cat stove question

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joop

Minister of Fire
Aug 26, 2018
941
beauharnois ,quebec
when burning low and slow cat burns of most pollutants,when you bypass cat to get midwinter heat when it's -20 does that not negate the benefit of cleaner burns i.e turns into smoke dragon.just asking lol don't jump down my throat ;lolcurious
 
when burning low and slow cat burns of most pollutants,when you bypass cat to get midwinter heat when it's -20 does that not negate the benefit of cleaner burns i.e turns into smoke dragon.just asking lol don't jump down my throat ;lolcurious
Why would you bypass the cat for more heat? You just open up the air
 
so it's just wood savings that change.
Wood savings only comes in when your burning at lower burn rates simply because the available btus are stretched out over a longer period of time
 
thank you sir.cleared up some questions i had
I mean in some stoves there is a slight efficiency gain with a cat over a comparable size and quality non cat. But really not enough to show up with any real wood savings
 
Don't know anything about your stove.
On my stove if I run with the cat engaged it's all good low and slow. I have to be careful about opening the air for more heat as it has a tendency for the cat to overheat. If I run my stove without engaging the cat I can run the STT much higher and get the room extremely hot but I am burning "dirty".
 
Don't know anything about your stove.
On my stove if I run with the cat engaged it's all good low and slow. I have to be careful about opening the air for more heat as it has a tendency for the cat to overheat. If I run my stove without engaging the cat I can run the STT much higher and get the room extremely hot but I am burning "dirty".
What stove is this?
 
Is it not on the bottom of my posts? I have a VC Encore 0028.
 
mine is just secondary burn
A cat would be secondary burn
On my stove you have a damper that when closed redirects the smoke into the secondary chamber where the cat is. If I don't close the damper the smoke goes straight out of the firebox into the stove pipe.

I my stove model no showing up at the bottom of my posts?
 
Yes it's showing. And while a cat stove is secondary burn, typically when someone says secondary burn they are referring to the non-cat stoves with reburn tubes That use hot air to help burn off the gasses.

And I thought there was a issue with running some VC stoves with the bypass open and running them hot? Something about destroying stuff in them? Im sure someone else can elaborate unless im losing my mind.
 
And I thought there was a issue with running some VC stoves with the bypass open and running them hot? Something about destroying stuff in them? Im sure someone else can elaborate unless im losing my mind.
First off my stove is OLD, it was the first experiment in catalysts for VC. I can run my stove with the bypass open and you won't be able to stand it in the house and my flue temps will be very high. On the other hand with the bypass closed and the cat engaged and active I could probably melt the back out of the stove with the cat temps. You'll see VC stoves with the fire back all warped from glowing red from the cat.
 
I run mine with CAT engaged all the time once stove is in the “active” zone. I save on wood by staying at a consistent output through the majority of the reload. The Jotul F400 was more of a bell curve for output, I assume all secondary burs will be similar just a wider timeframe.
 
First off my stove is OLD, it was the first experiment in catalysts for VC. I can run my stove with the bypass open and you won't be able to stand it in the house and my flue temps will be very high. On the other hand with the bypass closed and the cat engaged and active I could probably melt the back out of the stove with the cat temps. You'll see VC stoves with the fire back all warped from glowing red from the cat.
No I thought reading on here over the years others with VC's had issues from running with the bypass open hot. Might be other VC stoves tho. I dont really know which is which. Hence why I said someone else would probably have better info.