchangers generally speed up the accumulation of creosote deposits and most add-to-the-fire chemicals don't seem to help much in removing this messy (and dangerous) substance. A pile of logs in a stove will always burn unevenly, thus there are almost always areas in the firebox that are left to smolder. Consequently — after suffering through a heating season of wishful frustration — MOTHER EARTH NEWS' staff members began conducting some experiments of their own in April of 1982. Catalytic heater maintenance and operational guidelines. We've chronicled that research and have waited anxiously for breakthroughs. The improvement is not an incremental gain in the stove's total efficiency. The temperatures at intake and exhaust were monitored continuously, and the rise was taken to be representative of the stove's heat output. Canadian Subscribers - Click Here If we took the best run without the catalyst and compared it to the worst with it, the improvement would still be about 11%. [RIGHT] The creosote left when using the converter is dry and flaky and often falls away of its own accord. Unfortunately, as attractive as those alternatives are, their price tags are usually pretty danged formidable. With the dollar benefits to base your decision on, you can take satisfaction in knowing that you're helping to keep our air clean. For that reason, the decision was made to move the package inside the stove and as close to the fire zone as possible. Already a Member but Once the heater's mass is up to temperature, the converters will be much more forgiving of occasional blasts of chilly air and should relight themselves easily. During the entire test, we prevented stack temperature from ever exceeding 600°F at the bottom of the connector, so that deposits wouldn't be burned away by the heat. A baffle attached to the inside of the door then directed the air down to the stove floor, both to preheat it and to direct the blast right at the burn zone. During the hours immediately after loading, the catalyst will be very active, handling the volatile hydrocarbons being released from the wood. Now some of the recently released state-of-the-art heaters can achieve excellent combustion efficiency without resorting to catalytic converters, but without exception these units are carefully designed from the legs up. That way, the stove builders handle warranty arrangements, and the catalyst producers have the discretion of approving stove designs before delivering converters, which assures both safety and good performance. Tiny House Trailer: RV House Made of Redwood, 3 Portable Propane Outdoor Campfires. You'll find tips for slashing heating bills, growing fresh, natural produce at home, and more. By the time you read this, Buck will be well on its way to introducing a retrofit package (patent pending), similar to the one shown here, for its line of products. International Subscribers - Click Here Research Campgrounds, Plan RV Safe Routes & Turn your phone into an RV GPS. At 6:30 I went to rake what I thought would be just a few coals forward to start a fire. I was wondering if anyone has ever put a catalytic combuster under the hot plate on a rayburn... this is not in the direct burn box, but where the smoke goes over the top of the oven and up the flue. According to the company: “Olympian heaters produce mostly radiant heat as a result of a flameless catalytic combustion process. (It's important for you to understand what these statistics do — and don't — mean. After it's "lit," the converter will produce enough heat to maintain ignition, even though the temperature of the incoming "wood gas" may drop slightly below 500°F. (Of course, a converter is still no substitute for regular chimney inspection and maintenance.). The latest high-tech wood burners use 30% less wood and emit up to 90% fewer pollutants than did the best heaters built only ... yourself model in A Wood Stove Catalytic Converter You Can Build.) Light the dome and let … The catalyst in your stove, similar to the catalytic converter in your car, burns the unburned fuel (smoke) from the fire before it exits through the flue. During that time, about 375 pounds of air-dried oak was consumed at a variety of burn rates. account? With the converters set close to the fire, the heater will maintain a catalyst intake temperature of at least 550°F even at a burn rate of two pounds of air-dried oak per hour. First, Buck Stove has offered to sell pairs of rectangular converters to readers through its dealer network for less than $100. The major catalytic converter manufacturers have found it logistically easy (and profitable) to deal only with stove manufacturers. As we've already mentioned, the single most important precaution is to always bypass the converters when the doors are opened. Perhaps it's enough to say that all of the parties involved had and have  a commitment to see that this technology gets to the public  — that is, to you. Our Shop. June 28, 2008: (Note: see my comments below about this heater) I'm preparing for the purchase of an Olympian Wave 6, a catalytic heater. We strongly recommend that you interlock the bypass valve with the door latch (as the Buck Stove people have done), so that no one can inadvertently open the doors without bypassing the catalyst. The devices allow carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and carbon particles that have slipped past an engine's combustion chambers to be afterburned at a temperature lower than their usual ignition point. This will greatly reduce the number of trips back to town for more propane. This is to prevent dust particles from entering the system, as these can make the catalytic heater produce higher amounts of carbon monoxide. heater.Manufactured by A&L Enterprises in Tumwater, Washington, this compact, catalytic gas heater runs on natural gas or propane and may be safer than the built-in furnace found in most RVs.. Testing Chemical Chimney Cleaning Products. There is any area where you could slide a 2 inch by 6 inch catalytic combuster in the path where the smoke goes and burn it.. Any thoughts? Thus, the amount of material available to stick to stovepipe walls will be less (and pollution will be reduced). They don’t make use of actual fire, and are designed to be used in close quarters. The single runs in each mode didn't provide a great quantity of data to work with, but they did show a reduction of creosote of a little more than 80%. The baffled opening we devised prevented any flame front from reaching the catalysts during our extended testing. don't have an online A package similar to the one we're detailing in this article has proved itself able to increase a stove's heat output (which is a result of both combustion and heat-transfer efficiency) by better than 15%, and has reduced creosote accumulation in a stovepipe connector by more than 80%. Our arrangement pulls the air across the zone where the smoke is being produced, and there's every indication that mixing is effective. You may also use the Bill Me option and pay $17.95 for 6 issues. The research team has installed converters on three different stoves, and has had to adapt them in each case. So, once the smoke passing through the catalyst reaches that threshold, it will oxidize as long as the combustibles in it are well mixed with a sufficient supply of air. Canadian subscriptions: 1 year (includes postage & GST). In fact, the reduction in capacity is more than made up for in increased output, and removal of any smoke shelf or baffle (which is no longer functional) may actually increase useful volume in some cases. You should use metal that's at least 1/4" thick too, since the temperatures in the valve area are likely to be high enough to cause warping in thinner material, and the hinges should be of substantial thickness for the same reason. Usually I would have to make another fire about that time or a little earlier to keep things warm even on a good solar day. For example, the stove we used was equipped with an automatic blower, but we chose to run the fan on "high" constantly. While we were recording the efficiency measurements, we also ran a creosote accumulation test. Ceramic honeycombs coated with platinum and/or palladium and/or rhodium have filled this role in cleaning up automobile exhaust emissions since the early 1970's. Once the research crew was satisfied that the prototype was achieving performance in keeping with what they'd hoped for, the unit was subjected to a period of extended testing. Of course, most veteran woodburners take pains to see that the wood they cut gets well used, and as a consequence many such folks have toyed with devices that claim to either increase heat transfer efficiency or reduce creosote formation. To use the heater after assembly, fill it with fuel, then turn it upside down until a fuel wet spot about six inches in diameter forms on the dome. Furthermore, that same valve will have to be open while you're getting a fire going. [l] Get the catalyst close to the heat source. If you are not using a shutoff valve, simply opening the fuel gas line will start the catalytic reaction. Natural Cold Storage: Fresh Food in Winter, Keeping Crops Cool During Hot Weather: 13 Ways to Beat the Heat, Subscribe Today - Pay Now & Save 64% Off the Cover Price. My solar air heater was running so the house was still toasty at 6pm. Once you get the hang of it, operating a stove equipped with catalytic converters is only a little more difficult than managing a heater without them. $710.87 $ 710. (Throughout the tests we used a stack temperature thermostat and recommend it highly. On one cast-iron stove that we've equipped with converters, a thermometer set in that location rises to better than 800°F soon after the converter lights off. We won't belabor the amount of effort that has gone into this article (much of which, of course, also went into the development of Buck Stove's new product) or take the space to try to thank everyone on the outside who's helped out. Fresh, how to make a catalytic heater gas or propane will sit inside of the major catalytic converter manufacturers have it... A stack temperature thermostat and recommend it highly these statistics do — and n't... 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