Dutchwest Extra-Large Model 2462 Catalytic Stove

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

Highlandwelder

New Member
Jan 23, 2010
14
Ohio
Hi! I've been reading through some past forum threads and am somewhat suprised by a significant amount of negative posts about the Dutchwest cast stoves. I thought it might be helpful to post my experiences so far with this stove. I purchased a very lightly used Dutchwest Extra Large Model 2462 catalytic this past fall. It is being used as a primary heat source for in my 1960's era 2200+ sq ft 2 story home, and it works extremely well. I have not run my natural gas furnace except when we have been away overnight. We used to keep our thermostat set at 68F during the day and 66F at night. We now have temperatures in the mid to high 70's throuughout the house. (80's if I or my wife get carried away)

Some of the issues that I read about seem to be related to chimney/draft as far as I can tell. We installed a 20ft Flex-King Pro in a second story exposed clay lined masonary chimney. We installed this stove on a hearth we created, and vent up through a now modified fireplace. I hated the fireplace, as I could watch dollar bills floating up it, and that was without it lit!! Anyway this configuration has yeilded a very good draft situation for us in outside temperatures as high as the 40's and of course it improves below that. If you light a match in the door you can watch the flame dance upward! I'm not totally sure of my "secrets to success" with this stove, but here is what I think (which if you combine with a couple of bucks will buy you a good cup of coffee!);

1) Having a well installed/insulated chimney liner is a good investment for this stove (or any new high effciency model for that matter).
2) We only burn well seasoned wood. That being said, we do have some oak mixed in that is only a little over 1 year and I now think 2 years should be a minimum for oak. We only load in a minimum amount of smaller portions of this when refueling, and the larger chunks will go back for some more seasoning.
3) After one small "backpuff" incident which I caught immediately, I never engage the cat until this stove has a good fire going
(about 30 - 45 min on a morning refuel, and 15-20 on running reloads). It seems to like a good bed of coals to work off of as well.
4) I have found which primary air settings work from my reload's and don't mess with them. I mess even less with the seconday air controls. My fluctuation is about +/- 1/2 turn off of a 1 and 1/2 constant setting.
5) This stove will re-light with a very small amount of coals. After cleaning out ashes, only a few small embers are need to get things roaring again.
6) If run properly, this stove burns very clean. The glass is always clear, and the chimney is clean as a whistle.
7) Care must be taken not to let this stove "runaway" as it will get very hot, very quickly. OF course this is true of any stove, but the heat that this stove can create in a very short time is incredible.
8) The firebox is very large, and holds a ton of wood. I recommend 22"+ wood and you will get over 10 hour overnighters. I only have a small portion of my current wood in that length, but that will change for year 3.

Hope this information is helpful to someone. I know I enjoy this stove, as does my family.

Take care and burn safely!
 
I just purchased a Dutchwest 2461, 5 years old but completely re-built. It looks brand new. I achieved the best result the first day burning it. The reason is because it was the last tote of fully seasoned wood I had. The wood I'm burning now is less than fully seasoned. The first burn saw cat temps of up to 1000 and temps in the house were 71 when I went to sleep and 71 when I woke up. It was a welcome break from my old stove's 5 hour burn. I can easily get 12 hours between reloads without a match and the stove still at 250 before the next load. I'm worried about it being able to keep up with the below zero temps next year. I can only get the house to 74 now. I hope the wood will be seasoned enough next year to produce better results. Do you think the wood is the culprit? I think it is. My old stove could heat with semi seasoned wood, but I expected this to happen with the new stove.
 
I think many of the negative posts you see are with the newer non cat down drafting VC's, they seem to need ideal setups and very dry wood. I haven't seen too many bad reports from Dutchwest cat stove owners and a couple guys have been burning them over 20 years. How about some pics?
 
VCBurner said:
I just purchased a Dutchwest 2461, 5 years old but completely re-built. It looks brand new. I achieved the best result the first day burning it. The reason is because it was the last tote of fully seasoned wood I had. The wood I'm burning now is less than fully seasoned. The first burn saw cat temps of up to 1000 and temps in the house were 71 when I went to sleep and 71 when I woke up. It was a welcome break from my old stove's 5 hour burn. I can easily get 12 hours between reloads without a match and the stove still at 250 before the next load. I'm worried about it being able to keep up with the below zero temps next year. I can only get the house to 74 now. I hope the wood will be seasoned enough next year to produce better results. Do you think the wood is the culprit? I think it is. My old stove could heat with semi seasoned wood, but I expected this to happen with the new stove.
Click to expand...

Yes, your right, dry wood will make the difference. Try and get a least a couple years ahead on your supply. Nothing wrong with 74, I'm changing into shorts when it hits that.
 
Yes, your right, dry wood will make the difference. Try and get a least a couple years ahead on your supply. Nothing wrong with 74, I’m changing into shorts when it hits that.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the response Todd. I think next year this thing is going to really crank out with dry woo too. Thanks for assuring me. The temps are read from the main hallway right in front of the basement door, where all the warm air goes into the house. So, the true temp of some of the rooms vary by as much as 5-10 degrees depending on how long the air has to cool off overnight and how long the stove has been lit. For example when it was 74 last night in the hallway, it was 71 in the living room and 68 in the kitchen the coldest room in the house. Sometimes when we want it hot we throw 4 small-medium splits in the cast iron box in the living room and it goes up a few degrees within a couple hours. I put a fan blowing in,, between the stove and the fireplace, it goes around the back of the stove, where it's good and hot. By the time it comes out the other side it is hot. Sorry, I got side tracked! Getting back to the Dutchwest. It was 68 at 7:45 this morning 10 hours after the last load. The new blower helps spread the heat when the outer walls of the stove are cooling after an overnight burn. At that point there's less radient heat coming from the outer walls, but the blower was still getting hot air out of the inner cast walls. Ther bed of coals was as deep as 4 inches in some spots with some pretty big chunks. I oppened the damper and shook the coals around to get some of the ash to drop and stimulate the fire. There were instant flames. I added two small splits and left to bring the boys to school. By the time I came back, a little more than a half hour later, pipe temps were just over 500 degrees. My wife was home, so I asked her to watch for an over fire. The fan on high helps keep the stove cool and also lowers the pipe temps considerably, while throwing that heat out into the room. I dampered down, and engaged the cat until it got to 400, about 5 minutes later. I also wanted to lower the pipe temp because at this point it was at about 550, close to the end of the burn zone range on the pipe thermometer. After pipe temps were down to 400 and the cat was at 400 I added four small splits, about 2" or 3". After those were good and charred and pipe temps were back to 525 (5-10 minutes later,) I dampered down again for my daytime burn. It is 71 and climbing at 10:30 am. The cat is at 800, pipe temps at 350 and it's heating well. The small splits won't last long, though. I'll have to keep feeding it to keep up the temps. That's the problem with the semi seasoned wood, I have to cut them small and they don't put out as much heat as if I had 5-6" dry splits in there.

There are pics in these threads, check it out!
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/53428/
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/53337/
 
VCBurner said:
Yes, your right, dry wood will make the difference. Try and get a least a couple years ahead on your supply. Nothing wrong with 74, I’m changing into shorts when it hits that.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the response Todd. I think next year this thing is going to really crank out with dry woo too. Thanks for assuring me. The temps are read from the main hallway right in front of the basement door, where all the warm air goes into the house. So, the true temp of some of the rooms vary by as much as 5-10 degrees depending on how long the air has to cool off overnight and how long the stove has been lit. For example when it was 74 last night in the hallway, it was 71 in the living room and 68 in the kitchen the coldest room in the house. Sometimes when we want it hot we throw 4 small-medium splits in the cast iron box in the living room and it goes up a few degrees within a couple hours. I put a fan blowing into one between the stove and the fireplace and it goes around the back of the stove, where it's good and hot, and by the time it comes out the other side it is hot. Sorry, I got side tracked! Getting back to the Dutchwest. It was 68 at 7:45 this morning 10 hours after the last load. The new blower helps spread the heat when the outer walls of the stove are cooling after an overnight burn. At that point there's less radient heat coming from the outer walls, but the blower was still getting hot air out of the inner cast walls. Ther bed of coals was as deep as 4 inches in some spots with some pretty big chunks. I oppened the damper and shook the coals around to get some of the ash to drop and stimulate the fire. There were instant flames. I added two small splits and left to bring the boys to school. By the time I came back, a little more than a half hour later, pipe temps were just over 500 degrees. My wife was home, so I asked her to watch for an over fire. The fan on high helps keep the stove cool and also lowers the pipe temps considerably, while throwing that heat out into the room. I dampered down, and engaged the cat until it got to 400, about 5 minutes later. I also wanted to lower the pipe temp because at this point it was at about 550, close to the end of the burn zone range on the pipe thermometer. After pipe temps were down to 400 and the cat was at 400 I added four small splits, about 2" or 3". After those were good and charred and pipe temps were back to 525 (5-10 minutes later,) I dampered down again for my daytime burn. It is 71 and climbing at 10:30 am. The cat is at 800, pipe temps at 350 and it's heating well. The small splits won't last long, though. I'll have to keep feeding it to keep up the temps. That's the problem with the semi seasoned wood, I have to cut them small and they don't put out as much heat as if I had 5-6" dry splits in there.
Click to expand...

It sounds like your doing pretty well heating from the basement. Another thing that will help is insulating the bare walls, they are stealing 30% of the heat. Do you have any cold air return vents going from main floor down to basement? If you have a good place in your coldest room to make a vent into your basement it will help create a circulation loop and push more warm air up out of the basement.
 
It sounds like your doing pretty well heating from the basement. Another thing that will help is insulating the bare walls, they are stealing 30% of the heat. Do you have any cold air return vents going from main floor down to basement? If you have a good place in your coldest room to make a vent into your basement it will help create a circulation loop and push more warm air up out of the basement.
Click to expand...

I guess it'll work even better with dry wood. Yes, the basement does suck up a lot of heat. :-( The snow melts at least two feet around the house to prove it. You're right, I should put in a register in the kitchen and one in the living room. There's currently one in my bed room and one in one of the other bedrooms. I've been meaning to cut one out in the living room but did not think of putting one in the kitchen. Good idea! I should have thought of that. Did you check out the pics?
 
Hey VC!

If I were you, I'd take advantage of the current tax credits and insulate the heck out of that basement, either on the outside, or inside. That combined with the floor registers will make you think you have moved to Florida!

I will post a couple photo's of our set-up once I figure out how to resize them!! :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

S
your thoughts on a used DutchWest Catalytic Stove ?
Replies
6
Views
326
Vermont Castings
begreen
begreen
D
What Are My Options For Top-Loading, Large Ash Pan, Non-Catalytic Stoves?
Replies
13
Views
2K
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
begreen
begreen
S
Large extension to chimney
Replies
4
Views
768
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
begreen
begreen
Q
Right size stove for low long output
Replies
7
Views
303
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
Newbie78
N
A
Large Boiler
Replies
19
Views
788
The Boiler Room - Wood Boilers and Furnaces
sloeffle
sloeffle
Top Bottom
Back