Aaaaaahhhhh......

I can set my air at 30-40% and easily have secondary air secondaries run for four to six hours or more on cherry, eight to ten hours on oak and locust.

This video has both cat secondaries and secondary air secondaries. It's hard to keep the rolling cat secondaries going in the front while the secondary air secondaries are still burning in the background at the top rear for extended times.

 

A nice warm, relaxing video

 

Dexter, just goes to show you that many variables give different results.
I get good secondary's nice flames hot flue temp (very hot) but still not that good of heat.

 

I edited my post dexter you have a fair amount of flames there so I think that is what I have in mind for a very good fire.

 

My stove is goofy and if I have good secondary's I usually have some flame on the wood even with the air turned down.

 

I dunno, I can get 550 stove easy with little or no flame....that's some decent heat.
I can't remember, what stove do you run?

 

I run mine with the air all the way down. I just turn the dial counter-clockwise till I hear it "clink". It's position is at about 1:00 on the dial, about position 1.5 if looking at the numbers.

No flames. Just dull red glowing.

Stovetop runs around 500-600* with the fans going. Without the fan I've seen it hit 700* or so.

I CAN make the stove have flames but it would disappear wood FAST and get the stove and house way too hot.

I have photos but can't post them since I'm on my phone.

 

Same here. It throws prodigious amounts of heat and chews through a lot of wood when its burning like this in the video.

I like seeing the flames and the rolling secondaries but I only burn it this way in short spurts when we need some quick heat to warm up the house.

 

"The most important rule is NEVER LET THE FIRE SMOLDER. As long as there is solid wood in the firebox, there must be flames or the smoke will escape unburned, both reducing efficiency and increasing pollution. With modern appliances, it is possible to achieve a reliable overnight burn while maintaining flaming combustion and having enough charcoal in the morning to rekindle a new load"

 

The catalyst burns the smoke. I don't know about other stoves but the Blaze Kings work well with a smoldering fire.

 

I thought the point of EPA stoves was to reduce flame somewhat so the secondaries or cat can eat the smoke.
Cat stoves seem to be able to do this quite well with no flame as long as the cat is active.
No personal experience here (soon to change), just what others have posted.

 

I mentioned non cat earlier in the thread I believe.

 

Some report their chimney has a little more creosote with their cat stove vs the non cat, I know you do not have that problem, wonder if the people that have issues do not burn exactly like you do.
This was a person on the "other" forum and he went from a nc 30 to a BK princess.
Pretty sure he has good dry wood, he has been on the "other" site for years.

 

Quite possible.

Lower flue temp on the BK so if the chimney isn't "ideal" it could be getting too cold and making creosote, even with dry wood.
Most "smoke dragons" blow quite a bit of heat out the stack.

There's no "one size fits all".

 

Yep I agree, but not everyone sees the issues so maybe BWS's stove runs with higher flue temps.
My new stove has way higher flue temps then the old one.

 

Last year I had more creosote than I expected. I had less than ideal wood and a first gen stailess cat. This year I have much dryer wood, a second gen Ss cat and much less creosote. Cat stove usually have much lower flue temps but if the cat is burning all the smoke there is nothing left to form creosote (excluding reload/bypass time).