A Very niceable decrease in efficiency on my 3rd year... year 1 and 2 were okay, tapering off at the end of 2. Dont budget on a 3rd year. it takes me 100+ hours to process 6 cords.... i dont want to waste them.
the woodstock hybrids have secondary air, but not secondary air "tubes." there is a large plate in the top of the IS that has rows of 5/16? holes in it that let the air in over the top of the fire.
Well, my friend, I do not understand why running without a cat would cause overheating. Simply because the parts would not get as hot as if the cat were in there and working good. That is the idea of the cat; to raise the temperature and burn off the smoke. So no, parts, property or people are not in jeprady.
Yep, your over thinking it. My cat is due to be replaced and I ran my Progress Hybrid as a always do. When the stove top temp gets to 400ish I put it in cat mode. It does the secondary burn and cat burn if it’s functioning properly. There isn’t a need to run a cat stove without the cat. Just replace the old when the new comes to your door. If I did something like drop the catalytic converter while I was cleaning it I would run without the cat till the replacement showed up and think nothing of it. I grew up with Vermont Casting stoves and had a justified phobia of cat replacement. After owning a Fireview and a Progress Hybrid I am cured of my phobia.
Thanks again for the deeper detail. I'm not too concerned with the expense or maintenance time, more so an emergency of some sort where the cat is no longer available for purchase when in need of replacement. I intend to keep a spare for whichever stove we choose, but with the state of things, I just want to be as future proof as possible. ☺ I prefer the looks of the Progress, and the soapstone providing heat after the fire is over is an attractive feature, as well as the ease of loading longer splits from the side. The IS has its own benefits though from what I can see, namely the ability to throttle lower longer and its advantage in firebox size. Many thanks to those who have posted in the "vs." Thread regarding these two stoves!
Going on year 4 with a steal cat in my little Keystone but I will have a replacement in standby this year as I noticed some decline last season. We'll see if a vinegar bath can squeeze out another year but i wont hesitate to swap it out if it starts acting up. I burn about 2-2.5 cords per year from mid Oct-Mar to heat 1200 sq ft.
I personally think that a lot of people throw away perfectly good cats. I say this because I have been guilty many times of thinking my cat is dead. Then I remember that I am trying to burn wood that really isn't fully seasoned. So I get some really good wood and just like that it works flawlessly. I'm not saying that is always the case but very few people actually burn properly seasoned firewood consistently. We are all guilty of throwing in some marginal wood because we don't want to use the good stuff we are saving. If you want extreme life out of a catalyst keep your stove maintenence up and burn top quality firewood.
Sorry JA, but I have to disagree with you if you are talking about folks on this forum. That may have been the case years ago but not in today's world. We've preached about this for a long time and more and more people keep jumping on the bandwagon. In our case, I don't remember when the last time was that we burned any wood that was not properly seasoned. When I first started preaching to the guys, I remember we had something like 21 cord of wood all cut, stacked and split. I'd say it was pretty well seasoned. Recently, I can say we have several members on this forum who can verify that we do not burn unseasoned wood as we've had several get-togethers here so folks see how much wood we have on hand.
Assuming I'm fortunate enough to get this done before burning season, I'll be operating with some marginal wood this year, having split and stacked with the intent of burning in the owb. We've got a plan to re-stack the wood piles, and I've got a plan in mind to build a jig for cutting down my 24 inch lengths as the stacks are rebuilt. Many thanks again for all the knowledge that's been dispensed here and in the 54 page IS thread I just finished reading. Looks like the IS will be our choice. We're only heating 1500 square feet, but the house, while improved, pre-dates the Civil War and sits on a fieldstone foundation. We also like the idea of being able to leave the house in winter for a day trip and still come home to a reasonably warm place, so the larger firebox will come in handy.
And that is exactly why I replace my cat. as soon as I notice performance fall off- it is not 'free' to use a sluggish cat. because it costs more wood (and all that goes with that, such as stacking, moving, removing ashes, etc., etc.) and it increases the deposits in the chimney. So the real question, IMO, is not how long the cat. lasts but how long does the cat. remain efficient. Couple that with what is the cost of running an inefficient cat. and anyone can come up with a cat. lifespan. Brian
You could run the stove indefinitely without a cat., or with a cat. that was no longer functioning. Because the stove is a hybrid, it does have a secondary burn feature that kicks in when the stove is pushed hard enough (read: above a very low idle), and should or will equal an EPA tube stove operating perfectly. The harder a hybrid stove is used, the less the cat. is needed or even used because all the byproducts of combustion are burned in the top of the firebox. It is only when the hybrids are used very slowly, for a long, low burn, that the cat. becomes important. And still, using a hybrid stove, with a failed cat. and running slowly is no worse than running an EPA non- cat. stove very slowly; both will produce particulate emissions (smoke) that will tend to collect in the chimney and can be seen as 'smoke' outside the chimney. As far as some horrible world event (the 'apocalypse', whatever you believe it may be) I doubt running an environmentally clean, or heat- efficient wood stove will be at the top of anyone's list of important things to consider. That said, if one really wants a truly bullet- proof, 'should never need anything' stove, then a pot- bellied stove is touch to beat. Simple, effective and very tolerant but not particularly efficient and terrible when throttled down for the 'long burn'. I personally think every wood- burner should have had the pleasure of using a true pot belly stove at some point in his / her past. But in the end, if things get bad enough, the town blacksmith, who will have to figure out how to make semi- steel horse shoes out of iron ore, should have little problem hammer- pounding out makeshift parts for the home wood- burner. Assuming there are enough people left to even feed a village blacksmith of course. Brian
Could you describe your marginal wood ? If you want to avoid a lot of headaches make sure it's dry enough.
Yeah, that's kind of where I was going. Not necessarily something as dramatic as a societal collapse, but even something as simple as the company closing up and no one stepping in to manufacture cats for these stoves. Or the precious metals market getting so high that the cat quadruples in price. I wasn't a boy scout, but I do try to always be prepared.
Some red maple css two winters ago, the rest of what I'll be into was done in spring and summer last year. Ash, sugarmaple, red oak that I'll avoid, black locust, Norway maple. I'm going to grab a moisture meter and try to measure some as I cut and re-split some of this wood to move it closer to the house and size it down from the 24" I was cutting to for the owb. Thankfully a lot of it was tree service size so won't need to be cut. I plan to supplement with kiln dried cutoffs, but plan to avoid pallet wood because I'm nervous about chemical treatment with the cat. -edit - also have some pine I've been splitting small lately and stacking loose, we'll see if it passes muster for spring. Doubtful, but hopeful. It gets full sun all day and has been in rounds for a year.
OK, as far as I know, it is a unique cat size specifically for that stove. So them going out of business or similar (bought out, Ideal Steel discontinued, etc.) is a possibility. But because of how the combustor mounts in the stove, which is that they have a flange welded on them and literally just sit in a hole in the sled below, it would be fairly easy to fabricate and adapter that sat on the sled like the original but held a different, smaller, standard size cat. True the cat would be small in square area but as long as it was somewhat close, it should work OK. Otherwise this stove has got to be one of the most fastener- free types ever made, at least for a modern stove. Almost everything is help down by gravity, not critical in size, so again any local fabrication show with a plasma cutter and welder should be able to make a nice job of acceptably close replacement parts to keep these stoves going for years. As an aside, I am looking at a specific Husqvarna lawn tractor that I would absolutely love to have but am concerned about this very problem; sales are low and I think it quite possible that Husq. will simply stop making them. If that happens, service and spare parts will dry up in a few years. So I am in kinda' the same boat, trying to figure out if they are really simple enough (I think they are) to keep one going for years without the correct spare parts. Otherwise, it will be a very expensive lawn ornament that just is not that ornamental (or even attractive). Brian
Little off topic, but what year is the house? Any original items? Locks, rosettes, etc? I love older homes and would like to live in one eventually. My current home is circa 1947. I’m sure there are surprises and things of course, but fascinating nonetheless. I will also add I found this thread very insightful. Thanks, Earl
Just my personal experience but the folks on this forum basically seem to reflect 'reality' rather than company slogans, company expectations and especially, company 'fibs' or embellishments. Even if it is what someone does not want to heat, it is usually pretty accurate. The simple fact is that catalytic combustors do not last 6 to 10 years for serious wood- burners in colder climates, and one- year seasoned wood is just not the best for wood burning. Not to say that these things cannot be done but efficiency will suffer. What is great about this forum (compared to nothing else- I do not participate on any other wood burning forums) is that the great majority of participants just tell the truth as they have found it, and that is the best info. possible in my opinion. Not to say there is no bias because there is: we all chose our stoves and tend to think of them as better than the competitors. But at least most participants will give a list of reasons as opposed to 'this stove is better' than some other brand. And that is very useful info. IMO. Put succinctly, the real world often does not reflect the 'advertised world', and there are a lot of real- world, very experienced wood burners here. Their contributions are really very valuable IMO. Again, even if it is NOT what one whats to hear or it does not reinforce the common 'everyone knows' beliefs. Glad you found useful information in this thread; there is a lot of that around here Brian
