Real life use of a catalyst stove like the Hearthstone Heritage for newbies

I would like to just take a moment to post this for newcomers to wood burning, and even more so, to newcomers of the beasts they call catalyst stoves. I am writing this based on what I have found while cold lighting the Hearthstone Heritage, or, relighting / loading a warm Hearthstone Heritage after an all night/day burn with a fair amount (not necessarily a huge pile) of glowing hot coals.

Let’s take this from the top:

So, I come home from work, look at the temperature gauge I have setting on the top center stone, just in front of the cast iron adapter for the stove pipe. My temperature gauge is reading about 160 degrees. I look in the door glass and I can see some fair coals in there, definitely enough to get me going again. I now peek at my catalyst temperature gage and I am 1/8 inch below my “ideal” range.

1. First thing I do is open the bypass for my catalyst

2. Second, I slowly open the door and rake around my coals, removing excess ash using either the ashtray, which my stove does have, or a shovel and bucket if you do not have the ash pan.

3. Next, I place about 8 pieces of extremely dry kindling (I use oak, maple, or ash) split quite small, usually ¾ inch to maybe 1 inch or so, on top of my coals or on top of some fire starters. I make my fire starters out of the cardboard toilet paper/paper towel cores, stuffed with cedar shavings. You can buy a huge bag of cedar shavings from your local farm supply store for just a couple dollars. One bag will last you a very long time and they light ridiculously easy!

4. I like to leave my draft all the way open and even my door slightly open maybe ½ inch to 1 inch while this kindling gets to a roaring state of burn. I don’t feel like it needs to be mentioned, but obviously, DO NOT leave your wood stove unattended while the door is unlatched.

5. Once this kindling is roaring with flames and you see a couple pieces starting to reach the glowing “coal” state (this should only take about 5 minutes from starting to this state), I add another 8 to 10 pieces of kindling on top of this this blazing pile of kindling. Again, your draft should be full open, and again, you may want to leave the door slightly open as suggested in the manual.

6. After about another 5-10 minutes, you should have some very hot coals from the first bunch of kindling, and a blazing pile from the second handful of kindling you added. Now, you should notice your catalyst gage is easily into the “ideal” range. If not, repeat step 5. Note: your bypass should still be open.

7. Now, add about another 8-10 pieces of kindling on top of this blazing pile, and place about 3-4 medium sized splits on top of this fresh kindling. Don’t “stack” these three pieces of split wood in this stove tightly, giving them some room to “breath”, for example, two pieces on the bottom and one piece a little angled on top of those two. They will catch much faster.

8. Close the stove door, BUT, leave your draft full open. Give the fire about 10-15 minutes of good burn time, as stated in the manual, to evaporate any moisture from the surface of the wood.

9. Once step 8 has been completed, (your catalyst temperature gage should, as mentioned, be well into the ideal range), close your catalyst bypass handle. Your draft should still be full open and we want to keep it this way for about another 5-15 minutes, until you are confident the catalyst is fully up to temperature and prepared to “feed” off the smoke from the fire. Now, over the next 10-20 minutes or so, slowly start to close down your draft. I usually do this in ¼ increments, until you get to the range you want to “run” your stove to maintain your room temperature. That’s it, enjoy your heat!

Note: If performing a true cold start, you should plan about a good 3-4 hours before this stone stove will truly start putting out heat to the point it will be heating the room. If the forecasted daytime temp was going to be in the 60’s+, I may have let the fire go out. The coming night temperature may be forecasted to be in the 30’s or low 40’s, so I’m going to want to start a fire for the night. I will begin my fire starting about 6pm so it is fully generating heat and it is ready to accept a full load of wood about 10pm when I go to bed. I have also used the "top down burn method", but I only do this from true cold starts where there are no coals in the stove. Using the top down burn method from a true cold start allows you to start a fire with very little smoke generated while quickly heating the flue, creating a good draw. Using the method above works really well with warm stove refueling because again, it reheats the flue quickly for good draw and it gets your fire going without much smoke. This is helpful if your concerned about keeping your door glass cleaner for a more romantic fire-viewing experience. The above works great in all stoves, not just the Hearthstone Heritage and Mansfield catalyst stoves. If you'd have suggestions to improve on the above which will help newcomers out with learning to use their catalyst stoves, please chime in.

Hope this helps!

 

Nice presentation. So you have the new Heritage? How long are your heat times with the new Cat ? I have an old Mansfield and I think about moving to the new Mansfield only if it's a good move.Thoughts like will the stove burn longer and how long will the CAT last has to be answered before I make a move.

 

I do currently have the new Heritage. Unfortunately, not for much longer as it just will not put out the heat I need. When I went in to the dealership last June, I walked in with all intentions of purchasing the Mansfield. The salesman talked me out of it stating it would be "too much" stove for my house. I can tell you in real life application, the Heritage should not be used on a house bigger than 1200-1500 sq ft. I have a full 2000, and it just can't keep up, and winter is not even here yet!!! I live in Central Michigan (lower penninsula). What I have found, is the ideal burn situation would be every 3 hours on a 30-40 degree day, add three mid sized splits approximately every three hours (by midsized split, I mean a 4-5 inch log split in half). On a 25 degree night, fill the stove with wood while the current house temperature inside is around 76 degrees at 11:00 pm before bed, and stove will be burned down to light coals by 7:00am with a inside house temp around 69 to 71 degrees. My house is 20 years old, 2x6 walls, good windows, etc. For me, the stove just cannot "hold" a consistent comfortable temperature for more than maybe 3-4 hours. I have used a Bar-B-Que remote thermometer to monitor my room temperature and I can watch the graph of the temperature rise on fall on my phone the next morning.

I just ordered a new Blaze King 40 yesterday which should be delivered within two weeks.

The marketing for the Heritage boasts like a 24 hour burn time. This almost makes me laugh. That might be from lighting the match until the stone on the stove reaches the current room ambient temperature. Definitely not real world by any means!

You may also want to check out this other thread here on the forum:

Help with Hearthstone Stoves

 

Over the years I've owned several soapstone stoves.Starting with the Hearthstone 2 which burned coal as well as wood.Then I went to a Woodstock Classic stove which was all soapstone from there I went to the Mansfield then the Woodstock Fireview.After that I found a Hearthstone One which is the stove you need.The One is not manufactured anymore however Hearthstone put me onto a gentleman in Vermont who refurbishes them.This stove gives off so much heat I remember going out into 3 below zero weather just to cool off.It heats my spot for 14 hours and is beautiful to look at.I find that if you go soapstone go at least to the largest models when heating a house your size and location.I tried to tell a friend to get the Mansfield instead of the Heritage and he didn't and it couldn't keep up.In the beginning I told him to get the One and have no worries about staying warm.He said it was to big for him.The One is built to keep you warm in below zero temps as all stove should be made to do if you ask me.For longer heat times put a pipe damper in. The Mansfield will be better though the One is worry free.

 

In my opinion, like you say, it's all about the heat! Go big or go home.

 

I had one with my Fireview with no problems.Put one in anyway and try it.If it extends your burn time and directs more heat off the stove then good.If it doesn't leave it open.No hurt no foul.

 

I put one in my stove pipe of the AS, it's in the stove connector piece, so right near the stove. I haven used it at all. But I put it in just in case. Didn't know what I was doing getting into burning a stove and figure wth, its there if i need some kind of 'secondary parachute'. I guess it's still highly questionable about me knowing what I'm doing, but....

 

Pyromaniac

Start a new thread outlining your BK install plans. Include detailed venting plan.
Pics etc.
May be some things to address prior to install that the BK users can identify.
Couldn't hurt. May save some heartache.

 

I'll have to try this. Do you just shove/wedge them in there so they don't fall out, or do you put something over the ends? I've been keeping mine and using newspaper inside, which doesn't always work as well as I'd like....

 

I fold one end over like you would a roll of quarters and leave the other open. I cut about a 6 inch slit in the top seam of the bag of cedar chips. It's just big enough to stick both hands in there and "lightly" pack the shaving into the tube. A friend of mine suggested I put a shot of WD40 into the open end prior to placing them under the kindling for a little extra kick start. I've never tried it because I haven't seen the need.

 

My understanding is, a damper prevents a stove from "running away" and over firing due to something like an unusually tall chimney creating a stronger than normal draw. I've not considered the reverse from a wind blast. That's not a normal phenomenon where I am. Can anyone chime in on that?

 

Totally agree. If you have it and don't need it, who cares. Wouldn't want the reverse!

 

Will do. Thanks!

 

Great input! I do want to clarify, I didn't want to imply that a person "must" use kindling in this way to start a fire. I as well can take a cold stove and have a roaring fire with very little kindling. There are literally thousands of posts with users complaining about a dirty door glass and the typical response is, "Don't worry about it, it'll eventually burn off with a hot fire". While this is true, it's a bit misleading because, as every seasoned wood burner knows, it takes a pretty hot fire of a period of time to clean up that blackened glass. Most people want to view their fire, it's not only a utility appliance to heat. By starting out with very hot small fires generating little to no smoke, and build into your larger pieces, it's quite easy to maintain that clean glass

In addition, many posts I've read are new users frustrated with starting a fire and getting into the "ideal" burn range. This is primarily because they're going too big too fast.

That's why these forums are so necessary, there is such great information from different perspectives.

Again, great info!

 

This is my current install with the Hearthstone Heritage. For my BK install, everything should hopefully remain the same except for swapping out the stove.