Does opening my stove door when it's still "hot" reduce the cat life?

[DodgyNomad]

As mentioned, disappointed in my cat life on my BK Princess insert.

When I load up before bed, does that thermal shock that occurs when I open the door to load up the stove shorten the life?

What factors other than a leaky door gasket help contribute to a short cat life in these stoves?

 

[rdust]

As long as the bypass is open first it should be fine.

My first cat in my princess lasted 5 seasons, I'm on my 2nd season with the replacement.

 

[lsucet]

I will say that if is real hot and you want throw some more wood for an overnight burn, can be a good idea to open bypass and give a few minutes before open the door and load as fast as you can. There's not much information about loading under those conditions cause the right way is going through the whole burn cycle before reload again, but not always is possible.
I think, that waiting those few minutes give a chance to the cat to lose some activity and stabilize the draft in there through the bypass.

 

[Poindexter]

My experience fits with @lsucet . When i am doing back to back 12 hour burns for weeks at a time the door is getting opened while the stove is hot.

My first season i had a short stack, about 13.5 feet. I got in the habit of opening the tstat to wide open and then flipping the door to bypass, and then waiting ling enough to open the door that i didnt get smoke roll out when i opened the door.

My hunch is smoke roll out tells me i opened the door too early, before i had good draft through the bypass and out the stack.

My thinking is when i have good airflow out the airwash, through the bypass and out the stack i waited long enough to open the loading door, and i have a solid airflow pattern that bypasses the cat... so the cat doesnt get a facefull of cold air when the door opens.

I do replace my cat about every two years, but that works out to 8 to 10k hours of active time, and lot of that is full throttle raging.