Experience with catalytic wood stoves

[gstrom99]

Thanks for all the comments. The web sites for the manufacturers of stoves all describes their performance in glowing terms. The comments here are from real experiences that is a whole lot more useful.
Our 1800's farm house is part log cabin and brick and has virtually no insulation so it takes a lot wood. We use the old Jotul in the living room and have a larger wood/oil fired in the basement that can heat the house via forced air circulation. We use close to 10 cords a year to keep it comfortable. The Yukon furnace in the basement eats wood like there is no tomorrow with a large firebox. Most of the time we will only use the Jotul stove but we keep it up on high heat output which require feeding it often. It mostly burns out overnight. Seems like a catalytic wood stove would provide longer burns

IMHO, you'd get more for your money if you insulate the house.

 

[m7040]

True insulation will always help. Doing it to a 200 year old farm house is not that simple. Half the of the building was built around 1802 as a log cabin and the other half was added around 1840 as a brick structure. Changing windows and insulate the exterior of the building would cost a lot for this 3 story large building and not sure I want to spend that much on it. Likely I could save at least half of my fire wood which is what we use to heat. The furnace in the basement is also wood fired with oil as backup but we use very little oil most years. The basement furnace is about 120000 BTU so it can put out the heat but we only use it on very cold days. Changing the living room stove to a larger one with fewer loadings makes sense to me. The Blaze King family of stoves sound like they may work for us. Larger stove , can hold more wood, air to the fire regulated by temperature, will heat overnight without loading more wood and having a 30 ft chimney should give enough draft even with low exit flue temperature which can be a problem on catalytic stoves

 

[sd455dan]

True insulation will always help. Doing it to a 200 year old farm house is not that simple. Half the of the building was built around 1802 as a log cabin and the other half was added around 1840 as a brick structure. Changing windows and insulate the exterior of the building would cost a lot for this 3 story large building and not sure I want to spend that much on it. Likely I could save at least half of my fire wood which is what we use to heat. The furnace in the basement is also wood fired with oil as backup but we use very little oil most years. The basement furnace is about 120000 BTU so it can put out the heat but we only use it on very cold days. Changing the living room stove to a larger one with fewer loadings makes sense to me. The Blaze King family of stoves sound like they may work for us. Larger stove , can hold more wood, air to the fire regulated by temperature, will heat overnight without loading more wood and having a 30 ft chimney should give enough draft even with low exit flue temperature which can be a problem on catalytic stoves

Have had 2 BK Princess Cat stoves, our "new" one is now 14 years old and I finally replaced the cat last year ,

edit: plus added a couple tips.

Probably should have replaced the catalyst at year 8.

A new exact match metal Cat was about $250 from Midwest Hearth (Very fair $).
I believe the metal cats are superior to ceramic ones especially if you happen to get a load of overly wet wood. The metal cats don't fracture from thermal shock like a ceramic will.
One other tip don't burn colored/glossy paper to get the stove going, stick with regular newspaper, if the bypass is closed before all the paper is burned it will degrade the Catalyst. If the Cat ever does get plugged up it can be vacuumed or lightly brushed off, don't use high pressure air. This will likely only happen if you push out the time in (years) to replace the cat well past what the MFG suggests like I did.

With your sq footage sounds like the King model would be a great fit.

We burn a lot of Pine because it is free, but even then and without Really loading the stove up it is still putting heat out in the mornings. Gone over a month many times with the fire never being out and never getting up at night to re fill it. Although not recommended we have started burning one or two energy logs mixed in, and they do work, but a person would never want to ever 'load up" a firebox on a catalyst BK stove with just them and BK does not approve.

BK stoves do cost more than most brands, and they aren't as nice looking as some others, but if long burn times while the stove is turned down a bit is your goal
Blaze King Cat stoves are hard to beat.

 

[m7040]

Have had 2 BK Princess Cat stoves, our "new" one is now 14 years old and I finally replaced the cat last year.

With your sq footage sounds like the King model would be a great fit.

We burn a lot of Pine because it is free, but even then and without Really loading the stove up it is still putting heat out in the mornings. Gone over a month many times with the fire never being out and never getting up at night to re fill it. Although not recommended we have started burning one or two energy logs mixed in, and they do work, but a person would never want to ever 'load up" a firebox on a catalyst BK stove with just them and BK does not approve.

BK stoves do cost more than most brands, and they aren't as nice looking as some others, but if long burn times while the stove is turned down a bit is your goal
Blaze King Cat stoves are hard to beat.

Yes that is what I am looking for ie long burn times and minimum of adjustments to maintain fire and comfort. We burn mostly Oak and Locust wood from our own forest stand so it is not a matter of cost but more a matter of how can we upgrade to make it easier and more comfortable. After adding high quality storm doors to 4 doors and storm windows to 25 windows the cost will go up significantly to improve insulation on this historic structure and the cost benefit is not there for us. But upgrading to a more efficient stove to minimize the handling of firewood and be able to maintain heat overnight makes sense to us. The BK stoves with the large fire box allows for loading a lot wood and set the temperature and let it burn for extended periods which is our goal.

 

[sd455dan]

Edited my post above, and a couple thoughts here .

Sounds like you will be burning a superior firewood to Pine and wood that will burn for a longer time which is good. If you keep the stove going full time in the winter and once the house is up to temp at which point the King stove can be idled down from full open, it really should work great and accomplish your goal.
I can't find the link now, but did read some time back that Blaze King Catalyst stoves were the most sold/installed woodstoves in Canada.