Tips for cat stove.

I don't know exact temps temps, I have a cat probe that simply says inactive / active, when it hits active that's when you close the by-pass, I would safely assume 400 deg though, the one good key indicator is making sure the whole load is burning real good, then shut the by-pass, wait an additional 20 min then start lowering the air to your desired setting.
I think individual cat stoves are different than air tube stoves, you can kind of lump all the air tube stoves together with temps and burn cycle, cat stoves kind of do there own thing for each brand. I think this is due to different catalysts and how they are located in the stove.
My BK is made to run essentially on smoke, the cat eats it making heat and transferring it to the stove top, VC models the flames in the fire box make the heat, the cat is there just to make the burn cleaner.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my basic understanding.

I'm glad you started this thread. I've learned a lot over the last 2 years about cat stoves. Here are my 2 cents.

Burn dry wood. I mean seriously dry. I've tried sneaking some less then fully seasoned wood through it and it struggled. I think a lot of people at this point assume the cat is malfunctioning. I've been burning some very well seasoned pine the last two weeks and the cat lights off quicker then I've ever seen it.
If you use hardwoods, get on the 3 year plan. I personally am trying to get on a 1 year pine rotation with the 3 year hardwoods. With very dry pine I can engage the cat almost instantly and set the burn rate within 5 minutes when loading on coals.

If you burn the best dry woods all of your problems (assuming the cat is still usable) will go away.

Gotta agree with the above. You really require dry wood to run these properly. You can run the IS stoves a bit with secondaries or run both cat and secondaries at once but if you want to run in cat only mode get that wood dry as a bone.

Babaganoosh said:

Gotta agree with the above. You really require dry wood to run these properly. You can run the IS stoves a bit with secondaries or run both cat and secondaries at once but if you want to run in cat only mode get that wood dry as a bone.

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Im not saying you shouldnt get your wood dry as possible, but in my experience the cat stove has better handled wet wood once the stove is hot, compared to tube stoves i've used.

pdxdave said:

Im not saying you shouldnt get your wood dry as possible, but in my experience the cat stove has better handled wet wood once the stove is hot, compared to tube stoves i've used.

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Yes, that's true once the stove is up to temperature. Starting from scratch does not work well though.

Burn dry wood and do not shut the air down all at once or you will get puff backs, especially in the shoulder season.

kennyp2339 said:

cat stoves kind of do there own thing for each brand. I think this is due to different catalysts and how they are located in the stove.
My BK is made to run essentially on smoke, the cat eats it making heat and transferring it to the stove top, VC models the flames in the fire box make the heat, the cat is there just to make the burn cleaner.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my basic understanding.

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Yep, I've found that the different cat stoves I've run each have their own protocols. For sure, you have to have enough wood burning to sustain a cat burn, and the stove has to be up to a certain temp before the cat will light off quickly after I close the bypass. I want that quick light-off so that I'm not putting much un-burned smoke through the cat. I can see the cat glowing pretty quickly, if I've gotten everything right. Dry wood makes everything fairly predictable, but different wood types will behave differently. I'll use certain temps on various meters to tell me when I can close the bypass, depending on which stove I'm running. I have a stove top meter and a flue meter on the Keystone (cat probe tip doesn't quite reach over the cat, so it will pretty much parallel to the flue meter, not give the actual cat temp.) I'll run that "cat meter" up to 1000, and the flue meter (lying on the tee snout) to 600 or so, and the stove top to a minimum of 150. Then I'll cut the air to maintain that flue temp for about 10-15 minutes, and I can get a good light off pretty much every time. The Dutchwest, I'll get the stove top about 250, flue meter again to about 600 for 15 minutes, and I can get a quick light even though the cat probe may only be at 100 or so. The Buck, I'd run the cat probe to about 900 then cut the air to level it off for at least 15 minutes, then close the bypass and the cat temp will start climbing. I also run my SIL's Fireview sometimes. Whatever stove you have, you just need to experiment to see what parameters you need to get a quick light. I've never run a down-draft VC stove but I think they also run on smoke only once you get the cat burning, and that's where you get the heat from with them, as well.

mellow said:

Burn dry wood and do not shut the air down all at once or you will get puff backs, especially in the shoulder season.

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Agreed. I've already cut the air back pretty much once I have the stove and flue to the temps I want to maintain. Then once I close the bypass I'll slowly cut the air further in a couple of stages to get to my final air setting. Some cat stoves are more likely than others to back-puff if cutting the air too fast or too soon, depending on a variety of factors such as the stove make, chimney draft, outside temps, wood type etc.

Wolves1 said:

Come on, who doesn't tip the cat stove?

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Yer gonna have a hard time tipping my Buck 91 at 620 lbs.