Love this CAT stove!

Nice to hear any story about a stove performing well. I have been a non cat man for 15 years but after hearing the good stories, specially in regards to BK< I'm dying for an excuse to try a cat stove again.

I love my f600 cat I am not writing off clean burn, but when I buy anohter stove I will be buying another CAT stove.

We were afraid of cat stoves but ended up buying one two years ago and love it. Simple to use, burns super clean and we're only using half the amount of fuel we used to plus staying warmer.

Arlo said:

I love my f600 cat I am not writing off clean burn, but when I buy anohter stove I will be buying another CAT stove.

Click to expand...

Arlo,

How clean does you f600 cat burn? No smoke throughout the burn, other than initially with open bypass?

Diabel said:

Arlo said:

I love my f600 cat I am not writing off clean burn, but when I buy anohter stove I will be buying another CAT stove.

Click to expand...

Arlo,

How clean does you f600 cat burn? No smoke throughout the burn, other than initially with open bypass?

Click to expand...

Burns Real clean other than open bypass. No creosote whatsoever.

Thanks, I am still toying with the idea of picking up that 12 yr. old f600.....if I buy it then I think I will attempt rebuilding it (with help from this forum of course ;-) )

I switched to a cat this year and couldn't be happier. I will never go back!

Add another CAT fan to the list here.

Well.....I have a Cat stove....only stove I have ever owned. When I was a young teen, my father put a wood stove in our house.....a black bart or something like that....side loader. Don't think he really understood wood heating, and he never really spent much time teaching us. I always had a groan of a time getting it to burn, and remember smelling like smoke all the time. I found it embarrassing.

But I like my stove. love it in the winter time. love being warm. Get a good 6 hour burn out of it and usually still have a bed of coals in the morning after going to bed around 11. So that is usually 7 hours.

Scratching my head trying to figure out why so many have a bad taste in their mouth for catalytic stoves

Click to expand...

My theory is a lot of anti catters tried it when the technology was new and it wasnt as good as today. Now with Hearthstone and BK the cat stoves are finely tuned. I was anti wood stove when I first bought a house but that was back in the 80's when oil was reasonable and the stoves were big steel boxes with a hole for wood and a hole for smoke (and creosote), a guy I worked with had a chimney fire and I used to read about fires all the time from wood stoves, it just wasnt worth it for the amount of savings you gained.
My first stove is the BK Princess and im dying to get it up and running, Im sure Ill be another happy catter :lol:

SmokingAndPoking said:

First night of actually heating the house with a new (old) Dutchwest Small cat 2460. I'm super impressed and I remember now why I like catalytic stoves so much!

Dropped three logs and a firestarter in the side door, bypass open of course.

By the time the three logs had caught and were fairly well established, I added two splits on top, shut the door and waited for cat to come up to temperature.

Engaged at 600 deg. F on the probe, combustor lit fast and jumped to 1400. Even with the cat at 1400 degrees, the room stayed around 77 and the rest of the house hovered around 71.

Went to bed at 10:30 with the three logs still burning, cat firing.

Woke up at 6:30 to one log still left in the middle of the stove covered in red coals and ready for fresh wood. Stove body still very hot, living room at 71 degrees, rest of house around 65.

Scratching my head trying to figure out why so many have a bad taste in their mouth for catalytic stoves.

Click to expand...

Is that your stove pipe beside the stove? I thought cat stoves burned clean but that must be really clean. Kinda like one of those fancy ventless gas stoves eh?

Another reason that not many folks have cat stoves is that there are only a very very small amount of them made. If you go into a dealer to look at stoves there is a very high likelihood that he won't have any cat stoves and that he will talk them down trying to sell his non-cats. It's easy to find reasons that a non-cat is superior to a cat stove when trying to sell non-cats, things like ONE air control lever, no replacement cat cost, no worries about qood quality, a prettier fire, a prettier stove, simpler operation with no worries about cat engagement temperature, etc. With nobody around to argue the cat benefits the customer easily accepts the non-cat.

Give the market a nice looking and west coast priced BK with the dealer network of a quad and I think the tides will turn.

I burned the same stove (X-Large model) for years, it was a good heater but it did like to burp smoke when dampered down for long, low burns. Finding the sweet spot that kept the cat going but didn't burn the wood load up too quick and drive me out of the room was hard. Now that I think about it, I should have put some kind of stop on the damper leaver to prevent myself from turning it down just a little more.

Careful not to get too far away from that thing with the side door open, it will take off on you, go ahead ask me how I know. Definitely don't walk away from it while getting a fire going with the ash door open.

I still have mine, It's gonna be my shop heater but I have to build the shop first.

I made the switch to cat from big old smoke dragon this year. WOW! is about all I keep saying. 8 plus hours of good heat and 20 plus hours of hot coals. Why didn't I do this sooner?

I haven't even got my Buck Model 80 installed yet and I'm happy with it! Did my paint curing outside in the driveway and am glad I did - lots of stinky smoke. Got ahead of myself and started curing it around 4:30 pm and realized soon after it was coming up to temp that I was going to run out of daylight! Didn't want any dew to form on the stove, so I put three medium size splits in at 9:00 pm and still had some coals at 7:30 next morning. Not bad considering it was a 30°F night and stove itself was exposed to those temps.

FireWalker said:

I burned the same stove (X-Large model) for years, it was a good heater but it did like to burp smoke when dampered down for long, low burns. Finding the sweet spot that kept the cat going but didn't burn the wood load up too quick and drive me out of the room was hard. Now that I think about it, I should have put some kind of stop on the damper leaver to prevent myself from turning it down just a little more.

Click to expand...

I noticed the smoke burps during my overnight curing fire. Had left and right primary air and center floor "shotgun" controls all shut completely. Catalyst was glowing red and eerie flames were just kind of appearing/hovering over the wood. Flames would disappear for a few seconds, then POOF, a mini detonation of vapors and smoke coming out the air inlets. Only had a 5' piece of hvac duct for a flue pipe, so I'm hopeful that with the stove in the house and connected to the insulated liner it will get a better draft and not get starved for air in that configuration. If not, your suggestion of adding stops to the primary air controls is a good one and I'll probably implement it.

Is this the same model of dutchwest stove you are writing about? It's on CL for only $50! What a deal! And it doesn't even look too trashed!

Looks like they have an oil lamp burning inside of it.

tickbitty said:

Is this the same model of dutchwest stove you are writing about? It's on CL for only $50! What a deal! And it doesn't even look too trashed!

Click to expand...

That's it! Mine is getting petina out in my garage. Soon I'll build the addition on the back and I will have my own place.

If you buy it good luck moving it.........she is heaaaaaaavy, like 550lbs. Take off the top, doors, ash pan and grate and it's still all two men can carry.

tickbitty said:

Is this the same model of dutchwest stove you are writing about? It's on CL for only $50! What a deal! And it doesn't even look too trashed!

Click to expand...

Where-abouts is it on craigslist? My google-fu failed me. I may just have to snipe it.

tiber said:

tickbitty said:

Is this the same model of dutchwest stove you are writing about? It's on CL for only $50! What a deal! And it doesn't even look too trashed!

Click to expand...

Where-abouts is it on craigslist? My google-fu failed me. I may just have to snipe it.

Click to expand...

Snipe away, I am getting an insert! But it did make me look twice! (and wonder if it could be an insert sans legs and with a blower, but nah....)
It would be a bit of a hike for you though.
http://outerbanks.craigslist.org/hsh/1450779602.html

SmokingAndPoking said:

That's the one. Well, that may not be the small one (2460 Model No.) that I have, but its definitely in the same family. For $50 I'd take it, rebuild it and sell it!

Click to expand...

That's the plan IF someone posts the CL link and they're not calling dibs. I live fairly close to the southern border of PA, so a $50 woodstove in poor condition is an interesting enough project that a few hours of driving and $50 is the right price.

If I was in the business of picking up huge cast-iron things and reselling them, I would definitely have gone for the gorgeous mint condition Jotul Gas stove with all accessories that someone was selling very close to me - for $100! If they weren't so dang heavy I would think it was stolen!

tickbitty said:

Snipe away, I am getting an insert! But it did make me look twice! (and wonder if it could be an insert sans legs and with a blower, but nah....)
It would be a bit of a hike for you though.
http://outerbanks.craigslist.org/hsh/1450779602.html

Click to expand...

Oops. Thanks for the link but yeah, just a bit far of a drive for me. Once you figure in the price of gas the fun isn't there.