Occo370 said:
The stove is quite old. I have had it for about 3 or 4 seasons. My chimney install is new when I got the stove. It meets the stoves requirements on draft. Wood is good. The cat temp is 1700. Not the stove pipe. The stove pipe temp is about 500. I am closing the bypass to activate at those temps according to mfr recommendations. It is a stainless cat. As I said before. When clean works great. When not. Doesn't. The chimney is cleaned every year by me. It's not a crazy setup so it's easy to do. Any help would be appreciated
It looks like you are doing things right, but there must be something going on, as most cat burners have not had a big problem with this.
I agree with Hogwildz, start the stove with something other than that starter log and see if that extends the time period between cleaning the cat. That cat should not be plugging very often. From what I have been reading, most folks may brush the front of the cat every few weeks, and at the end of the season, or prior to the start of the season check it more closely and possibly clean it. Something is different about what you are doing to cause this, I would start by eliminating the starter log.
I hesitate to make this suggestion, as you need to be very careful, I would set a schedule of vacuuming out the front of the cat, when you catch the stove cool enough, maybe once a week. Take special precautions with the vacuum, in fact I would find a small handheld with an adapter hose and brush to dedicate to this operation, and take it outside when done and clean it out and store in a non combustible container outside or in the garage, you can suck enough hot ashes to burn it and your house up if you aren't careful with it. I have a vacuum designed for cleaning computer/electronic equipment that I have used last year, haven't done it this year though as we have burned better wood, and have not pushed the stove as hard and it hasn't built up as much ash on the front as it has in the past.
My question on draft was because I know when I open my bypass and air up full throttle at startup, and also when I clean the ash out, a lot of ash dust is flying around, and thought maybe an extra strong draft might be creating enough air movement to do the same.
When you clean the ash out of the stove are you opening the bypass up, so the free dust will go up the chimney instead of through the cat?