Safe Wood Stove Advancements that Protect Your Family

Modern Wood Stove Safety Advancements

One of my favorite winter activities is building a fire. I love setting the logs, stoking the flames, and settling in for quality family time around it. This is nothing new. Fires have been a center piece of family life since we blocked the cave entrance with a fire at night for safety to ward off predators. This pleasure has always come with a certain level of risk. Even a modern safe wood stove creates risk of chimney fires and house fires. We accepted this risk rather than give up fire – there was no other alternative.

Fortunately, new advanced wood stove safety features from MF Fire™ remove fire risks seen in all other wood stoves. Let’s go over these key wood stove safety risks and explore what has been developed to make a safe wood stove.

Preventing Over-firing and Chimney Fires

Even the most experienced wood stove users over-fire their stoves. Over-firing occurs when too much wood is loaded and provided with too much oxygen, frequently when the catalytic combustor is bypassed and the flue damper is left open. It can happen when we are distracted, juggling too many activities at once or when we are cold and tired. Over-firing can compromise your wood stove safety by damaging your stove, weakening and warping its metal. The extra hot gas vented from an over-fired stove can, in turn, ignite the creosote buildup in your chimney and cause a chimney fire – the most dangerous situation for any wood stove owner. This occurs more than 22,000 times a year in the United States and is a leading cause of house fires^[1].

Chimney fires are the leading source of home heating fires in homes and occur more than 22,000 times a year in the US. Source: CSIA and U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

Preventing over-firing is possible with MF Fire’s advanced safety system built around its stove automation and smart controller. Traditional stoves are manual at all phases of use and there is no way to detect when over-firing is occurring. MF Fire changes this. In Catalyst™, we added automation and monitoring to create a smart wood stove. Real-time monitoring inside the wood stove detects when over-firing is about to occur triggering the stove to automatically regulate the fire back to a safe level. The Catalyst Smart App also notifies the owner with a simple alert of the event. This advanced system is the only solution on the market that proactively prevents chimney fires and over-firing, protecting your household and ensuring continued safe wood stove use.

Closing Open Doors

When you leave open door of a wood stove, there is an opportunity for an ember or shifting log to escape and start a room fire. This happens at startup when people often leave the door open to help deliver a faster start, when hot loading, or when the latch isn’t closed properly. Catalyst’s technology advances make for a safe wood stove by minimizing the risk of an open door.

Fast, Easy Start

A cold startup is notoriously difficult for even an experienced wood stove user. Due to chimney draft problems, the door is often left open to provide maximum oxygen to the fire and air is drawn into the fire box as newly heated air rises. The problem is mother nature has a column of heavier cold air pressing down against the hot air. This in turn forces smoke and other particles, including embers, out into the room. Speeding this process has a big impact on open-door safety.

MF Fire introduced Load it, Light it, Lock it™ technology to minimize this effort and to minimize open-door time. Catalyst’s TurboStart™ fan forces air into the firebox to speed combustion without having to keep the door open, securing against this type of risk.

Smart Alerts

Smart alerts warn you when the door is left open or when over-firing occurs to help protect your family

When the stove door is accidentally left open during a start, reload or by a younger member of the household, the sooner you know about it the safer your home and family will be. One safety innovation that proactively addresses this scenario is the open-door alert. The Catalyst Smart App has wood stove safety features, including a built-in alarm that will alert an owner that a door has been left ajar, enabling the door to be secured quickly and safely.

Demand A Safe Wood Stove

If you are using an older wood stove, but are considering upgrading your stove, demand a safe wood stove. Catalyst wood stove safety benefits allow you to comfortably and safely get the most out of your stove experience.

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^{[1] Source: Chimney Safety Institute of America and the US Product Safety Commission.}

Paul LaPorte is the CEO of MF Fire