Cat or non-Cat--THAT is the question--

[scotsman]

Okay y'all--I have one more "major" issue to settle on the stove to buy.

Should I get a catalytic stove or a non-cat?

I've been warned away from cats by some who've had them for a long time, but then advised by other long-time cat owners that they conserve wood, produce more heat and fewer emissions that the non-cats. Folks who've responded to earlier larger questions of cast iron vs. soapstone vs. plate steel, etc. have mentioned both types without prejudice toward either, making me think it may not be that big a deal OR that it's only a problem for SOME stoves, but not sure which.

One poster is moving from a cat to a non-cat after 13 years experience with it (the exact same stove my local dealer wants me to buy, in fact). He says it's hard to keep the temp high enough for it to do its thing and not run you out of the house AND that you have to clean and replace them regularly (and that they are expensive) and so on. Others who've also had 'em for a long time say they help put out more heat for longer than the nons, are easy to clean, not very expensive to replace and wouldn't have anything else.

Bottom line is I'm no longer as sure as I thought I was concerning what to buy. Dealers tend to sell what they have, or, if they have both, the ones with the most profit. They don't seem to put themselves in the buyer's place and try to get the best match regardless of the other considerations. Maybe that's just MY experience, though.

I'm looking for a stove that is the simplest and most efficient and can put out an appropriate (I know, I know, that's open to interpretation, but what am I to say?) amount of heat for my space without making me want to run outside and dive into the snow. BUT, if conditons warrant, can be fired up to put out enough heat to get us through some really cold times and power failures. For example, several have advised that the Equinox is likely way too big for my area, size of house, etc., so I've dropped that one from the list.

SO, where I think I am now is looking for a free-standing, cast iron stove with about 2.5 to 3.0 cu. ft. firebox capacity with a rear vent height maximum of 30.5" to the top of the flue OR with a top vent unit that has a short leg option where the flue can be elbowed to fit in under the height limit. It probably should accomodate a blower (but not an absolute requirement) have side door loading and the ability to view fire for adjustment. On the list of those suggested for consideration at this point are:

Hearthstone Heritage
Englander 30-NC
Buck #261 with the 2" leg set
Jotul F 600
Woodstock Fireview
some Pacific Energy units
Avalon Arbor

I have not determined that all of these will/will not work or can be made to work, but they may be adaptable. Since I was criticised by one poster for not having an open (enough) mind, I thought I'd open it back up for consideration of units outside what I think I want/need. The stoves don't have to be fancy. They should perform the function first THEN if they're also nice to look at, that will be a plus.

I'm not out to bad mouth anybody's stove, so don't take it that way. (I don't know enough to do that and wouldn't if I did!) I'm trying to make a choice I can stay with long-term and I don't want to get something that requires replacement parts that may not be available for the life of the stove.

So, cat or non-cat. I need some education before we travel to some of the surrounding towns that have stove shops to look at some of 'em in the "flesh"!

'Preciate it!

 

[n6crv]

Hello Tex, well last year I got a new Englander 13nc and it did a great job heating and the service was great. If I had to do it again I think that I would of looked for one with a CAT. I understand that once the cat lites off if will keep going as long as there is smoke to feed it. I like to turn our stove down and I really can't do that like with the old stove. Yes the old one did smoke when turned down. About the only way I can control the output is adding less wood. So I guess if you are looking to run the stove on a low heat output the cat is the way to go. Something else to think about, the fire display on the new non cat stoves is unreal to watch better then some TV shows.
Don

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Texas boy, I believe you are referring to me on the criticizing and I do not take what you say as bad mouthing the same as I expect that from you. My only concern was that you were ruling out the cat. stoves when perhaps you shouldn't. I also believe that I posted in the other thread some of our experiences with the cat. stove, but if not, here goes again.

When we decided to purchase a new stove, we too ruled out the cat. stoves. I just did not want the bother nor the need to replace the cat. after a period of time. We had wanted to look again at the Woodstock stoves as we had looked at them years ago but then they were out of our price range. When we started looking at them, to our amazement, they had cats. in their stoves! That almost caused us to not look at them any longer.

Fortunately, we were able to talk to several people who owned the Woodstock Fireview stoves. We also kept reading about them and found that everything we heard about them was not necessarily true. To make a long story short, we ended up purchasing the Fireview and put it in last summer. We heat totally with this stove so now we have one entire winter of burning under our belt. What have we learned?

First and foremost is that using the cat. stove is extremely easy. Cleaning the cat. is even easier as it takes only a couple of minutes to complete. Replacing the cat. will also be so easy a child could do it. They are not that expensive and do not have to be replaced that often.

2. The wood burns much, much cleaner. We put up a new chimney at the time we installed the new stove. We have not cleaned it yet but did knock less than or about a cup full of soot from the top of the chimney. The rest of the chimney is still shinny bright as it was when we put it up. Hard to believe the wood burns this clean!

3. We burned much less wood and stayed much warmer. We used to burn from 5 to 6 cords per winter. Last winter we burned less than 3 cords.

4. We are amazed that this stove can give so much heat without a visible flame (yet other times you will get a beautiful flame. Depends on what part of the burn you are in.). Yes, when I get up during the night and at times can not even see red coals in the stove, yet, it is kicking out 550 degree or more heat. No fire, but we are still staying nice and toasty. That is because the cat. is doing it's job and burning everything instead of pushing it up the chimney. That also is why our chimney is staying so clean.

We do not know if this is the right stove for you or not and others you have in mind are also very good. However, also bear in mind the Woodstock guarantee. No other stove company will give what Woodstock gives. They also will bend over backwards to make sure you are satisfied.

As for the issue of cat. vs. non-cat., we believe there can be a case built for either. As for us, we are very happy we bought one with a cat. and if buying another, we would do the same. As stated before, we were like you in ruling out a cat. stove but did change our mind. Glad we did.

However you go, we do hope you are happy with your choice and we do wish you good luck on this.

Also, please bear in mind that you should already have some well-seasoned wood on hand for use this winter. No stove will work properly without good seasoned wood. You can get by some with a little extra moisture by burning a hotter fire, but that is not the ideal situation as you also are at some risk of chimney fires and will have dirty stove and chimney to clean.

Once again, good luck.

 

[Todd]

Well, I have burned both and really like how I get the longer more even burn with the cat. I also like the set and forget I get with this stove. Once the temp is up to 500, engage the cat, set the air between .5 and 1 and let her go for 10-12 hrs. All my previous non cats I had to tweak the air controls constantly to try and find that sweet spot. Just seems the cat has more control. Non cats do have a better looking fire and you don't have to worry about cat maintenance, but I have found cleaning my cat takes a couple minutes. Raise the lid , lift out cat and either brush or vacuum the fly ash out, very simple. Cats are also warrantied for free 3 years and prorated up to 5 years. Like any stove you need dry wood, but it's more critical with a cat stove or you may risk thermo shock and crumble the cat. I use to average 4 cords of Oak with my non-cats and now it's down to 3 cords with this stove so I think there is a little bit better efficiency there.

 

[scotsman]

Well, I have burned both and really like how I get the longer more even burn with the cat. I also like the set and forget I get with this stove. Once the temp is up to 500, engage the cat, set the air between .5 and 1 and let her go for 10-12 hrs. All my previous non cats I had to tweak the air controls constantly to try and find that sweet spot. Just seems the cat has more control. Non cats do have a better looking fire and you don't have to worry about cat maintenance, but I have found cleaning my cat takes a couple minutes. Raise the lid , lift out cat and either brush or vacuum the fly ash out, very simple. Cats are also warrantied for free 3 years and prorated up to 5 years. Like any stove you need dry wood, but it's more critical with a cat stove or you may risk thermo shock and crumble the cat. I use to average 4 cords of Oak with my non-cats and now it's down to 3 cords with this stove so I think there is a little bit better efficiency there.

"engage the cat"?? Sorry, but I don't know what that means. So you DO something to start it? Please clarify. I know nothing about "engaging". I haven't found anything on the Web about how to use one and they didn't have 'em when I was last in the wood heating mode. I understand the cleaning aspect now, but the use part is hidden at the moment.

Thanks--

 

[Highbeam]

On a cat stove, you start a fire and get it hot before flipping a lever which moves a baffle and sends the smoke from your hot fire through the cat converter. You don't want to send cold smoke through a cat. Yes, it is one more lever to worry about but it is an on/off deal. The non-cats have a single air inlet lever.

Cat stoves got a bad rap with some of the VC designs. I've never heard of an unhappy cat owner from the stoves you mentioned being woodstock. Also, the blaze king guys get cats and all have been happy. So for those folks who actually had a cat and had a bad experience, were they VC owners?

 

[Patapsco Mike]

After years of burning non-cat pre-EPA stoves, I bought a catalytic VC Dutchwest. When the cat was new, it was a revelation. Long burns, very clean, fired up quickly and pretty easily. But by year 3 I was not a happy camper. My burns were shorter, the whole unit was more fickle, and I was on my second temperature sensor (they just seemed to disintegrate). I replaced the cat, which cost almost 20% of the cost of the whole stove (at the time, the stove was about $1,000). This meant also replacing the gaskets. Getting to it required removing 4 bolts and the top of the stove, then removing a brittle piece of insulation. No huge deal, but annoying. The stove ran great for that year and part of the next, but then the stove started acting up again. I opened the top to find that the cat had fallen apart. I was on to #3. I had lost my receipt, so I had to pay full price for it. At this point I moved and sold the stove. I made a point to look for a non-cat stove. Just less of a hassle in my opinion, and less of a cost.

I found it a PITA dealing with engaging and disengaging the cat, and while I was at work my wife would frequently forget to re-engage it when she added wood or forget to disengage it before opening the door (which would put a lot of smoke in the house really fast). Or she would let the fire burn too far down, then not wait long enough to engage the cat after restarting the fire. This is all user error, but still...

 

[HearthKB]

After years of burning non-cat pre-EPA stoves, I bought a catalytic VC Dutchwest. When the cat was new, it was a revelation. Long burns, very clean, fired up quickly and pretty easily. But by year 3 I was not a happy camper. My burns were shorter, the whole unit was more fickle, and I was on my second temperature sensor (they just seemed to disintegrate). I replaced the cat, which cost almost 20% of the cost of the whole stove (at the time, the stove was about $1,000). This meant also replacing the gaskets. Getting to it required removing 4 bolts and the top of the stove, then removing a brittle piece of insulation. No huge deal, but annoying. The stove ran great for that year and part of the next, but then the stove started acting up again. I opened the top to find that the cat had fallen apart. I was on to #3. I had lost my receipt, so I had to pay full price for it. At this point I moved and sold the stove. I made a point to look for a non-cat stove. Just less of a hassle in my opinion, and less of a cost.

I found it a PITA dealing with engaging and disengaging the cat, and while I was at work my wife would frequently forget to re-engage it when she added wood or forget to disengage it before opening the door (which would put a lot of smoke in the house really fast). Or she would let the fire burn too far down, then not wait long enough to engage the cat after restarting the fire. This is all user error, but still...

Hmmm... Very interesting post. I just ordered a Woodstock Fireview instead of the Hearthstone Heritage. I liked the longer burn times of the cat stove. BUT... now that I heard your end of the story, I hope its not to much of a hassel to run this stove. The wife will be feeding it during the day so I have to make sure she knows exactly how to use it. In regards to the cat itself, the Woodstock cat is only $125 brand new and pro-rated for the first five years. So.... the maintenance cost shouldn't be that much.

Thanks for your honest opinion about your experience with a cat stove. Even though I can't change my mind now because the stove is already ordered, more opinions are always welcome.

 

[Corie]

Personally, I'm a catalytic stove fan. They can almost be operated at lower burn rates than comparable "trapped heat" secondary combustion stoves, by nature of design. In my decreasingly humble opinion, catalytic stove offer more steady heat output.

Does operating a catalytic stove require a little knowledge about what's actually occurring in the unit? Of course! When reloading you need to monitor the fire for a bit before engaging the catalytic combustor, etc. And yes that can be a little extra complication. But you shouldn't have to worry about your wife tending the stove (unless you work 10 hours days), because most catalytic stoves are going to burn for at least 10 hours with no fire tending. Even if she does need to tend it, I refuse to believe, with all the other complicated electronics and other accessories in the world, that a wife can't learn to operate a catalytic stove properly. Just seems ridiculous to me.

 

[kniffin50]

I had the same stove,V.C. medium Dutchwest.What a nightmare that stove was.That is why it will be a long time before I consider a cat stove.But I also learned that is when Majestic took over V.C. and quality suffered.I'm no expert but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last week.
Rusty

 

[unit40]

After reading all of this, now you guys got me confused. I always thought that you get X amount of BTU's out of a given piece or pound of wood. If the stoves, whether they be CAT or non-cat, are listed as putting out X amount of BTU's per hour, then what would it really matter if it was a cat or non-cat? For example, this log of oak will give 45,000 btu of energy. It seems that the Cat owners, and I'm exaggerating here, are saying this log will burn longer and still give out the same btu hours of energy than a non cat stove. I think you need a certain amount of BTU hours of heat to maintain a given temperature. Why would 3 cords of wood in a cat stove put out the same btus than 6 cords in a non-cat stove?

 

[Corie]

No, no. Not more BTU's. In my opinion, more evenly delivered BTU's. Others will disagree, but non-catalytic stoves get hot FAST at the beginning of the burn when the fresh logs are releasing most of their combustible gases (the pretty secondary burn). However I feel these same stoves tend to coll down very quickly also.

 

[BrotherBart]

No, no. Not more BTU's. In my opinion, more evenly delivered BTU's. Others will disagree, but non-catalytic stoves get hot FAST at the beginning of the burn when the fresh logs are releasing most of their combustible gases (the pretty secondary burn). However I feel these same stoves tend to coll down very quickly also.

And the gases have to go through that cat and get burned where they can miss burning in a non-cat and go up, up and away. In reality a non-cat is more difficult to burn most efficiently.

 

[n6crv]

I refuse to believe, with all the other complicated electronics and other accessories in the world, that a wife can't learn to operate a catalytic stove properly. Just seems ridiculous to me.

Corie, you never met my wife. Sure glad she does not read this.
Don

 

[unit40]

With my non-cat stoves, I always thought is was SOP to run wide open until they reached operating temperatures and then you throttle them down. isn't this the same for a cat stove - that is run them wide open until they reach operating twmperature and then switch to lighting off the cat? And what you mean is that they will burn cleaner at a lower temperature, so theoretically then they should put out less btu hours of energy to get the longer burn times.

 

[HearthKB]

I refuse to believe, with all the other complicated electronics and other accessories in the world, that a wife can't learn to operate a catalytic stove properly. Just seems ridiculous to me.

Corie, you never met my wife. Sure glad she does not read this.
Don

LOL... You never met mine either! I seriously can't remember her ever using the computer without asking me a question. My 5 year old son knows how to use my computer better than she ever will. That's why I said, I have to make sure she knows EXACTLY how to use the stove. I might even have to write up an instruction booklet for her with a hotline phone number (My CELL PHONE!).

 

[Woods Dweller]

I am VERY close to pulling the trigger on a Fireplace Xtrordinair Elite 44. It is a cat. I am a little skeptical about a cat. The only stoves I've ever burned are non-cats. I am ripping out a 2 year old Heatilator Icon 100 and SL-1100 chimney to install a high efficiency fireplace and new chimney system. Is the fire burn not as attractive to look at with a cat? I'm going to spend big $ on this gig and I want both heat and a pretty fire to look at!

 

[RedRanger]

If you have the Princess Blaze King? I`ll trade you my 3 cats with tails for your steel one.

 

[thebeatlesrgood]

unit40 you are not taking efficiency into consideration. A pound of wood contains about 8500 potential btu's, so if you have an epa non-cat rated at 63% efficiency that means only 5355 btu's will be utilized to heat your house. on the other hand if you have an incredibly efficient epa cat (lets say 80%) 6800 btu's will be utilized. so in theory an efficient stove could burn less wood, burn longer and provide more heat. so that hypothetical 45,000 btu piece of oak could provide 20,000 or 30,000 btu's depending on efficiency of your stove.

but the truth is, and correct me if im wrong, but many new epa non cat's are just as efficient if not more efficient than cat stoves. the new afterburn technology is supposed to be very comparable to cats. but then again who knows. the epa rates my non-cat at 25,000 btu/h but the manufacturer claims 75,000. if the manufacturer is right ive got myself one hell of a stove, if the epa's right i may as well sell my soul to exxon/mobile....

 

[unit40]

I decided to do a little research. Thanks for explainin this...less confused, more educated. The same stove, an Encore Cat vs Encore non-cat stove. 76% vs 68% effeciency. 1.6 g/hr. vs .7 g/hr. 9 hour burn time vs 10 hour burn time. Or compare their larger model cat vs. non-cat. .80 g/hr vs .75 g/hr. 82.4% vs 69% effeciency. max 55,000btu vs 60,000 btu.

 

[Patapsco Mike]

But you shouldn't have to worry about your wife tending the stove (unless you work 10 hours days), because most catalytic stoves are going to burn for at least 10 hours with no fire tending.

My large Dutchwest did not get anywhere close to a true 10 hour burn. It got about 8 if fully packed. There might be a handful of coals after 10, but it would be 20 minutes of attention before I could think about engaging the cat again. And that 8 was when it was brand spankin new.

I did not mean to belittle my own wife or any other woman. Of course they could learn to run it as well as any man if they put their mind to it. Mine just didn't put her mind to it. She wasn't as fascinated by the whole process as I was, and so she didn't pay nearly as much attention to it as I did.

 

[begreen]

If you are going with a VC stove I would only get a cat model. We are hearing issues with the downdraft's refractory assembly standing up over time. And the downdraft VC units seem very particular about the flue setup. Specs are one thing, real world is another.

 

[RedRanger]

I decided to do a little research. Thanks for explainin this...less confused, more educated. The same stove, an Encore Cat vs Encore non-cat stove. 76% vs 68% effeciency. 1.6 g/hr. vs .7 g/hr. 9 hour burn time vs 10 hour burn time. Or compare their larger model cat vs. non-cat. .80 g/hr vs .75 g/hr. 82.4% vs 69% effeciency. max 55,000btu vs 60,000 btu.

No need for the rocket science.. Yes, a good cat-stove or insert will save you a tonne of loot on wood, and give you a much longer burn. I don`t own one, but admit that---"hands down".. Just don`t be silly and buy a no-name brand. IMHO the blaze king is the best of the best, been in business for a long time. And hopefully, before I get crucified for my comments, the good lad named "north of 60" will chime in here. He lives way up north, and calls the rest of the stuff we are discussing, (just toys)..in his opinion.

Blaze King is made in Portland and in BC. So you can still be patriotic in buying one. And although expensive, a very good product.

 

[Steamer]

I have also been considering a new Cat stove the Fireview. I have a question regarding flue temperature. If the cat stoves are more efficient with more complete combustion therefore extracting hot gases and turning them into usable heat is it true that the temperature of the remaining gases going up the flue are cooler due to more complete combustion in the stove. The flue gases going into the chimney should be a lower temperature. Is this correct?
Thanks Steamer

 

[jay3000]

With all of the clean burning "non cat" stoves out there, why would you buy something that you "know" you will have to spend money on in a few years?? And another thing. You won't really know when the catalyst has lost its' efficiency. There is no "check engine light". They don't last forever. Some manufacturers recommend replacement at 3-5 years. For my stove that was $300 plus shipping.

Where are the specs that show that a cat stove is more efficient than a clean burning non-cat like the Quadrafire or even the cheap as dirt "I'm gonna buy" Englander 30NC at 1.63 grams/hour?? I think cat stove are on their way out..