Wood Stove Catalytic Combustor Replacement Catalyst Dutchwest Englander (6" x 2" Round Ceramic) Made in USA

Replaced a 6 year old metal combustor that had some 10,000 hours on it. Shocking difference in efficiency. Direct, easy slide in fit. Immediate return on investment. Warmer house, less wood, less time cleaning the front glass. Win, win, win. If it lasts even a few years I’ll feel it was a good value.

Correct fit for my Vermont Defiant. I've had it in service for a week now with near constant operation. Gets up to temperature quickly and operates as intended. Clear smoke from my stack just like the OEM when it was new. Does not accumulate as much residue as the OEM one. OEM cat lasted 3 years of heavy operation. This unit should in theory be more durable, omitting the metal coating and using straight ceramic. Burn temperature and heat output seem comparable to OEM unit, perhaps slightly higher.

I am updating this review on March 13, 2025, near the end of a third season of possible state-of-the-art performance. We heat our log cabin over relatively severe, 7.5-month mountain winters, primarily burning local tamarack. Midwest's 5x10.6x2 metallic combustor — still going strong — was purchased thru Amazon to begin our 2022 season; is my first metallic combustor; and replaced the original ceramic combustor we used for 6 seasons in our 2015 King Parlor, model KE1107LBK. We soon had a perplexing experience. For the few occasions which require the longest-lasting fires, I try to stock several large rectangular splits which will hardly fit into our stove. Because the rounds come from large tree bottoms, the consolidated density has sustained moderate fires, probably for never as much as 18-20 hours. So one afternoon, having to leave immediately, and expecting to return even later the next day, I wriggled such a split onto a relatively healthy bed of coals. Our first surprise with the metallic combustor then, was to return about 26 hours later, to a larger pile of coals and a home which was practically as warm as we had left it. In 35 years with 3 such Blaze Kings, never before had I even come close to corroborating factory material which contends our stove is capable of burning a full load of wood for 24+ hours. Near the end of a third season with very well-sustained efficiency, my consumption records now show that ever-increasing wood savings had already paid for the metallic combustor a full year ago, at just 1.829 seasons. But these useful insights emerge only now, because I have recently developed the capacity to calculate a combustor's most cost-effective lifespan (MCEL) from whatever happens to be its escalating rate of wood consumption. Software now determines the merits and demerits of any combustor in seconds. Our conundrum is the counter-intuitive question of how long we should continue to use a combustor which still seems to be reasonably functional. Credible answers of course, will reflect the idea it is unreasonable to retire what we do not understand should be retired. Yet we have no idea whether we have already given up 3.7 metallic combustors or wasted $1,115 in wood, for using a ceramic combustor 3.5 years longer than we should have. And this is because it is impossible to ascertain these translations of the MCELs we are not calculating. The MCEL of a combustor is a critical juncture in its prospective lifespan, at which the extent to which combustor costs have seasonally diminished equals the extent to which wood costs have seasonally increased. Thus the MCEL of a combustor distinguishes the diminishing cost phase of its prospective lifespan from the generally far more rapid escalations of its ensuing, increasing cost phase. It is to avoid the latter, that we retire our combustor. A combustor's most cost-effective lifespan therefore, relates to the facts that combustor efficiency diminishes as it deteriorates; and that ever more wood is therefore consumed to produce desired heat. The more rapid the diminishing efficiency; the more rapid the escalation of wood consumption and costs. Thus, the sooner we must retire the combustor, in order to avoid even more dramatically increasing wood costs. We readily understand how the seasonal costs of a combustor diminish with increasing seasons of use. A second season reduces the seasonal costs of a $300 combustor to $150 — saving $150 per season. But a tenth season only reduces a ninth season's $33 cost to $30 — saving only $3 in the tenth season. Yet because all we can save in a hypothetical eternal combustor lifespan is the price of the combustor, savings only diminish ever more negligibly with increasing use. Yet as wood consumption instead escalates by increasing multiples of initial consumption, wood costs increase by ever-escalating sums of wood. For example then, the seasonal costs of a $300 combustor decrease to $100 over 3 seasons — reducing the original seasonal costs by $200. But at $200 per cord and a 20% rate of increasing consumption, 3 cords of initial wood consumption multiply into 3.6 and 4.32-cord seasonal consumption — with the additional 1.92 cords costing an additional $384 — or practically twice what diminishing seasonal combustor costs would otherwise have saved us. And so, this increasing cost phase of a combustor's lifespan arrives much sooner than our inability to calculate or appreciate its rapid onset makes us fit to imagine; and consequently, we are indeed wasting $1,115 by using our combustors 3.5 years longer than we should, simply because we have not yet understood how diminishing seasonal combustor costs are so soon dwarfed by escalating wood consumption costs. So it also was then, that when I first made these calculations, I immediately found that I had just wasted 3.7 metallic combustors, or $1,115, for retiring our previous ceramic combustor 3.5 seasons after I should have. The reason that practically everyone will make this mistake then, is that it is so counter-intuitive to retire a rather expensive combustor at just 2.5 seasons, if we can presume it is still reasonably "working" to the end of 6. Although this conundrum announced itself from my very own records, its implications are also reflected in commercial papers which, because they venture no more than tendencies, are obviously produced from much less than formally-calculated MCELs. The resultant omissions and obscurities could be explained by a paradox which might challenge even sophisticated mathematicians. But the only inspirations for this work are theory and uncommonly propitious wood consumption records. This alone would explain the former dearth of vital implications. Nonetheless, given an anticipated disinclination to adequately monitor wood consumption, it would also be pointless to endow the usual household with these calculation capabilities. What the usual household needs instead then, is adequate guidelines for retiring the usual household's combustor. So this is where we're headed with this. Although I anticipated these implications many years ago, the need to contemplate yet again when it might be advisable for yours truly to replace the present metallic combustor, forced me to sit down to formally develop the only proper answer. The compelling problem was, that as it was still unclear whether the metallic combustor was consuming significantly more than the 2.375 cords of its original season, its proper retirement begged for careful consideration and calculation. Because the substantial increasing rate of consumption of the previous ceramic combustor was even quite troubling, yours truly was already long aware that its consumption had increased from 2.75 cords to 5.5 in 6 seasons. But as he was now meaning to extrapolate the implications of the metallic combustor's third season, he was now forced to return to records which showed that the ceramic combustor's consumption increased from 2.75 cords to more than 3.5 in this determinate third season. Still then, as yours truly was not even yet detecting a measurable increase in the metallic combustor's consumption, this meant all of the sudden, that the metallic combustor had already saved yours truly so much as 0.375, 0.8125, and 1.25 cords — or a total of 2.4375 cords over its first 3 seasons. So this came to $487 — which quite obviously, had already paid for the metallic combustor some 1.625 times over. So this was yours truly's wake-up call. And it might also be yours. Yours truly had just discovered that he already had a free combustor. But his question had been, when should he retire it? Clear facts now implied that the answer probably justified its overhead. Yours truly was now quite compelled to know. Suddenly he remembered how much more wood he seemed to be going through, over that excessive final 3.5 years. He's burning half the final season's consumption now. The decreased wood-handling chores were far more than conspicuous. In fact, he had even been miffed after doing all the work to set up to brush his chimney on its regular two-year cycle, only to find it still looked like he had just cleaned it. All the ladders and safety ropes and gear had to come back down again for nought. So he sat down, and in roughly the same time, produced software which now answers all of these questions in seconds. THE OSTENSIBLE QUESTION OF RELIABILITY On their own however, these calculations might not well-enough answer to prospective reservations. We may already anticipate that it is literally impossible to usefully represent combustor value, but in terms of previously uncalculated MCELs. Yet if an example readily delivers twice its MCEL, and still looks practically like it did in its original box... then the very condition of my own example implies stellar reliability. Because proper usage would ostensibly ensure this reliability then, there is no such thing as proper usage randomly destroying a combustor in short order. Proper lubrication doesn't sometimes protect your car engine, and others cause it to seize. To cry foul against truly legitimate opportunities to enforce our 5-year prorated warranty then, is as much as to concede that obvious negligence violated indispensable precautions. But as the boundaries of combustor precautions impose relatively obscure challenges both to adequately expressing and to sufficiently understanding them, we can easily be guilty of unrealized violations. PROPER USAGE The rules that yours truly has developed for himself are quite simple. But as strict adherence has somehow so well preserved the original condition of his combustor, perhaps we should understand the inflexibility of his simplifications. We are contending only with potentially adverse chemistry, and the upper and lower limits of permissible temperatures. Thus we are: 1) never to risk adverse chemistry; 2) never to risk such elevated fires as expose our delicate lattice to flame impingement; 3) and finally, to resurrect expiring fires before sub-catalytic temperatures deposit much creosote on our combustor. We can only comply with our first protocol by burning nothing but well-seasoned, pure, appropriate firewoods. More ambiguously, because the catalytic process sucks a peculiar aurora-like flame into our combustor, yours truly reasons that the second protocol cautions us to observe some undefined combustion extreme. This may even make it compulsory to minimize our fires. The further paradox of our third protocol begs the practically impossible feat of minimizing creosote deposition while fires which expire several times in every day will instead deposit creosote for much of every day. The best we can do here then, is to amend the excesses by cleaning our combustor more regularly. An honest person will therefore tend to concede that probably very few end users could possibly understand what "proper use" actually is. Yet it is at least theoretically a delicate matter. Nonetheless, I would at least see and perhaps even complain about the ambiguities in the flame impingement section of the company FAQ (at https://midwesthearth.com/pages/catalytic-combustor-faq). ROUTINES OF PROPER USAGE These ambiguities still imply rigid and precise routines. Because he never burns paper products, yours truly shamelessly starts or resurrects a fire without even kindling, using a well anchored propane torch. Our fires are almost always minimal. Only severe sub-zero temperatures force us to raise our thermostat. Wood little more than smolders, mostly in the lower ranges of catalytic temperatures. Surely these minimal temperatures are responsible for the like-new appearance of my combustor. Creosote deposition is minimized by systematically adding wood before expiring fires fall from catalytic ranges. No one has to mother over a stove to do this, because previous regularities enable us to replenish fuel regularly. The precision of our procedures minimizes required attention. MAINTENANCE Combustors should be cleaned at least annually. Yet midseason maintenance will all-the-better ensure undiminished efficiency. As solvents, abrasives, and high pressure air are forbidden, moderate air pressure is perhaps the only useful option. I decrease my compressor's supply to 45 pounds for a substantially gentler airstream, and keep the nozzle so far away from the lattice as makes damage impossible. This does a fantastic job in seconds. I should also explain that I abandoned the circumferential gasket after the replacement's first season. Eliminating this seemingly redundant component makes it possible to regularly remove and replace the combustor in mere seconds, without the potentially discouraging dependence upon many further gaskets, and without the rather frustrating overhead of getting the dubious gasket into its questionable position. Improved efficiency also minimizes required maintenance. Our former 2-year chimney cleaning cycle was immediately extended to 4, and may well increase further. I am still cleaning our short angled stainless riser annually with the stove, as it seems to collect most of our condensation. But this is hardly much of a chore anymore. THEORETICAL ADVANTAGES Because comprehensive improvements are inherently relatively calculated, we should also understand that credible theoretical advantages distinguish superior products and credible claims. This in turn should influence us to intuit that the diminutive mass of this metallic lattice should much more readily rise to catalytic temperatures. But so it does. Our stove transitions to the catalytic range in 3 minutes. Likewise, so much further catalytic surface area should at least account for the modestly superior efficiency that yours truly's consumption records corroborate. But as the measured combustor efficiency is still much less than the increased surface area would imply, this infers we may already be so near to 100% combustor efficiency that greater exposure to catalytic material may instead only manifest in the negligible increase in consumption we are experiencing, which may further imply considerably greater possible lifespans. MAXIMUM COST-EFFECTIVE LIFESPAN (MCEL) So the MCEL of a combustor is calculated from the wood consumption which is attributable to a specific pattern of usage. In my wood-monitoring strategy, 2.5-cord rows are matched by overlayment; seasonal consumption is calculated from space; and consumption resolves to mathematically matched rates, producing sums of consumption which I have articulated only to thousandths of a cord, despite greater potential precision. What we are to understand then in regard to the retirement guideline which the MCEL comprises, is therefore that if wood consumption escalates at greater rates, the combustor is to be retired earlier. Conversely, lower escalations promote later retirement. Thus we may adjust the guideline to earlier retirement for higher variables of temperature, wood consumption, or particularly adverse incidents, and to later retirement for the converse. ORIGINAL BLAZE KING CERAMIC COMBUSTOR WOOD CONSUMPTION Our original Blaze King ceramic combustor consumed 2.75 cords over its first season. This seemed quite remarkable, given that with an earlier King which came into my life in the condition that people were using it, I recall burning 7.5 cords annually — both with a shot combustor and without that shot combustor altogether. But yes; lacking such influential material, and inheriting the condition of the stove, this inferred that other people were either equally negligent or equally skeptical that combustor costs were justified real world benefits. In any case, at $200 per cord, the $400 combustor and $550 seasonal cost of these 2.75 cords made our overall costs for our new stove, $950 at the end of its first season. Consumption increased 15% per year thereafter, over 6 years. Thus we consumed 2.75, 3.163, 3.637, 4.182, 4.810, and 5.531 cords annually over 6 seasons; with seasonal wood costs rising from $550 to $633, $727, $836, $962, and $1,106 respectively. Averaged seasonal costs (which represent what our seasonal costs would have been if we had retired the combustor at the end of each season) decreased from $950 to $791 and to $770, thereafter rising to $787, $822 and $869 over this timespan. These significant increases owe to a much greater rate of increasing consumption. But see particularly in the average seasonal costs, that our $770 third was our most cost-effective season. Our MCEL for this combustor is 2.540 seasons, or the 13,671 hours — after which, yours truly indeed wasted $1,115. MIDWEST METALLIC COMBUSTOR WOOD CONSUMPTION The Midwest metallic combustor consumed just 2.375 cords over its first season. At $200 per cord then, the $300 combustor and $475 seasonal cost of wood made our first season's annual costs just $775 — saving $175 in just this first season, over the $950 spent with the ceramic combustor. The prevailing phrase here, is "in just this first season." As I have mentioned, even at the end of a third season, it has remained unclear whether we are consuming much further wood. But please understand then, that to so widely avoid any possibility of misleading you, the following calculations represent a purely hypothetical over-projection of consumption, in calculating for a 7.5% rate of increase where it instead still appears that I have virtually none. The resultant over-projection would thus have us consuming 2.375, 2.553, 2.745, 2.950, 3.172, and 3.410 cords over 6 seasons; with seasonal wood costs rising from $475 to $511, $549, $590, $634, and $682 respectively. Averaged seasonal costs therefore decrease from $775 to $643, $612, and $606, thereafter increasing to $612 and $623. Notice then, that owing still to half the rate of increase we actually monitored with our ceramic combustor, the $612 average seasonal costs for seasons 3 and 5 impose only $6 annual penalties for a whole year of earlier or later retirement. Reasonable adjustments to your MCEL therefore, may properly take this into consideration. But see likewise in the average seasonal costs, that our $606 fourth was our most cost-effective season. Note further, that this is a full year of further MCEL than consumption predicated for the previous ceramic combustor. Our MCEL for this combustor is 3.492 seasons, or 19,483 hours — which is 5,812 more hours more than wood consumption attributes to the ceramic combustor. Overall then, the $606 average seasonal costs of the metallic combustor's fourth season, save us $164 every year, over the $770 seasonal costs of the ceramic combustor's most cost-effective third season. The prevailing phrase here is, "every year." In other words, for these criteria over its 3.492-season MCEL, the metallic combustor saves $572.68 over the operating costs of the ceramic combustor — which also translates to 1.9 metallic combustors. So we will soon purchase another... understanding that unless emerging revisions of criteria predicate otherwise, we will retire Mr. Combustor at 3.492 seasons — which I know because the calculations reduce this to a literal date... happens to be the day before yours truly's 75th birthday. © Copyright 20250313 by mike montagne. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Bought this to replace my destroyed ceramic catalyst in my Vermont castings encore stove. Fit well and so far it’s worked well. Time will tell it it holds up.

This catalyst from Midwest Hearth performs just as good, perhaps better than the original that came with our Encore woodstove. At first I thought there was an issue because it seemed to take forever to get up to the Operate zone, but I noticed that once it got there, it stayed there a lot longer, maintaining a real nice burn for a long time. Be aware that it seems to heat up slower than those from others, but I suspect that is because it's made up of better materials. I purchased 2 cats from another company a few years ago, and while they seemed to heat up a lot faster, they also warped right away. That company would not stand behind the product. I purchased this one, made by Midwest Hearth, knowing they had a warranty. I inspected it after a month of constant use and it looks like brand new. I completely, 100% recommend buying from Midwest Hearth.

Works wonderfully. I highly recommend this product. Worked perfectly on first fire. We will see if that continues. If not, I will be back to bitch about it! Haha. Easy installation and good fire output.

Works well but warranty is only 90 days where you can get a free replacement for a fault. After that you have to pay. With the touted 5 year warranty they give you a 10% credit to a new one. Your statutory rights in England is longer. Minimum 1 year for full refund/replacement and up to 6 years for faults.

Really restores the good burn in thw stove.

Do not wait too long to replace, depending where you are situated, 3 to 4 years. ( in the north west).

Works better than the original, great product. The cat should be replaced every 6 to 8 years depending on amount of use.

Works well luckily I had a roll of gasket around, product description does state it comes with one. Would be nice if they corrected that like other buyers have stated otherwise product is great so far.