is a cat stove really worth the hassle?

[Woody Stover]

Well it's allot more complicated than that. There are plenty of other ways to increase retention time and heat transfer efficency without using a cat....
Lol no...It's in the design of the stove. Some stoves are better at it than others.

So are you saying it's possible to burn a good-quality secondary stove pretty low? I'm early in the learning curve playing with my SIL's PE, so I don't know yet. Can you burn it with no flame off the wood in the box, only secondary? That's what I'm hoping is possible.
I've seen stoves that have heat fins on top of the box, like the old Manchester, so that should save more heat into the room I would think. What are the stove design features that you're referring to?

The fact that you are getting that little buildup in your chimney tells me you are dumping massive amounts of heat up the chimney. That means wasted BTUs.

Yeah, that was my first thoughts as well; A conflagration in the box could burning the creo before it ever gets to the flue, or there are high flue temps even at the top of the stack so that creo can't condense.

What temperature should the stove pipe be to shut it down?

With observation over a period of time, you'll get to know about how hot your flue temp needs to be, and for how long, in order to get a reliable reburn going. The top part of the stove, where the reburn happens, is going to lag behind the flue gasses in getting up to temp, that's why I mentioned the time component. Then theoretically you can start cutting air as you get close to that temp/time on a fresh load each time. Of course, each load will be a little different depending on specie of wood used, and other stuff. At least I think that is how secondary guys may do it, similar to what I've done on cat stoves. Then again, I may be fulla carp, and it wouldn't be the first time either. 😆
Many times though, I don't track my flue temp too close other than to make sure it's not getting too hot (don't want the dreaded glowing pipe) but instead go by visual assessment of how the burn is progressing, and for how long, to determine when to close the bypass and try for a solid cat light-off.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Then theoretically you can start cutting air as you get close to that temp/time on a fresh load each time. Of course, each load will be a little different depending on specie of wood used, and other stuff.

Bingo! As soon as the flames start licking the baffle reliably/often. You can do it on initial with a top down burn, full firebox. Reload is much tougher. I need to lower firebox volume relative to the surface area to keep the skin cool. I do this with firebricks, but ash works too. Keeping the and fire up at the top of the firebox helps the secondaries.

 

[Ashful]

I started with a 1st gen cat stove and being a newbie, made all of the mistakes possible with wet wood, less than ideal chimney, etc. the stove didn’t work out, but that’s not necessarily the stove’s fault...

Cat stoves are worth it, if you can assure dry wood.

I did the same, but came to a slightly different conclusion: If you're going to push the burn rate down low, you need very dry wood, ideal chimney, etc. The lower you want to push that envelope, the more every factor surrounding it starts to matter.

But if you're going to just run that cat stove medium to high, neck and neck where you'd be running the non-cat, I don't think there's anything about the cat stove that would make it more sensitive to wet wood under these circumstances. In fact, because they can maintain reburn at a lower temperature, slam a steelcat in there and it might even maintain secondary burn with wetter wood than a non-cat... at those higher burn rates.

But it wouldn't make much sense to buy a cat stove, if you only ever plan to run it on higher settings. If you plan on burning wet wood, then you are indeed "planning to run on higher settings".

 

[joop]

thx for info guys .was wondering if it might be a good choice for next stove but need more heat can't go slow and low i'll freeze to death lol

 

[Woody Stover]

soon as the flames start licking the baffle reliably/often. You can do it on initial with a top down burn, full firebox. Reload is much tougher. I need to lower firebox volume relative to the surface area to keep the skin cool. I do this with firebricks, but ash works too. Keeping the and fire up at the top of the firebox helps the secondaries.

Deeper ash bed might work for my SIL..she doesn't usually load it full. She uses the ash dump, so I guess the bricks would be out..

wouldn't make much sense to buy a cat stove, if you only ever plan to run it on higher settings. If you plan on burning wet wood, then you are indeed "planning to run on higher settings".

EBL didn't plan on it, but he got up there a couple times only to find his wood under water. 😏 Or gone if the water got high enough! 😖

 

[Todd]

So are you saying it's possible to burn a good-quality secondary stove pretty low? I'm early in the learning curve playing with my SIL's PE, so I don't know yet. Can you burn it with no flame off the wood in the box, only secondary? That's what I'm hoping is possible.

My F45 will give me a good low output but it really depends on the weather. When outside temps are in the 30’s to mid 40’s I can easily get 12 hour burns. I need to monitor the flue temps pretty closely to achieve these low outputs so once I reload I run with max air only til the flames get going good and my internal flue temps reach a little above 400. Then I adjust the air down to medium and keep it there watching flue temps til they stabilize a little over 400 then I shut her down to low. This usually gives me stove top temps of 450-550 with flue temps of 400-500. I’ll get secondary flames or some floating ghostly flames for a few hours. Colder weather the stove kind a regulates itself and gets hotter since the draft is stronger which is fine with me since I need the extra heat. I suppose I could install a pipe damper for a little more control but I’m fine the way it is for now.

 

[mrc]

I don’t think I need pipe temps. I had been shutting down with the stovetop temps of 300 to 350. Last night I shutdown at 275. This morning I reloaded at 9:30 am house temp 69 degrees. I shut down as soon as all wood had flames. Stove top 250 degrees. Light flames l dancing on top. One hour later stove top a little over 400 and climbing.
House 70 degrees. Outside temperature 39 degrees. When it’s 10 degrees I can’t do that. At 10 degrees as soon as the stove top gets below 400 degrees house temperature starts dropping.Try to maintain 70 degrees in the house. I’ll let it drop a little below 70 before reloading.67,68,69.Don’t want it below 67 or wife’s unhappy. Stovetop temperatures right now 475. Light flames on top. House 71 degrees.

 

[Woody Stover]

My F45 will give me a good low output but it really depends on the weather. When outside temps are in the 30’s to mid 40’s I can easily get 12 hour burns. I need to monitor the flue temps pretty closely to achieve these low outputs so once I reload I run with max air only til the flames get going good and my internal flue temps reach a little above 400. Then I adjust the air down to medium and keep it there watching flue temps til they stabilize a little over 400 then I shut her down to low. This usually gives me stove top temps of 450-550 with flue temps of 400-500. I’ll get secondary flames or some floating ghostly flames for a few hours. Colder weather the stove kind a regulates itself and gets hotter since the draft is stronger which is fine with me since I need the extra heat. I suppose I could install a pipe damper for a little more control but I’m fine the way it is for now.

Oooo, really nice blue-flame low burn you've got going there! 🤗

I don’t think I need pipe temps. I had been shutting down with the stovetop temps of 300 to 350. Last night I shutdown at 275. This morning I reloaded at 9:30 am house temp 69 degrees. I shut down as soon as all wood had flames. Stove top 250 degrees. Light flames l dancing on top. One hour later stove top a little over 400 and climbing.
House 70 degrees. Outside temperature 39 degrees. When it’s 10 degrees I can’t do that. At 10 degrees as soon as the stove top gets below 400 degrees house temperature starts dropping.Try to maintain 70 degrees in the house. I’ll let it drop a little below 70 before reloading.67,68,69.Don’t want it below 67 or wife’s unhappy. Stovetop temperatures right now 475. Light flames on top. House 71 degrees.

Sure, we can all run our stoves pretty much by just watching what's happening in the box. Me, I'm kind of a nerd and tinkerer so I like to play with the various variables. 😏
Once the stove is cruising, the flue temp will be close to what you're seeing on the stovetop, as in Todd's example above. It's during the ramp-up phase on a reload where the flue temp is useful. To get his low burn (saving wood, also lowering output when needed,) he uses flue temp to be able to cut the air as soon as he can and avoiding getting too much wood burning, which you is hard to reverse once you've overshot the sweet spot.
You and me, with our stone stoves, will see an even bigger lag between stove temps and flue temps than a steel stove would, early in the burn. Like you, I was previously pretty much just going by stove temp and how the fire looked (whether it looked like I had enough wood burning, how much flame etc.) My flue meters were hard to see since my stove is rear-vented into the masonry fireplace, and I can't stick my head back there. But recently I remembered I had a little mirror with a telescoping handle, and that allows me to now use flue temps more, in addition to stove temp and burn appearance. The stovetop might be only 125 but the flue will be 400 or better. Once I hold that flue temp for a length of time (will be fine-tuned as I gain experience) I can close the bypass at that point and light off the cat but I have to keep some flame heat going to it until the stove heats up a bit more, to avoid a cat stall or crash. The air is already down to about 25%, saving wood, and with the cat closed I'm burning clean. Once the stovetop is over 150, I can cut the air to .5 or so (12%) and she'll cruise. If I need more heat I run small flame in the box.
Point is, I think I'll be able to use flue temps to fine-tune my operation of the stove, getting cleaner burns and saving a little wood in the process. I'm feeding three stoves, here and at relatives' so I'm all about cutting wood use. Now, whether I can get the relatives on board with saving wood, I don't know; They don't seem nearly as detail-oriented and nerdy as I am. And they've got me cutting their wood so saving it might not be as high a priority. 😆

 

[mrc]

My

Oooo, really nice blue-flame low burn you've got going there! 🤗

Sure, we can all run our stoves pretty much by just watching what's happening in the box. Me, I'm kind of a nerd and tinkerer so I like to play with the various variables. 😏
Once the stove is cruising, the flue temp will be close to what you're seeing on the stovetop, as in Todd's example above. It's during the ramp-up phase on a reload where the flue temp is useful. To get his low burn (saving wood, also lowering output when needed,) he uses flue temp to be able to cut the air as soon as he can and avoiding getting too much wood burning, which you is hard to reverse once you've overshot the sweet spot.
You and me, with our stone stoves, will see an even bigger lag between stove temps and flue temps than a steel stove would, early in the burn. Like you, I was previously pretty much just going by stove temp and how the fire looked (whether it looked like I had enough wood burning, how much flame etc.) My flue meters were hard to see since my stove is rear-vented into the masonry fireplace, and I can't stick my head back there. But recently I remembered I had a little mirror with a telescoping handle, and that allows me to now use flue temps more, in addition to stove temp and burn appearance. The stovetop might be only 125 but the flue will be 400 or better. Once I hold that flue temp for a length of time (will be fine-tuned as I gain experience) I can close the bypass at that point and light off the cat but I have to keep some flame heat going to it until the stove heats up a bit more, to avoid a cat stall or crash. The air is already down to about 25%, saving wood, and with the cat closed I'm burning clean. Once the stovetop is over 150, I can cut the air to .5 or so (12%) and she'll cruise. If I need more heat I run small flame in the box.
Point is, I think I'll be able to use flue temps to fine-tune my operation of the stove, getting cleaner burns and saving a little wood in the process. I'm feeding three stoves, here and at relatives' so I'm all about cutting wood use. Now, whether I can get the relatives on board with saving wood, I don't know; They don't seem nearly as detail-oriented and nerdy as I am. And they've got me cutting their wood so saving it might not be as high a priority. 😆

My Mansfield is the older model.No cat. If I would have shut it down any earlier today it would have jJust went black. Open it up and give it a few more minutes and and then shut it down again. The other variable is the wood I’m burning. I have mostly soft maple,cherry, and hickory. They all start and finish differently. I haven’t yet got the experience to figure which wood burns best under what condition. I’ve been burning 10 years. Only 7 years full time in the house. I keep learning something every year.Thanks for the information.

 

[bholler]

My

My Mansfield is the older model.No cat. If I would have shut it down any earlier today it would have jJust went black. Open it up and give it a few more minutes and and then shut it down again. The other variable is the wood I’m burning. I have mostly soft maple,cherry, and hickory. They all start and finish differently. I haven’t yet got the experience to figure which wood burns best under what condition. I’ve been burning 10 years. Only 7 years full time in the house. I keep learning something every year.Thanks for the information.

Are you always shutting the air down all at once? How tall is your chimney?

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

just wondering if a cat stove is worth all the hassles that i keep reading about.seems kinda fussy,could be wrong wouldn't be the first time lol

I love not having to maintain a cat, and even more, love not having to shell out more cash periodically to buy replacements.

I'm completely open minded to the idea of a cat stove, but my circumstances make the extra effort and expense of a cat stove meaningless (stone walls, uninsulated, and leaky). If I had a tight, efficient house, a cat could make sense, but I think I would still go with a tube stove.

 

[Woody Stover]

I love not having to maintain a cat, and even more, love not having to shell out more cash periodically to buy replacements.

I'm completely open minded to the idea of a cat stove, but my circumstances make the extra effort and expense of a cat stove meaningless (stone walls, uninsulated, and leaky). If I had a tight, efficient house, a cat could make sense, but I think I would still go with a tube stove.

That was the reason I got my SIL a T5 this time; Cheaper maintenance for her and easier maintenance for me. It's about the simplest construction you'll find, few moving parts (no EBT on hers,) no bypass and associated gaskets (although some stoves like the Buck 91 cat e.g. just have a sliding plate, no gasket.)
We both ended up with Dutchwest cats at first, since they were sold at a shop in town. Hers was new, mine was used. So being familiar, I wasn't averse to getting another cat stove when I upgraded for more heat output. And even though it's a cat, the Keystone still is pretty simple and trouble-free.
This old place is far from airtight, an old log cabin with no wall insulation and thick thermal-mass interior walls. The cat stove still does the job, I just run a little flame in the box when I need more heat, like when it's cold and windy out, or when I've left the house for a long time, room temp has dropped too low, and I have to re-heat the interior walls.
And like I said, everybody's got a shoulder season, and cats work great when you need to dial back the output yet still get a long burn. In that case a non-cat could be more "effort" I'd think, running a series of short loads.

 

[EbS-P]

Yes it’s with the hassle for some, in certain houses. The consistent heat output and the output range range that some cat stoves are capable of is a selling point.

If you have a heatpump I don’t see the drawing a cat stove.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

EBL didn't plan on it, but he got up there a couple times only to find his wood under water. 😏 Or gone if the water got high enough! 😖

Yeah, I used to store all my wood for the cabin under it. There’s an incredible amount of wind whipping down the lake. It’d dry the wood out fast.

One spring there was a flood. It washed a bunch of nice 3 year old oak down the lake. I got a load of white pine in since it seasons fast. That fall, another flood washed it away.

I still store some wood under there, but also took over some of a friend’s yard up the lake. This worked out well until he retired and decided to spend a lot more time up there. All my wood disappeared into his smoke dragon, lol. We’re rebuilding the stash again, lol.

 

[mrc]

Are you always shutting the air down all at once? How tall is your chimney?

Yes. The chimney goes straight up thru the peak of a cathedral ceiling.14’ to the peak of the ceiling so probably 10’
in the house. Another 6 or so feet thru the space above the trusses to the top.16’ maybe a little more.

 

[kennyp2339]

Knock on wood for me, but it seems like my bad last winter was 2018, after that, they have been overall milder with only short blasts of cold, having a cat stove that is designed to go low and slow has helped a lot in the wood consumption area.

 

[shoot-straight]

Late to the party- will write this anyway.

Went from a hearthstone pheonix to a blaze king ashford. Newer construction, but poorly done so not very tight . Cathedral ceilings in stove room, live on a hill where the wind howls in md.

I love my blaze king. More even heat as others have said, but also a higher top end. It's a little bigger firebox than the hearthstone. I'd love to try a princess. As far as function, i don't think there is a more functional stove. Just hate the looks. My ashford isn't as good a radiant heater due to the shields that make it pretty. But the ability to turn on the fans and blow mega heat when needed is awesome.

My blaze king has a bigger box, heats the house much much better overall, and I burn about as much or less than with my hearthstone.

Lastly, I will say I dont Know if I have Had a company as customer service oriented as blaze king was with me. Others have said the same. A+

 

[Ashful]

I love not having to maintain a cat, and even more, love not having to shell out more cash periodically to buy replacements.

I'm completely open minded to the idea of a cat stove, but my circumstances make the extra effort and expense of a cat stove meaningless (stone walls, uninsulated, and leaky). If I had a tight, efficient house, a cat could make sense, but I think I would still go with a tube stove.

I understand the sentiment, but the dollars don't always flush out to much. I'm half way thru year 5 on both of my present combustors, and they're both still working well enough for my needs. If replacements are $200 and I toss a cat at the end of this year, that's only $40 per year. If I continue to run them thru next season, which I probably could, we'd be down to $33/year.

 

[JKanor]

I know that wasn't directed at me but figured I would add mine. I heat a ranch from the finished walk out basement 1100 SQ ft a floor. Basement insulated very well upstairs walls standard 2x4 with fiberglass house wrap and decent double pane windows. R40 attic.

With both the regency and bk I load 2 times a day down to lower 30s. Then 3 times down to lower teens. The regency kept up a bit more when it was really cold and windy. Single digits and windy I have either the oil furnace or propane insert help out a bit. I very rarely run the bk 24 hours. It certainly can do it I just don't see the need often

Curious on why you think the BK or Regency isn't more efficient for you? I'm in the same climate (just south of Scranton) and heating 1950sqft of a tri-level that was built in 87 as a heat pump house with a BK Princess. Stove is on the first level, under the 3rd with 3 vents through the floor for natural convection.

All dry hardwood and even in our recent dips of single digits I've yet to have turn the Stat past 3 o'clock to maintain 68-70 upstairs. In our normal mid 30s highs and low 20s lows I reload once a day around 11pm.

 

[bholler]

Curious on why you think the BK or Regency isn't more efficient for you? I'm in the same climate (just south of Scranton) and heating 1950sqft of a tri-level that was built in 87 as a heat pump house with a BK Princess. Stove is on the first level, under the 3rd with 3 vents through the floor for natural convection.

All dry hardwood and even in our recent dips of single digits I've yet to have turn the Stat past 3 o'clock to maintain 68-70 upstairs. In our normal mid 30s highs and low 20s lows I reload once a day around 11pm.

What dou you mean they aren't efficient for me? Both stoves are pretty efficient. That's just the BTU load my home needs

 

[Ashful]

What dou you mean they aren't efficient for me? Both stoves are pretty efficient. That's just the BTU load my home needs

I honestly don't remember, but was your issue that the Princess flat out couldn't keep up with the house, or just that you weren't able to take any advantage of the longer burn times?

 

[bholler]

I honestly don't remember, but was your issue that the Princess flat out couldn't keep up with the house, or just that you weren't able to take any advantage of the longer burn times?

The princess running at 8 hour cycles doesn't keep up as well as the regency did. I do occasionally get to use the long burns. In these temps I load every 12 hours which is what I did with the regency in these temps. Now yes the princess is far more even output at 12 hours without a doubt but I was always able to reload on coals with the regency at 12

 

[Ashful]

Similar cu.ft.? You'd figure that these stoves must have similar efficiency at 8 hours, if not the Princess being a bit better. So if you're sticking the same amount of wood in the box, why would one heat better than the other?

 

[bholler]

Similar cu.ft.? You'd figure that these stoves must have similar efficiency at 8 hours, if not the Princess being a bit better. So if you're sticking the same amount of wood in the box, why would one heat better than the other?

By comparing flue temps of both stoves when running on 8 hour cycles I don't see how they could be the same efficency at that burn rate. The princesses flue temps are considerably higher than the regencies we're at that rate. You have to remember the bks BTU output on high is pretty close to the regencies BTU output on low. And the entire stove runs at a higher temp with the regency because of the higher firebox temps. Meaning more area radiating higher BTUs

 

[Ashful]

The princesses flue temps are considerably higher than the regencies we're at that rate.

Say no more! That's everything.

I don't have a great testbed for comparison, as my short and uncontrolled flue has a magnetic thermo on single wall, whereas my taller flue with the key damper and magnehelic has a probe thermometer. But I do believe I lose more heat up the flue at higher burn rates on that uncontrolled pipe, than on the taller pipe damped down to ideal 0.05"WC.

Point being, maybe your draft is climbing a bit at higher burn rates, and the BK is suffering more from that factor, due to some design difference between the two.