Catalytic or Non-catalytic?

Well I got the over firing under control.

However something else happened. FYI I haven't had a fire since Thursday.

The good. The coals have lasted until this afternoon.

The bad, I have a bit of a backdraft now that everything is cooled down, and I just happened to look at my CO monitor and it was reading 25ppm, I have the alarm set to 30ppm.

So now I'm looking at a solution, maybe cap of some kind that prevents some downdraft. I've always had a bit of a problem with this but the coals will burn out before any backdraft would occur.

It has really strong draft pretty much as soon as I light a fire, but I have been warming the flu up l foe about 30 second or so with my torch before I like the actual fire.

Any input? You guys have been a great help.so far.

 

Someone much smarter than me will have a better answer.
I've never even thought about back draft and CO2.
My house breathes extremely well, we even get snow in the basement sometimes.
But would one of those wind directional chimney caps help?
Is your chimney high enough above the roofline?
Really happy your mods fixed your overdraft

 

What all do you have that ventilates the house...bath and kitchen fan, clothes dryer, central vac?
My bet would be that the "backdraft" happens when one of those items is on...

 

Yup exernal Masonry. When she's cold I preheat.

 

So fellows, I traded my Model 81 for a 91 and am pleased with it. Yes, the firebox is almost twice the size but I burn less wood with it than my 81 and we've had a colder winter. The lil Heifer fills it at 7 and when I get home at 4 the wood still has form and its much warmer in the house than with the 81. You defiantly get longer burn times for sure.

 

Wildbill I am assuming the 91 is a cat stove?

my 75 year old uncle loves his mama bear.. uses 7-8 cord a year..
He likes my Woodstock IS cat stove but worries about expense and needing to replace clean cats..

My home larger; I use 4 cord. I can buy a lot of cats for 4 cord a year..

 

I hear there's a sale on ebay now...

 

I am allergic to that kind

 

Yessir it is a cat stove.

 

It's been a while since I've posted on this so here goes,

Since I've learned to use my Buck 91 I really like it!
I've learned to pile all the coals towards the front of the stove for additional burn times with out adding wood, and I've also learned ( yup, I'm a slow learner) to turn the blower all the way down when helps a lot since my stove isn't aimed at my basement stairs to blow the heat into the living areas. I can't turn my stove in the direction of the basement door because if I did, I'd have the thing facing the flue which is about 24" away from the stove. And my wall and flue is exposed block BTW. I pulled my insulation down from the basement ceiling exposing my floors which is getting them warm. My wife fills it up around 6:30am and I fill it again around 3:30-4pm and it still has plenty of fire and still heating and I'm using about 1/3 -1/2 the wood I used with my old stove. I'm glad I went with a cat stove now.

 

Woop there it is; you might get wood free BUT it is not cheap or easy!

 

I believe you. I saw a 20-25% reduction in wood used per year when I switched to a cat stove. The noncat guys will swear that you are imagining this. They will swear that the rated efficiencies of all of these stoves are within just 5-10% so it's impossible. Well, it is possible and happens over and over. Even a bigger difference when switching from a low efficiency smoke dragon.

 

I have never used a non-cat stove but for me, I almost always get 12 hours out of my AS. Sometimes I need to do 3 fires if it is double digits below zero in the morning. I have found if I load the stove on a super cold night, then put the air on a 4 about 3am and burn down the mountain of coals it gets me to 7am.

The ironic thing is since my house is well insulated I can mess around with low and slow/high heat, etc. and I still get 12 hours most of the winter. I might load the stove a little less based on the temp but it seems to like to be full.

I am still perfecting 1 fire a day season, I used my mini splits the past few years as my stash was building since the price is a wash, but it is more fund to be 70s in the house than high 60s.

 

I wonder if your warmer area causes less use; uncle lives in Randle I been there..
Another uncle lives 75 miles SW of me in a well constructed raised ranch.. mama bear in basement. He burns 8 cord, I burn 4.. same type of wood, my house has more vaulted ceilings and cubic feet

 

I'm sure your correct about the area we live in helping with winter heating. You guys get cold up there! It's been in the single digits here in SW Va this week, although warming starting today, but comparing the Buck to my old stove, it defiantly heats 'different' but I was burning around 6 cords a year and now I around 4 cords. My wife was home from work last week due to weather and she confessed that she usually averaged 5-6 sticks during the day and the house was a balmy 75 ( she's from Texas. hasn't been warm since she move here lol) so it puts out the heat. I know it's probably not as efficient as a Blaze King or some others but for heating my 2400 sq. ft house it does pretty good.