Im not talking about food or tobacco Im talking about chimneys. How long does your chimney smoke after you engage the cat? Im just curious I thought about this the other night when I went outside right after engaging the cat and noticed smoke still coming out of the chimney, but as I watched it the smoke got less and less until it was almost gone. I got to cold to keep watching but from the time I went outside until I went inside was probably a little over five minutes and I was wondering if anyone else has watched their chimney to see how long it takes for the smoke to stop rolling out.
With VC stoves? A long damm time. The bastards could have a glowing cat and 600 stove top with smoke coming out the damm chimney. "Maybe it's steam." Yeah, that ain't steam...
Im guessing it takes a few minutes for the cat to really kick in. After a few minutes theres nothing coming out of the chimney.
With the VC dutchwest if the cat was lit off there was no smoke. Browningbar, I think the difference is the dutchwest cat is right in the top of the stove vs other downdraft VC stoves.
My Princess will smoke for a while if it has an active flame. Once the flame gets lazy or goes out the smoke will clear up. The Princess is not the cleanest burner on a higher burn imo. It's not the type of smoke that smokes out the neighborhood, it probably lasts for 5-10' off the chimney, it's not steam though since it's usually a little more gray than white.
This is about what I saw today with my stove. Morning burn with mainly Cherry went smokeless pretty quick. Locust and oak about 20 minutes
Im not worried about it Im just curious I know the cats working and doing what it should. just curious as to how everyone else cat works.
The last couple weeks I have been thinking about a chimney cam so I can watch it. lol probably a waste of time, but, maybe some here would find it entertaining.
You read my mind.. When I want to see if smoke is coming out of my chimney, I have to throw on a jacket and either walk out to the street or out of the basement into the back yard. Actually thought it would be cool to have a "simulcast" screen that I could watch on my computer as I'm screwing around with my stove!
Ive thought about that myself but usually after a reload I take the dogs out and can check the chimney out then which is when this thread came about. As I was watching the chimney I noticed the smoke starting to get thinner and thought I wonder how long other folks take to stop smoking. Now you could get one of those cheap security systems probably a couple hundred or less and put the cameras on the roof aimed at the top of the chimney it would then be linked to your computer or a closed circuit tv of sorts. Record it and give it to Jack for his ROKU channel. That would be pretty boring kind of like watching C-Span
Agreed much more interesting as a matter of fact Im going to go watch smoke now hopefully there isnt any as I havent messed with the stove for a while.
Matt, typically when the cat is new, it will fire off almost immediately once the bypass is closed. But as the cat ages a little, it seems to take a bit longer to fire up. Even after doing a vinegar bath this past summer, we noticed the cat firing off like it was new but that lasted only until sometime around the New Year that we started noticing it taking a bit longer. One thing we have learned is that if the draft setting is too high, that cause it to take longer. For example, if we close the bypass and have the setting at 1.5 or 2, then the stove top just does not show any signs of heating up. We usually wait another 5 minutes or whatever then close the draft to 1 or .75. The flame immediately increases when we do that and the stove top temperature begins to rise rapidly.
