Sounds like bad news but it's actually really good. Story started when I ordered a new cat this past December. I researched and the steel cats seemed to be a good upgrade and I ordered one from Condar. It performed great and was a big improvement from the old cat. Engaged quicker and stayed active for a lot longer. Then about 60 days later I noticed it was really having a hard time to get going. I discovered the cat was clogged with very light fluffy fly ash. So I cleaned it and we were all good again. Then the last few weeks I had the same problem. Hard to engage and the stove was struggling. One morning I got up and had over half the load in the stove, cat gauge was bottomed out and the stove was cold. So I checked and it was completely clogged again. So I called Condar and the tech explained that the steel cats can clog up faster because the holes are a lot smaller. They were great about it and sent me a ceramic replacemen t the same day. That came in the mail today and got it replaced. Can't say enough good about Condar. It nice to have great customer service.
Plenty of steel cat users have reported similar behavior. I plan to stick with ceramic when I replace mine. It's on it's 4th season and I was getting worried that it wouldn't work well on lower burns. I'm happy to report so far it's actually surprising me since I've been burning low the last week and getting 24hr burns give or take a little.
My experience has been about the same. I need to get it good and hot first, but then it stays active at low settings.
I think BK should change their cat screen to something more fine if they want to go with steel. Maybe something similar to Woodstock. But then Woodstock recommends cleaning their steel cats once per month so maybe that wouldn't help either.
So, how often do you have to clean a cat during the season, and how long does it take , start to finish, does the stove have to be completely cold ?
I've cleaned mine(ceramic) once so far this season when I swept my chimney mid season. Only takes a few seconds with the Princess, the cat stays in place, I vacuumed the face and backside after sweeping the chimney. The stove was cold since I have to pull the pipe in order to sweep my chimney set up.
I can clean the cat in a about 5-10 minutes, but what I didn't like is during cold times the stove is always running. Stopping it to clean every month means letting it go completely cold. With he ceramic it seems to run a lot longer without clogging up.
When it is cold and it continues, we simply don't worry and keep right on burning. I cleaned the cat a week ago and there was barely anything in there to clean. Just the way we like it.
I clean my SS cat with the stove still warm, at the end of a burn cycle. No problem, and no smoke into the room. Of course, at the time there will be only a few coals in the firebox and no smoke.....Takes em about 5 - 10 minutes, depending on whether I get the fly ash out of the upper chamber a well.
It's funny to hear this story Swags. Most of the SS cat owners I have seen in the forums with talks about cleaning the SS cats have been good, minimal clogging with fly ash and only cleaning every 3-4 mos. I wonder if some stoves are just meant to have ceramic cats with the larger combs in them?
I have no experience with a ceramic cats but the fine screen on the Keystone will get noticeably restricted with ash, and the SS cat is still almost perfectly clean. Stoves with courser screens could very well do much better with a ceramic cat.
I think most people do the same. For sure I don't ever remember being able to clean our cat without wearing gloves because the frame is too hot.
My cats are not visible in the top of the stove. They sit in a C channel suspended in there. The channel is open on the sides. My cats (there is two) were new last season. I have not pulled them yet. I burned under three cards last year and over three this year. They are ceramic condars. They engage fine and stay active with very minimal coals in the stove. There is very little ash ever in them. I get fine dust under them on the metal plate where it falls out of them in very small ash but they dont get plugged or clogged and I will burn some loads in fall and spring for 29-30 hours sometimes. I will pull them this summer. But to get them out of the housing I need to regasket them.
When you princess guys need to clean the steelcat of ash is it clogging the face of the cat, the middle, the back towards the flue, or all of the above? Is a shop vac to the fire side sufficient?
Mine just clogged on the front, I removed the plate (very easy and quick) and used a paint brush to clean the ash off. It's not a long process but I let the stove cool off to clean. And I don't want to let the stove go cold every 3-4 weeks in Dec-Feb to clean it. Previously with a ceramic I didnt have to clean it very often.
Thanks Sean, the face of the cat is super easy to access so no big deal but I do not want to be removing the flue or cat to clean the backside.
