They sent a nice email to educate about shoulder season fires. But this was in the notes: "If you have lots of small, dry kindling, you can get our new stainless steel combustors engaged and burning within minutes, and get the stove to start producing heat quickly." My question is, do they have new and different combustors?
Hmmm. They are assembling their own now, with a slightly different design to the folds in the metal that contains the metal “foil”. I didn’t think to ask if that actual combustor part might have changed, too. Makes me wonder. My new one is less than 2 months old. The stove has a fresh load now, so no pictures for a while.
I'm still waiting for the 201 cats to be restocked. They've been unavailable since at least this past fall.
I got a new one from them a couple of weeks ago. Looks a little different than I remember, but my 3 year old one is in the stove, so I cant compare. This is for a Fireview. Seems like 3 years ago, they told me that the stainless ones were better, because they are lighter, heat up faster, and light sooner compared to the ceramic. Not sure if that's what they meant. Here is what mine looks like plus the paperwork.
I may be ordering a new cat soon but that looks like the same cat I've had for a few years. Yes, the seem to light off quicker than the ceramic. I'm happy with them. I haven't talked about cats with them for a while now but might be asking some questions soon.
I got a new one for my PH this year, usually I have to shut it down and clean the cat periodically, with the new one I haven't had to clean it once, it's never been clogged. Not sure what they did different but I like it. We're into April, with no cleaning the cat.
Here’s 3 generations of PH cats, with the latest on the bottom left. I changed the air supply and the cat at the same time, so wasn’t sure about why the cat was staying clog-free, but it definitely is.
I ordered a steel cat for my 201 Fireview the other day. I was surprised it was an option. We'll see how the stove does w a steel vs the ceramic.
I loaded a cold stove this morning with 4 big splits of 7 year CSSed red oak. No kindling. When the cat probe read 300F and the stove top was less than 100F, I engaged the cat. Started glowing on one corner immediately. Lit right off.
Shoulder season is one reason I really think a woodstock cat stove would be a great addition to my house. Now only of they made an add on wood furnace that was a cat stove.
BK used to make one... https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...Vaw2Uvzzfsa6KYH5XKyWE-NZ8&cshid=1618149512799
If your insert stove is well able to carry your heat load, I'd say the smaller VF200 (still waiting on final EPA testing) would be perfect for you when they go back into production...
Same scenario yesterday morning but engaged at 200F on the cat probe. Didn’t start glowing immediately but took right off.