First fire, New catalyst - big difference

The house I bought a couple years ago came with a Defiant Encore. Not a bad stove, gaskets are in good shape, no real complaints. The house is only about 1400 square feet so it doesn’t take much to heat it up.

I didn’t use it much the first winter due to not having a good wood supply. I ran about 2/3 of a cord through it last year and while it heated the house, there was a lot more smoke than what I thought a catalytic stove should have. Not a big deal at the time, but this year I have another year around neighbor who is directly downwind of my house, and I don’t want to cover their house in a smoke plume.

This summer I pulled the cat, or I should say what I think used to be the cat. Not much left of it.

I ordered a new cat in August and installed it. Today was the first fire of the season. About 10 minutes after I engaged the cat, I went outside and nothing was visible except heat waves. Just reloaded about 15 minutes ago before I took the picture and same thing - no visible smoke. Burning a mix of birch and white pine at the moment.

Any tips or tricks I should know of to keep the cat happy, outside of the usual no painted/treated/overly wet wood I’ve read about?

 

On cat equipped stove's its recommended to open the bypass and the primary air supply a few minutes prior to gently opening the loading door for reload. This lets the cat cool a bit before introducing cool room air that can thermally shock the Cat.
Never load cold wet, icy, snow covered wood on reloads that can also shock/damage the super hot Cat.
Leaky loading door/glass gaskets can shorten Cat life as well by letting in cool air.

General rule's of thumb that come to mind. The owners manual should outline correct stove specific procedure as well.

I can sure agree on the new cat performance. I put in a new one recently and immediately ran a 24hr burn with a easy restart on coals. Nice. Bet your neighbors will appreciate your investment! Enjoy.

 

That’s a beautiful stove! Best of luck with it. We used to have a pre cat model in red and it was a great heater. I’m not familiar with that cat setup and how easy access is, but regular cleaning with a vacuum helps mine a lot, and an occasional vinegar bath if it’s a stainless cat will help it burn more efficiently and last longer. That applies to all of them. No vinegar bath for ceramic cats though I don’t believe. Someone will chime in on that probably.

 

This one is a red one also. It darkens up a lot when it’s hot. Accessing the cat on this stove isn’t too bad - 4 screws on the back, pop off the access panel and slide it right out. I was surprised what I could see of the refractory looked to be in good condition as I’d read that those tend to deteriorate over time. The guy we bought the house from said he had it rebuilt when he bought it, and he only lived here a couple winters before heading to Florida during cold season, so I’m hoping it will last me for several years before any major maintenance is needed.

Thanks for the tips - sounds like I’ve been doing it right even though I didn’t know it. The stove at my last house had secondary burn tubes but no cat.

Edit - the fan on the top of the stove is used for not much other than something to look at and to let me know it’s about time to close the bypass....

 

Thanks for the picture! Beautiful!

 

Why no fat wood?

 

You can't put pine and fatwood in a catalytic stove, you'll burn your house down, your wife, kids and dog will abandon you and all your investments will dissolve overnight.

 

Lots of intentional and unintentional fatwood goes into my cat stove. See, the bottom several feet of these huge evergreen trees is often soaked with tar/pitc/sap whatever so badly that it runs out like lard when you split it. Never seemed to be a problem. It's natural firewood after all.

 

Never used fatwood for starters. But he's right about colored paper which also can react with SS flues.
Besides, if you read the WSJ, there's little color ( cheap ).

 

Put in a new Cat in the BKK yesterday. Old Cat looked perfect, but it needs a douche. New Cat, cranking out heat like it should, very happy.

 

Hated those "douches" for the cats.
Now, no smelly douche for non cats.