Catalytic wood burning appliances

Besides blaze king. Who make catalytic wood burning heating appliances? I’m looking for a shop heater and love the idea of 30hr burn times. I have a fireplace (quadrafire pioneer 2) and a furnace (kumma vf100). Both use the secondary air reburn method for emissions compliance. That can add more air then the fire needs to stay alive during idle times. Thus creating higher wood consumption and higher firebox temps when you don’t need the heat. The advantage of course to the secondary burn of course is no rare earth metals to replace, and when you need heat, the secondary burn units have no problem cranking out the btu’s.


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You are not gonna get 30 hour burn times, unless the weather is very mild, or your shop very small and well insulated...

 

With no experience with catalytic anything. I’m just going off of what blaze king was advertising.

And I think the term “burn time” is relative. Does that mean flames are still coming off the logs, or burnt down to coals that can easily start splits or kindling when raked up, or does it mean there is no flame/ember to speak of, but the stove is still warm and giving off heat.


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Who know what the burn time definition is...one thing for sure is if you have the stove set low enough for a "30 hr burn" there will be no flames..."black box" as they call it...just smoldering the wood so the cat has smoke to eat...

 

There are lots of cat stove makers besides BK though...Woodstock, Buck, Jotul, Kuma, Hearthstone, Vermont Castings, MF fire, Napoleon, Travis, Regency, Hearth n Home...and I'm sure I'm missing a few yet...

 

I disagree, you can absolutely get 30 hour burn times in any building but the heat output at that burn rate might be too low to keep the building warm. The smaller BK, the princess or 30 box, is rated for 30 hour burns and it absolutely delivers. Burn time is an equipment specification like HP from an engine. It's up to the operator to choose the right tool for the job.

You, the OP, have a premium furnace, the BK is the same thing, cutting edge technology to accomplish the highest efficiency, lowest emissions, and widest range of outputs for longest possible burn times. The firebox itself is more of a fuel tank. If you want high output, you can burn up a full tank in 8-10 hours. If you want low output you can go 30 hours. Or anything in between!

No other brand but one has been able to come even close in terms of burn rate control which leads to those long burn times. Just one company, woodstock, has one model, the IS, that comes very close. It's a little less efficient and no thermostat but it's a dang capable heater too. If I were you I would consider the IS too.

If you are okay with a small stove, the Kuma company makes a pretty dang efficient cat stove as well but burn times aren't quite as long due to lack of low output capabilities.

On the shop stove issue, shops require a different list of priorities. I chose a cheap, big, noncat, plate steel stove for my shop because it is intermittently heated and I am not interested in low burn rate appliances. If I could run the thing at 800 I would and it wouldn't be too much heat. Really, the wood furnace is more appropriate in the shop due to automation, safety devices, air filter, and big blower. A stove like the BK is best suited to keep a building warm with a thermostatic control and wide range of burn rates, it also doesn't make a pretty fireshow through the window very often.

If you're looking to save some money over just buying a second kuuma, have you considered a drolet furnace? If super long burn times are important regardless of whether that burn rate keeps your building warm then the BK will do the job. Pretty safely too since it has the thermostat so you can ignore it during the burn.

 

Burn time definition for a cat stove is time with cat in the "Active" zone which is over 500 degrees on the cat meter. 30 hours is pretty great and I can easily get 24 with softwood. Folks with hardwoods, or those compressed firebricks are easily exceeding the 30.

One more thought, lots of companies came out with brand new cat stove designs to meet the 2020 EPA regs. Some did a crappy job and only added the cat to scrub some emissions. Beware! You don't want one of those.

 

You'd argue about if the pope is catholic or not, wouldn't you?
I never said the stove wouldn't do 30 hour burns...I said you aren't gonna get enough heat coming off the stove doing a 30 hour burn to heat a "shop" unless it was warm out, or a small well insulated shop.

 

Homemade all “dry” wood had about the same amount of BTUs per pound around 9000. Obviously dry oak weighs more than white pine.

So therefore, the 2 things that really matter is:

1)how big is the firebox? Measured in cubic feet

Pretty easy to find out. Think of it as a gas tank for your car​

2) how efficient as the wood burning device Government has rating on efficiency..

So you need to define what your heat needs are.

The rest is what you and your specific applications require. Following the same analogy, a Toyota Corolla with 20 gallon gas tank can go farther than a F350 dually But the truck can tow a lot more

 

I must have misunderstood what you wrote. I'm here to tell you that you can get 30 hour burn times regardless of your building needs. It's an equipment specification. You can burn it outside and still get 30 hour burns or in a bedroom and still get 30 hour burns.

I don't follow the pope's religious affiliations closely but I would guess he is catholic.

 

Thanks for the info. I’m just learning the whole cat side of things.


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30 Hours? Not going to get on that train. So you can start a stove on Monday Morning AT 7AM and still have it "burning' on Tuesday at 1pm? Not going into the various mfgs, but at that rate one would only load the stove 5.6 times in a week.

 

The "king" model blaze king will easily do over 30 hrs on a full load.

 

"Do" what over 30 hours? Smolder away on a large load of wood at a rate that is highly unlikely to heat a "shop" in Wisconsin, unless the weather is very mild?
There is no magic here...yes a BKK can burn a large load of wood at a very low rate for "up to 30 hours" but unless your "shop" is a very small well insulated room, and/or the weather is very mild, that "30 hr burn rate" will not keep the "shop" very warm.
And if the shop is a typical garage, with a decent heat load in the winter, a BKK will still need need to eat more like every 8-10-12 hours, just like other stoves...maybe a bit less that some stoves, just because the "fuel tank" on the BKK is so large.

 

Ahh...the naysayers that don't own one...

 

Its simple math...each LB of wood is only good for so many BTU's, no stove can change that. Are you saying otherwise Skeet?
Are you saying that the BKK can make, say 50k BTUH x 30 hours? (which I don't think would be an unreasonable to heat the average shop in Wisconsin)
Would be nice if we had more info about this "shop", and how you plan to heat it OP...

 

Uh oh, have to disagree with you again.... Sorry. The BKK, the king, is rated to burn up to 40 hours. So yes, 40 hours on it's minimum output rate which may or may not be enough for you needs but guess what? You can turn it up and burn hotter if you want for less time. This king stove is one of the most efficient on the market so you can burn that fuel tank however fast you want and be doing it well.

I burn a noncat in my well insulated shop. It snowed last night. I can reload that 3.5 cubic foot stove every three hours and still not overheat the shop in one day if it starts out cold. Intermittent shop heating is not the best application for a cat stove. You want a monster in there with huge output.

 

Homemade the great thing about catalytic stoves, using car analogy from above. The cat burns the exhaust fumes and makes extra heat from that!

 

Well designed cat stoves from the top 2-3 manufacturers are night and day difference compared to a noncat stove. Especially when you properly match the stove to the heatload of your home so you can take advantage of those low burn rates.

More efficient and wider range of available outputs.