I've been reading about stoves with a catalyst. My question is: What happens when the fire cools down and the catalyst cools down too? Do you open the bypass? Is the bypass for startup only? I have a non-cat stove and it goes all night. If the fire cools down, I don't have to worry about it. Sorry if this is a stupid question. Just started wondering about it should I ever get a stove with a catalyst.
Bypass only for startup and whenever you open the door. When it cools off, no problem, you're out of fuel.
The cat is usually still lit even when there are just coals burning down. I only open the bypass when I want to burn the coals down faster to keep the fly ash out of the cat. Otherwise the bypass is closed till I reload
You want to keep the bypass closed because it routes heat off the coals through the stove instead of straight up the flue.
For sure no worries leaving the bypass closed. Open the bypass just to load wood and get that fire going then close it and forget about it until it is time to reload.
I leave it closed almost always, after the wood load turns to hot coals, I will move the draft from the 1 position to the 2 position to keep the heat up if I need more heat in the house. But, in an overnight burn the draft setting stays at the 1 position till morning, when I will still have a layer of hot coals in the box, but I will open the draft up (with the cat still engaged) to max to burn down those coals even more and maximize the space in the box for a new load. I'm usually hovering around the 250'F temp range on the of the stove, just aboive the cat at this time so it is easy to put in a new load, disengage the cat to max air and then get the flames up good, and char the new splits for about 15 mins. Then re-engage the cat, let the temps rise above 300'F STT before closing down to position 1 which is my cruise range for steady state burning. Lately I've noiticed that I will sometimes nudge the draft to slightly less that 1, like a .8 setting, and this puts the wood into a mild glow state with no flames, but the cat will be nice and bright orange with a STT in thr 50o'F to even 600'F on a cold day, while the low draft just keeps feeding the cat, causing nice "ghost flames" as the very hot cat ignites unburned fuel before the smoke even flows through the cat. - This has got to be almost a perfect burn, minimum flames/maximum heat, with a very slow burn. This is the first year I've been able to easily do this, as it's my first year with nicely seasoned (mainly oak) wood at least 18 months Cut/Split and Stacked.
The cat will stay lit until it burns off all the gas then when the fire cools the cat may not be lit but there is no need to open the bypass. At that point the cat is sort of acting like a pipe installed damper and keeping the heat that is left, in the stove, instead of going out the flue.
As others said, I leave my cat engaged until reloading. Also, the can can be very active (900+F) and not be glowing at all. Once the cat lights off, it should stay active until the wood stops producing smoke (near the coaling stage.
Thanks! It's especially neat when you look at the wood and it's barely burning, and then you look at the thermometer top side and it's north of 500'F and you sit back and look out the window at a windy cold northern Mass January day.
I was just checking the oil tank. Feels like I'm stickin' it to the man when I see the cat glowing and those 600* STT 's
