New to a cat stove still. So on the reload of a cat stove, situation is the cat probe is showing it just barely still active but it is active. Throw a few logs in and close the door. Do you engage the cat right away or wait a bit to let the splits catch fire and burn a little before re-engaging the cat?
My Buck stove manual says....load,engage the cat and give it some air until the wood is charged. That just seems wierd to me other than if you let it catch and then engage you are putting some flame onto the cat. Now naturally you are hitting the cat with flame from a cold start but maybe that is why they say to engage right away on a reload so you are limiting the times when you hit the cat with flame. Can you look at a Blaze King manual online and see what they say on your stove.
From the manual: Always put the by-pass handle in the open (upright) position before you open the Front Loading Door. This will decrease the chances of “spilling” smoke into the room when you are adding wood. REMEMBER TO CLOSE THE BY PASSPASS HANDLE (downward) as soon as you have loaded your wood.
That being said, the manual also states leave the tstat on high for 20 min after you load to get the fire established. I think 20 min on high is too long for me.
Thanks, I didn't see that in the manual, I tried the other way last night and it seemed like it took forever to get the cat back up to temp with the bypass open. Really made me think im wasting a lot of BTUs going up the chimney.
I also remember reading somewhere in there they recommend closing the bypass when the needle gets NEAR the active zone fwiw.
I get a good flame established before closing the bypass. My reasoning is to get the flu heated up to get a strong draft going. Strong draft pull in more air & more air = stove gets hotter faster; it seems to get the cat engaged faster. (stat on high :::max open) Let it run on high for 5 to 10 min, get it good & hot then set the stat to desired setting. A good hot stove before turning the stat down helps keep the glass cleaner.
Here is my typical sequence. As Dave pointed out, give it a good start and it will light off nice every time. Set the tstat and then don't think about the fire again.
I. Open bypass load wood and burn bypass open.For your particular I would do this and then leave it bypassed and cut air down and burn that way 10 mins or so before I engage. It will keep and moist air off the cats when your first cooking the moisture out of the wood onthat hot cat. Year even 3 yr wood still has moisture in it.
