CLEANING UP WOOD HEAT FOR 1982-83

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The Condar Company, for one, has dedicated a lot of effort to achieving ignition in a catalyst at low burn rates. The firm's design — which was developed over the last two years by Dr. Stockton Barnett and tested extensively through the winter of 1981-82 — was licensed to Blaze King and American Eagle in June, and production models should be available by late fall of this year. According to testing done by Barnett in several extensively monitored homes, the prototype stoves are capable of maintaining a heating efficiency of about 80% at burn rates of some 2-1/2 pounds of wood per hour.

Of course, catalytic combusters will be beyond the reach of many folks as a result of the cost that they add to the woodburners that are sold already equipped with them. In general, a catalyst stove will run at least $250 more than would a comparable heater without such a device. Fortunately, though, there are ways to own a catalytic combuster without buying a whole new stove.

Regular readers of this magazine may recall the cooperative research project that we entered into, last year, with Shelton Energy Research. In MOTHER NOS. 73 and 74 we reported Shelton's testing of three addon devices . . . all of which are said to reduce creosote accumulation. One of those products, the Penn Stove Smoke Dragon, is an add-on catalytic combuster, which now sells for $390. And, since our results were released, the manufacturers of another product included in the test (the Smoke Consumer by Lincoln Works) have introduced their own retrofit catalyst device. Furthermore, Energy Harvesters, Riteway, and Shenandoah all make catalytic combuster kits for their stoves.

However, a lot of folks will want to know the name of the least expensive complete heater that's equipped with a catalytic combuster. Well, to our knowledge, the Webster Stove Foundry Hearth Cat — which sells for $529 — holds that honor.

HIGH TURBULENCE

The last method of clean, efficient woodburning we discussed back in issue 72 was that typified by high-temperature, forcedcombustion-air furnaces. To date, no other woodburning heater has been able to equal this technique — which was developed by Dr. Richard Hill at the University of Maine — for low carbon monoxide and particulate emissions. Of course, since these units do burn their fuel quickly and store the heat produced (usually in water), they aren't likely to be manufactured as space heaters. There are, however, at least two U.S.-based companies building different-sized furnaces using this technology.

TOMORROW?

For the time being, the woodstove industry's supply of research money seems to be limited as a result of the hard times the manufacturers have seen over the last few years. Still, there are more and more people involved who are dedicated to the development of cleaner, more efficient woodburning heaters, and we have little doubt that we'll be seeing some exciting new ideas before long.

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