Char time before closing bypass

Curious as to how long others are charring wood before closing bypass and engaging the catalytic combuster. Also how often are you needing to clean the combuster with a vinegar bath. Do you see any difference in cleaning between hard and soft woods, perfectly seasoned vs marginal wood? What type of pan have you found works best for the vinegar bath.

The reason I ask is I'm having problems with my combuster engaging did a vinegar bath in November and it helped but I don't know if it returned to normal. Having problems again still seeing light smoke even with active flames and STT of 600•

Manufacture is great! They are sending me a new cat to try and rotate back and forth to see if I see any difference between new and old. I just wanted to see what other people are doing.

DNH

 

On reloads I never worry about charring the wood, if the fire looks established I close the bypass. One a cold start I try to wait till the cat is active then close the bypass. This season is the 5th for my cat, I gave it a vinegar bath for the first time at the beginning of the season. I burn primarily hardwood that is all 3 years + seasoned.

If the stove is a traditional cat stove(not a hybrid) it's not unheard of for them to smoke some on high burn rate. Sometimes you can have more smoke than the cat can eat.

The vinegar bath is acidic and can remove the precious metals if done too often, I'd use it sparingly.

 

DNH what kind of stove are you burning

 

I usually wait till all the wood is flaming and the flue is 300-400* surface temp and 250+ STT before I engage the cat.
Cat was new last year so I gave it a vinegar spray 2 weeks ago after burning some not-so-great oak.

When I'm fighting with the cat, its usually after burning oak. I just don't seem to have great success with oak. even three years old I find its slow to burn, takes lots of air, and the coals burn down slower than the other woods I use.

this sounds like a wet wood situation.

 

I let the flames get well established, as WS recommends. Maybe 10-15 min on a reload. This drives out some of the moisture. I'm burning 3&4 year old red oak and it will steam out the end of the splits on a cold start. I guess the heat evaporates in before I can see it on a hot reload. Less than dry wood will delay the cat. Are you sure you're not seeing steam? I get a little at the beginning of every load with 15% MC wood. It's clear/white and dissipates rapidly.

 

^^^this^^^

 

Do you use a moisture meter?

 

With our stove & 17% MC wood, still get wisps of white smoke from the chimney for 25 minutes after the cat is engaged. Then no more wisps of white smoke for the duration of the 10 hour burn, just "heat waves". I blame it on moisture from deep inside the splits still coming out the splits. If it were a stalled cat, the smoke would last the duration of the outgassing phase and the wisps would be heavier and dark, not white.
Have noted that oak (any high density wood, especially black locust) does not excite the cat for heat as much as say, ash does but lasts longer in the coal phase.
It pretty much guarantees no cat stall to leave the intake air 75% open for 6 - 10 minutes after engaging the cat before slowly reducing intake to its final cruise mode setting.
Have sprayed the SS cat with 50/50 vinegar/water twice in the stove's 1.5 year lifetime.

 

Interesting. I haven't burn enough of any species except for oak, to have experienced this. I have noticed less dense wood ignites faster and of course burns faster. My cat does get up to 1400F on a full reload of oak. Maybe the softer woods excite the cat faster but not more? That makes some sense but I'm spitballing.....

 

I've noticed oak doesn't make crazy/blast furnace secondaries like my cottonwood and elm do! I think it off gasses slower and more controlably. I get boarderline runaway with the softer woods because of my stack height. Oak settles in and burns like it should even in low temps with crazy draft.

 

I purchased a progress hybrid last summer I really like it just trying to figure out what I did wrong to cause the cat to stop working correctly, early in the season I saw no smoke unless I had the bypass open.

I don't have a moisture meter but after this I plan on getting on next time I'm near harbor freight.

Now I'm seeing this and worse if I try for low and slow, very active secondary burn (high burn rate) does a good job of cleaning up the smoke. I pulled the cat yesterday looked good.

I tried a very hot fire STT of 600-650 to see if I could burn off any film, no success.

My worst wood was standing dead CSS by October 2014 mostly oak with some cedar, walnut and a few other mixed wood.

 

It hard to judge from a pic but that looks like it could be steam. How does it continue after cat engagement? Mine will steam for awhile, 30 min maybe.

 

I'll be away from home for a few days but when I get back I'll time a reload and take some pics.

 

Lowes sells a moisture meter I highly recomend checking your wood. My uncle just had the same thing with his ideal steel. I gave him my moisture meter split a piece of oak 34 percent. Gave him a stack of my wood at 20 percent or less and now he has the stove running a lot better with no smoke really and cat temps way higher. If your wood is cut from dead standing you can still have very high moisture readings I learned this the hard way. Now I cut check and stack accordingly some dead standing stuff is way lower than others good luck

 

Some of my best wood this year was a 16-18" standing dead oak cut in the fall. The tree was starting to lose it's bark and there were hardly any branches left at the top. I fell, cut and split it same day probably got 1/2-2/3 of a cord.
The bottom 5-6 rounds had water sqeezing out the center when I split it. I was surprised to say the least. Threw that to the side for another year

 

from the looks of that cat, looks to have a green tint on the right end, I'm saying wet wood
was your oak left in rounds or splits bigger than 4-5" ?

 

Yep. I've seen the same from long standing dead oak. It's hard to believe it can still be that wet near the bottom.

 

I can't see the green in the pic but I've seen it on my cat plenty, burning <20%MC oak. It looks like oxidation of some kind. I called WS, they said no worries, so I don't.

 

Standing Red Oak Ready To Burn? | Firewood Hoarders Club

 

This is smoke not vapor, I've climbed on the roof numerous time just to make sure. What I'm trying to understand is why I'm seeing this now when I did not earlier in the season, same stack, same wood, did I do something to cause this and mostly can I change my burning habits as this is my first cat stove so this does not happen again.

Any round larger than ~5" gets split I aim for splits about 5" at the widest but a lot are smaller a few are larger.

I have plenty of wood for this season and next season CSS and covered, working on 17/18 wood. And trying to get a baseline for how much wood the house will use.