Cat Location

[goofy]

Hi guys, first time poster, Great info here (not sure who I should thank for that, but thanks)

I'm beginning my search for a new wood stove and am leaning towards a cat model. However, I do have some concerns about the way some of them look to be designed. My reason for wanting a cat is to extract more heat from the wood, and get long burn times. Being green is nice and all, but not my primary concern (I mean, how bad could it be if I burn wood from my own property?).

So, while doing some poking around, I have found several stoves that, best I can tell, where the cats are there strictly for emissions, and any heat transfer advantages seems to be secondary to the design. In these models the cats are typically near the back of the stove and right under the outlet to the chimney, giving me the impression that the bulk of the heat will be going straight up the chimney.

Anyone else notice this, or am I totally off track with my conclusions?

 

[STOVEGUY11]

In my opinion the only cat stove I would ever burn would have to be the Duthwest. Reason being easy access to the catalyst. Cat stoves are more maintance. You have to take the cat out of the stove couple times a season and clean it and the compartment its held in to keep it running properly. I would keep non-cats in mind. Less service, and better warranties as well.

 

[North of 60]

In my opinion the only cat stove I would ever burn would have to be the Duthwest. Reason being easy access to the catalyst. Cat stoves are more maintance. You have to take the cat out of the stove couple times a season and clean it and the compartment its held in to keep it running properly. I would keep non-cats in mind. Less service, and better warranties as well.

You have to remove the cat a couple of times a season. B.S. Over 4 years and never touched mine other than brush the face mid season. Get your info straight. CAT is in the back??? EDIT; The CAT is providing the main source of heat during a low burn.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Cats have to be at a place where all the smoke will easily funnel through them. The top just seems like a natural place to put it I suppose. Mine had a griddle above the cat that would reach a (what I considered) a scary hot temp when the cat lit off.

Cats stoves have a lower per gram emissions than the non cat stoves per the literature. I'm not sure if they are more efficient for the whole burn cycle though.

Cat stoves can be a little more complicated to use than a NC stove. My wife didn't like using it. She didn't like having to remember to redirect the flow around the cat to reload the stove, wait until the stove reached temp, and then reingage the cat.

Matt

 

[goofy]

Thanks for the info guys, but I'm really not looking for info regarding 'to cat or not to cat', but I'm kind of more interested in people's thoughts about the design of the cat stoves and where the cats are located in them. What is the best design for making use of the heat generated by the cats. As I said in the first post, some designs look like the cats are right under the outlet, and are simply there so the stove will pass emissions, and not necessarily designed for optimum use of the heat they generate.

 

[North of 60]

My stack temp rus @250 or less. The rest of the heat stays in the stove. Have a look at this. Cant get any more simpler than that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwNYI6ME7kA

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Welcome to the forum goofy. How did you come to choose that name?!

It sounds to me as if you are looking for a Woodstock stove. To quickly answer your question, the cat. in the Fireview is located in the front top. In fact, you can look through the glass (if you look up) to see the cat. glowing red.

I also want to give an answer here to Stoveguy's post. I do not know why he would say Dutchwest is the only decent one. Also, the cat. stoves are not high maintenance stoves. We do in fact clean ours a couple times per season. In fact, my wife can do it very easily and quickly. It takes only a couple of minutes. I could probably do it in less than a minute if I wanted to. It is so simple and easy that a child could take care of the whole thing.

As for warranties, you can search until the cows come home but will not find a better warranty than what you will get from Woodstock.

Now back to the original post.


With the Fireview, as stated, the cat. is located in the front top so that the gasses leaving the cat. still warm the stove instead of flowing up the chimney. It is very low maintenance and will last for years if the stove is operated correctly. You can't burn junk in the stove though (nor should you) and expect the cat. to continue to function and you can not burn unseasoned wood.

One of the best things about this stove is the amount of fuel we use compared to our former stoves. We have burned up to 7 full cords during a winter but probably most years were closer to six. After installing this stove last year, we burned less than 3 cords...and stayed much warmer too.

Once we get the fire going in the stove we can turn the draft down to almost closed and let the cat. work to give heat. We can at times see no flame nor any hot coals, but that cat. is a bright red and the stove top will be 500+ degrees. In fact, once we engage the cat. the temperature soars very fast.

Also do not let the nay sayers tell you that the cat. stoves are difficult to operate. Not so! My wife can handle it as easy as I can and the only thing different is that little handle that you move to either the off or on position. It is funny to hear some of them say how complicated it is because you have that extra control to worry about, when in fact, they also have two controls in their stoves. And how complicated is it to move a lever either up or down? lol

Getting back to the warranty, just call Woodstock and get some literature or even look on their web site: Woodstock stoves

These stoves are not cheap, nor are they build cheap. We made the mistake years ago when we wanted one of holding off because of the dollars. After finally getting one, I wish I had borrowed the money for it way back then. But using less fuel, it will pay for itself quickly.

I could go on and on about this stove and the company but will try to hold back. lol

One thing I would highly advise to you and all greenhorns. Before you buy a stove, get your fuel supply on hand. Realize that wood needs to be seasoned and to do that it needs to be cut to firewood length, and split, and stacked, preferably where it can get wind and sun (if only one, choose wind). Once we stack our wood, we leave the pile uncovered until the following fall or early winter. This allows for better evaporation of the moisture that is in all wood. When we cover the pile, we cover the top only. Leave the sides and ends open to the air. Don't worry about rain hitting it because the wood won't soak that up. A little wind after a rain will dry it right off.

Good luck on your quest goofy and do not hesitate to ask all sorts of questions. You can even PM me if you wish and I'll be happy to help if I can. If I can't help, perhaps I can lead you to someone who can.

 

[goofy]

Thanks Pyro (and north of 60). Edit: I mean Backwoods Savag, not Pyro - I was looking at your level title (oops)

As for my name, 'goofy' comes from a snow related forum I am a member/moderator of. My real name/handle there is 'goofydatarave', because that was the wording on my first snowboard, many years ago. Nobody likes to type it all out, so I'm pretty much know as 'goofy' there. So, for ease (or maybe because I'm not the shiniest egg in the carton) I am using something similar. Either that, or I'm just a wacky kind of guy.

My current stove is a VC Resolute Acclaim. I've been burning it for about 20 years, but it was in the house when I bought it, so I'm not entirely sure how old it is. It's a great stove, or at least has been until the last year or two. It's pretty much hit its end of life. Only on lever, out of three are still working, and I've probably removed about six pieces of random cast iron that just have fallen into the firebox. It alsoh as a couple of cracks in the firebox (not really a safety issue, because a second enamel coated iron layer is mounted outside the cracked pieces. The back reburner (if that is its name) is now totally exposed and totally hacked up. I considered a rebuild kit, but there is too much else going on that I don't think its worth it at this point. It's gotten to the point where I am buring more wood and getting less heat than in all the prior years.

The VC does have a reburner type setup that, although technically operates a bit different than a cat, pretty much is operated in a similar manner: Build a fire, wait until it is running hot, close down the air intake a lot, and then throw the handle to engage the reburner (kind of a down-draft type mode). So, I'm not really intimidated by the cat operation, because I'm pretty much used to a similar operating procedure.

The three stoves I'm considering initially are the Woodstock Fireview, the Woodstock Keystone, and the DW cats (large and/or xlarge). I can't seem to get excited about the looks of any of the steel cats. I was really leaning towards the DW because I like the looks, like how it is a convection stove, and had excellent luck with my existing VC stove. However, it seems that VC isn't the same company it was when they built my stove, in more ways than one. So, I have started to consider the Woodstock stoves too.

Has anyone burned an old Resolute Acclaim and switched to the DW cat, Fireview or Keystone? How does the heat output compare?

I use my current stove as a sort of baseload heat supply. I burn it pretty much 24/7 for 4 straight months, only relighting it a couple times in that period. The house thermostats are set to 70, so some mornings the oil furnace kicks in to help out (especially when I sleep in). That isn't really a big deal, because the hot water heater runs off the furnace too, and would be running anyway to heat the water (everyone likes taking nice long showers here). The furnace also kicks in on the rare occasion that the wood stove isn't keeping up (only when it is really cold). So, I don't need something that can meet my heating demands 100% of the time, only 80% to 90%. I'm really just looking for something with pretty similar capabilities as the Resolute Acclaim, in regards to heat output and burn times (I'm used to 8 - 10 and sometimes 12 hour runs, without having to use any kindling).

Oops. I'm kind of hijacking my own thread, so back to the original post:
I think I may have figured out what was confusing me. My problem grasping the way a cat works has to do with the fact that the cat is buring at 1000+ degrees, and the cat is after the firebox, so my assumption was that the heat will naturally just go straight up the stack. However, most people report an actual temperature drop in their pipe after engaging the cat. So, my current theory is that most of the burning is happening at the front/bottom edge of the cat (the one nearest to the firebox), which also ignites some of the smoke before it even reaches the cat. To the best of my knowledge, the cat material is an excellent insulator, so perhaps most of the heat is actually being generated and kept in the firebox, and not being created on the top side of the cat and simply floating up the stack.

 

[jpl1nh]

Well, like Backwoods Savage and North of 60 both state, the difficult to use thing is nonsense. I doubt you'd find a cat owner that would disagree. The Keystone has the cat in top in front about 8" away from the glass. There are two layers of soapstone directly above it. When the cat is really cranking my stove top can get up to 700, the flue temp on the outside of singlewall about 12" from the stove may hit 300. Typically, my flue temp is 250. I believe I get best efficiency with the stove damped down so I have no flames and very high cat combustion but becasue the firebox temp is lower, I don;t feel my stove throws max heat like that. Best heat/efficiency combo for me is with just a bit more air so I have lazy flames but still a lot of cat action. Heat up the chimney? I believe less than most secondary burn stoves and I think what Stoveguy 11 is saying about cats is just wasted hot air. :roll:

 

[Todd]

I've also wondered how the heat from the cat is kept inside the stove? Seems like a 1000 degree or hotter catalyst would naturally send most of that heat up and out the flue, but it doesn't. I think the only cat stoves that have the cat located in the back is VC and I'm thinking it's because they are top loading? Most others are towards the front or middle and have a bypass damper in the rear.

Just like jpl, my stove verses pipe temps are similar. All my previous non-cat stoves ran hotter pipe temps. To me that's a sign of better efficiency.

 

[Gark]

"In these models the cats are typically near the back of the stove and right under the outlet to the chimney, giving me the impression that the bulk of the heat will be going straight up the chimney."

In the VC Encore (cat model) we installed this summer, the combustor is in the top of a refractory material secondary combustion chamber in the back of the stove. This chamber's height is nearly as tall as the firebox and the cat-burned gases travel downward (I think they even do alot of their combustion in this chamber) to exhaust out the bottom of the chamber, on both sides. Then they travel back upwards against reflection plates (outside the refractory chamber) before going into the collar and flue pipe. I'm not pushing this or any VC stove but to guess how it bleeds the cat- initiated heat into the stove. During a 1 hour+ start-up fire the cat is not engaged and the backside of the stove is just warm. About 15 minutes after engaging the cat though, the rear of the stove gets very hot and the flue temps drop 100 - 150 degrees (magnetic bimetal thermometer on the connector pipe). So the secondary combustion is sure imparting its heat to the body of the stove somehow.

 

[Frostbit]

I don't own a cat stove, but before I bought the Castine I watched the Youtube video of the Blaze King owners demo with the heat and smoke reduction up the stack after the cat was engaged, and you can't help but be impressed.

To each their own, such as Ford vs Chevy's, and keep in mind there are a lot of happy cat stove owners and full-time users (such as north of 60) out there. The results they have speak for themselves. Mine is a new Jotul, my brother who lives next door has a new Woodstock. We're both happy.

 

[goofy]

Thanks for all the replies guys. They are a big help.

I asked earlier, but at the risk of annoying someone, I'll try posting it again:

Has anyone here used a VC Resolute Acclaim, and then later used a Dutchwest cat, a Woodstock Fireview, or Woodstock Keystone? I'm curious about heat output and run time of the old VC vs the newer cats.

Thanks again.