WS Steel Cat update

Ok, let it out!!! ?

 

So are any of you boiling your cat on 50/50 vinegar/water solution like the Instructions say then rinseing in boiling distilled water?

 

Not me. The ph cat is soooooooooo long, not sure how I would do that. I just spray with 50/50 solution very liberally, both sides till dripping / soaking wet all thru, then spray again...let sit 10 mins, then spray again. Then rinse with dist water real good.

 

Well the instructions I read are for a ceramic cat so it may vary for a steel cat.

 

I have dual cats in mine. There probably my 6"x2"x2" or there about. Thats me guessing from memory.

 

I spoke with Penny at Woodstock today.

1) It is fine to clean the cat with vinegar everytime you take it out and brush it. No need to boil the vinegar. You can keep a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water on the counter in a spray bottle, spray with that, rinse well with distilled water. The big thing is to avoid air under much compression. I brush my cat every two weeks to month, so they said rinse maybe every 6 to 8 weeks.

The thought I have been kicking around for the past month or so relates to my water.

Since I installed a flue damper, my draft has calmed way down, and ash buildup on my cat has been significantly reduced. Where I had a good quarter of an inch before in a few weeks, I now have about 1/16 inch in a few weeks. But I have noticed that I now have a small amount of hard mineral build up on the edge of some of the combs, just like I used to get obliterating the mesh holes in the iconal screen. Hard water mineral deposits? I'm wondering? And Woodstock tells you to rinse the cat in distilled water, To avoid mineral deposits of the precious metals? Or because of chlorine and fluoride additions to municiple waters. So I called today. The distilled water is to avoid hard water/mineral deposits.

This is where my thoughts have been going the past month. I am on Limestone. My water is VERY hard. So, my trees have to be absorbing the same water I am getting out of my well. Maybe not quite as hard, because the soil in minimal and the roots are shallow, and the water doesn't sit on the rocks but filters through to the aquifer, but still...hard water. So, it is likely that my trees have a high mineral content in their moisture, and likely also deposited in their wood. Therefore, when I burn, I am burning high mineral content wood, which has to produce different ash and different smoke than trees grown in neutral or acid soil. So, I am thinking this contributes to the ash build up on my cat.

Made sense to Woodstock when I posed the possibility.

It would be of interest to know whether those of us with ash build up issues have similar groundwater.

I would think my hard water would also auger a shorter life span for my SS catalytic converter. Probably a good idea to vinegar bathe it fairly often/ I think I'll get a second cat, so I can do so at my leisure, switching cats out when I clean. Doing so may extend the life of each cat, thus saving money in the long run, as well as being more convenient.

 

I find the only time I get the light brown "ash" build up on the cat is, when I do 2 o 3 weeks of nothing but low long burns, and never fire the stove up real hot and run it hard with the air open for a while. I think when your burning real slow and low, it's easy for ash to land and stick to the cat. When your running it hard, there is allot of pressure pushing the air thru the cat and it doesn't have time to land/stick. Just my take/guess on it.

Interesting idea sherwood, but I don't think that light brown ash has anything to do with the mineral content in the water the wood carries.... But I do think the more you rinse the cat, the better it runs!! Vinegar will not remove any substrate...

 

Now that I have a flue damper installed and have slowed down my draft, my ash deposit on the cat is light gray, almost white. Doesn't seem to matter whether I burn hot or slow, get the same deposit. But slowing the flue draft down stops the fly ash flying around the firebox and being sucked into the flue.

 

I used to get a badly clogged cat and bad backpuffsing for the 2 years before I added 2' of flue pipe . Since that day I don't have either problem. In my case I was having trouble getting the cat to light off due to the lousy draft, and it clogged terribly. Once the draft improved, it solved both problems.

It seems you need sort of a "Goldilocks" draft to keep the cat happy.

 

Just posting my own observations and opinions:

I was a former ASE auto tech and worked around plenty of cats and have seen substrate issues. When you purchase a replacement cat for your stove you will see some over coating of the substrate that is not fully bonded and will come off when you run a good rinse on it. How much of an overall performance effect that small amount of net loss is probably negligible?

1.There is plenty of steam vapor that passes through a cat during combustion so water is no foreign matter to a cat.

2.If I remember right there has been improvements on the precious metal coating to negate potassium salt poisoning.

3.I think the point is that using distilled water is a precaution in preventing any due contamination. There is a lot of minerals, substances and trace chemicals in our tap water which could cause some unknown reactions? Just my theory, I'm not a chemist. A cat can last up to 10,000 hours only a true test lab could verify whether cleaning, what water and methods we use to clean are best. I do not have the patience or level of care to ride that trial out.

4.The new design cats are a lot easier now that there is not interam gaskets involved, so experimenting with frequent washes is a cinch.

5.I think getting a good hot cat burn every now and not over firing your cat is probably better and more beneficial than frequent baths.

6. Keep it simple and in moderation is my motto.

 

That was well put JD. I'm new to cats this year so I have been paying closer attention to this thread.

One question; a cat that has been washed with distilled vinegar and not rinsed with distilled water, can Any harm come to the cat when it fires?

 

http://www.clean-air-revival.org/pdfs/campfire654.pdf (Good read)

Cats are exposed to a mind boggling amount of compounds and acids during combustion. I think the intent of the distilled water is to flush an residual compounds and help neutralize any reactions.

I'd be willing to bet soon after a pure vinegar wash and dry and residual amount would be incinerated.

 

I have been rinsing with plain well water after the vinegar bath so I can gently spray/rinse the cells with my faucet sprayer, then I follow it up with a pure distilled water rinse.
I'm on year #3 with my cat 24/7 burning and it still lights off great.

 

Tony, I'm sure that's fine., The distilled water will rinse any minerals from your well off the cat. That's a good idea: saves a lot of distilled water.

 

I believe heat is the answer and lots of it.

I worked in automotive and am currently a diesel tech in the ag industry.

I've seen quite a few catalysts lose efficiency after prolonged idling and light loading of the engine. With tier 4 emissions the computer sends the tractor into a de-rate sequence when the efficiency drops off.

Usually I will take the PTO dyno along and put the engine under 100% load for a while and retest. Then it passes.

Running low firebox temperatures is going to lead to build up. For one thing, the cat eventually goes inactive and is subject to whatever fuel is left in the box. So that is going to coat the cat as it cools.
Higher firebox temperatures lead to more complete combustion and less residual fuel .

My idea is to burn the stove good and hot before shutting it down. That should help clear the deposits on the cat and bring the Firebox temperature up.

 

I have good draft also and burnt a lot of popular this year which gave me more ash than sugar maple and Ash. Same thing light coating of fly ash I just vacuum off and clean cat with vinegar bath once season is over..

 

Along that line there is not smoke going through the cat when it's in bypass mode. But if I leave my draft open a long time it will get hot..but not as hot as if the cat is actually engaged.