Thermometer

I am burning a Harman Mark III. I want to put a thermostat on the stove to see how hot I am burning. What kind of thermostat do I need? Where do I place it and what temps do I run at? Where do I get one?

Thanks for the replies

On My Alaska I use small grill thermometers about the size of a 50 cent piece, got them at home depot in the patio section with grill accesories. I drill about a 3/8 in hole in the pipe , scew them in, they have a not you can use on the back to secure it. They go up to 700 degree's.

I put one in the pipe as close to the stove as I could, another about 2 feet above the stove and one at the chimney thimble about 8 feet away from the stove. Just for fun.

Pretty amazing sometimes, the stove throttle at high rate can run 650* and 2 feet above it is only 300*

BK

A magnetic stove thermometer will do the trick they are made just for that and can be found in a real hardware store or a stove store, prolly not one of the shopping center home supply giants though. Course I'm sure ya kin find one on line also google it . Never used one so I got no idea what it should run I always go by feel but there are a lot of posts concerning temperature . The feel thing is developed after many many years burning coal and it seems to work on my hand fed as well as my stoker I'm burning for the first year, while not very scientific after reading a recent thread about usage I see I'm keeping my houses much warmer than most and using a lot less coal than most

The diiference is the magnets take external temp and the others take internal temp, gets a little confusingwhen comparing oranges to apples.

BK

bksaun wrote:The diiference is the magnets take external temp and the others take internal temp, gets a little confusingwhen comparing oranges to apples.
BK

Yes but they both still provide a reference number which is all you really need since actual internal temps won't be used for combustion analysis anyway .
Just be sure when talking temps the comparison is internal or external I think most posters reference external temperature

The magnetic stove thermometers are nice also in that you can move them around and you will find significant differences at different surface points on the side, front, top, etc. Doesn't really answer your question about how hot to burn, but it's interesting to see the differences.

As to how hot to run it, my Harman manual says the stovepipe temp should not exceed 500*, and as I recall it says how far from the outlet to take the reading. Harman doesn't say clearly, but I think they mean to measure with the magnetic surface thermometer because a few lines earlier they recommend having one. (A probe thermometer will likely read twice as high.) I have checked within six inches of the stove outlet, at moderately high burn rate, and it was about 400*.