Buck stove model 91, got scared last night night

[crater22]

As I mentioned in my first post I am new at this and kind of stupid about all of this. Last night I had a good fire going and before going to bed, I placed a couple more pcs of wood in the insert. While waiting to see if everything was O.K. I noticed there was no flame, just hot coals. I read the temp and it was 1700. The cat was glowing red, but the secondary never did kick in. I closed the right air control down some and got the temp to drop, but never did see any flames from the cat. What did I do wrong?

Am I supposed to look for a hot bed of coals before going to bed or flames? This really scared me, because where I live, even if the local fire department was on hand, it would still take them close to 45 minutes before they could get here. I'm an old dude and live alone, so if I go to sleep there is no one else to keep an eye on the insert.

I let the coals go out this morning and cleaned all the ash and coals out. There was a lot of creosote built up on the sides. Kind of easy to scrape away with a single edge razor blade.

I am burning seasoned, dry wood that has been under shelter for two years.

I keep reading all the posts but keep getting more and more confused.

Thanks for all the help and I will have more questions later, so please take it easy on me.

Many thanks in advance....

 

[pen]

Creosote inside a cat stove happens, they are masters at the low and slow.

With seasoned wood, only thing it sounds to me that you may want to reconsider, is loading wood on top of hot coals. With a cat stove, you aren't really supposed to have a pretty fire all the time, as the cat chews through what would otherwise be smoke with the stove being set at a lower air setting.

In general, you need to focus on loading in cycles, (2x per day, or maybe 3) especially with a cat stove. Throwing a few pieces in here and there is not the way you want to operate things.

Whatever you put in for a load, let it burn down before you fuel things back up again.

 

[davidmc]

Your buck was doing just what its supposed to do!!
You had the perfect burn going. Mine will settle in from 1500-2000 and go for hours. If the temps get too hot just turn your blower up and it will cool it down. I run my right side air about 1/8-1/4 open with great results. Pen was right not a lot of flame when the cat is doing its work. Load her up and enjoy!!
David

 

[mellow]

You are getting confused with the secondary that happens on non-cat stoves, with a cat stove you want minimal flame after you close the bypass and get the cat engaged.

You might see some ghost flames early on in the burning process, but if you don't that is OK as each burn will be different. Don't be scared to turn the air down, if you have good seasoned wood you can even close the sliders all the way (the sliders do not fully cut the air off).

 

[Woody Stover]

Sounds like the stove was running well. The cat can get pretty hot with no flame in the box and all the smoke going to the cat, depending on how much wood is gassing at the time. Flame will eat some of the smoke. Like pen mentioned, you should generally be able to burn full loads, get an easy 12+ hrs. of good heat, and not have to add wood until it's time to re-load. The 91 I'm running is at my MIL's house and I'm loading it on a 12-hr. schedule. Adding wood on a bunch of intact splits that are beginning to coal may feed the cat too much smoke and it will get hot. I generally try to run at 1200-1500. You can control how much of the load is gassing and how hot it burns, depending on how you distribute the coals when re-loading and what combination of air you use to get the load burning. The left 'shotgun' slider will get the wood in the center burning more, right air wash slider will get the entire front of the load burning. If you get too much wood gassing before you close the bypass and start cutting the air, that's when you can see those 1700 cat temps. When I set the air for a long burn, I have the left slider closed, right slider open maybe 3/8", about 1200 on the probe, and she's burning not too hot but super-clean. Of course, settings may vary depending on how tall your stack is, etc. I have a magnetic stove thermo above the door, just to the left of the bypass rod. It's generally around 400 or so after I've established a new load and have the air cut to cruise level. You may have been seeing the cat heat shield glow, which it will do when the cat is blazing at 1700. To actually see the cat you have to look in the hole where the bypass rod goes through the front of the stove. I'm still learning, but feel free to ask me any questions you have about the 91, maybe I'll have some useful input. In the meantime, enjoy the heat; This baby will crank it out.

 

[begreen]

Do run the stove much during the shoulder season? If yes, what are the low and slow burn times like in the Buck 91?

 

[Woody Stover]

Do run the stove much during the shoulder season? If yes, what are the low and slow burn times like in the Buck 91?

I generally ran it on a 12-hr. cycle so I don't know how long it would run with the air cut back more. I do know that if I tried to cut the air too much, too soon, I crashed the cat on occasion, but maybe I could have tweaked the air down lower once the burn was established. I had to make sure I didn't have too much long-burning wood in there, or too big a load, if I wanted it to be burned down enough so that I could reload again in 12 hrs. I just loaded, cruised it and left so I never really got to play with the stove over the entire burn. I generally had the air fairly low, though; I didn't want too much flame in the box since I wasn't going to be there to watch it. I think it would go 16 hrs. with good heat output on a load of Hickory of some other primo wood...