Catalytic or Non-catalytic?

On a Woodstock Ideal steel, I do it midway through year and beginning of season. Takes 2 minutes just have to wait til you can grab cat (metal) with welder gloves

 

What cat stove did you buy?

 

I get it; I was just saying my Cat stove burns far more smoke and particles, than my non cat did..

As an aside, my uncle, love him to death, has a completely rebuilt fisher Mama bear with burn plate added. his house smaller cubic feet, he burns minimum 2x cordage I do.. I will gladly do maintenance and pay $150 dollars a year to save 4 cords a year

 

I brush the front of my cat once mid season and once at the end when I sweep. At that point I vacuum behind the cat too as I have the pipe off anyway.

It's really not needed but why not.10 seconds to take the flame guard off, two sweeps.of three seconds with a paint brush. Or three 5 second sweeps with a handheld vacuum.

The biggest issue is waiting for the stove to be cold...

Other maintenance is swapping the cat for a new one. 5 minutes.

I'm happy with it. $250 every 3 to 4 years for a stove that meets my needs as well as this one is something I have no issues with.

My experience is that ashes don't get.to.my cat. If one has too much draft it can suck ashes up.

 

My understanding is that a cat lives about 12000 hours. So years depends on burning mode in your home.

If it has to work hard, or gets overheated much, that 12000 will decrease.

 

To access my cat, I need to remove the entire stove top. 4 corner bolts hold the top in place. The gasket just crumbles when the cat is lifted out, so that gets replaced.

 

Wow that’s a PITA !! I just lift a lid and it’s there.. I guess I changed gasket once in a hundred removals.

 

That crumbling gasket here too; meant to swell up and seal (likely for EPA particle emissions testing)
I hope they invent a reusable gasket for that...

 

Yep.

I've never seen this mythical "orange glow" when the cat is doing its thing.

 

Mine is a chore as well. Mine bolts to the top of the inside of the stove with a cat frame. I also have to install a new gasket.

 

For the square footage you want to heat, I can tell you from first hand experience, that Hearthstone will never cut it. I have 3500 sq ft and put one in my house June of 2023. The first fire in fall of 2023, I found out immediately it wasn't going to be enough stove. By December, I was literally structuring my life around when to load, and getting up in the middle of the night to load it. I bought the Blaze King 40 and took the Hearthstone Heritage out. Best thing I ever did! The Blaze King heated our whole house plus, we were easily getting 9+ hours burn on extremely cold days, and 12-16 hours on normal winter days (20 degreeish). When packed full, as recommended by the company, you can hit 24 hours as well. I think the whole secret to a clean burning cat is very well seasoned wood and low moisture and don't over fire it. When I took the cat out to clean it after a full season burn in 2023, it was clean as could be. I would buy another Blaze King without a second hesitation.

 

On my Blaze King, the orange glow is like a night light in the living room. Quite bright most of the time. Pretty weird.

 

A King should be able to get way more than 24 hrs. I've seen reports from someone I trust that he got 40 hrs - which is indeed what the mfg says.

My Chinook 30.2 has given me 36-37 hrs (until the cat fell out of the active range and I could reload on the coals) with a box full (Tetris) of Red oak. Of course it was 45-ish outside so the low output was enough.

 

I do it while installed, yes a soft brush.
If not much fly ash is present, the back will be fine so no need to brush there. But at the end of the season I do vacuum back there. Never really needed it but why not.