Anyone put in a catalytic and a non-catalytic and compare them?

[webby3650]

jdonna, i'd argue it's much simpler than you portray. You'd have to use an OAK of course! Also, you'd have to have a super-insulated room. that way, you don't have to worry about anything but how long the room stays at X temperature. Just plot out the starting temp, fire up the 2 stoves, let them run from a cold start or let them both get "up and running hot" and then compare, then measure the temperature over time of the two rooms and see which "integral" is higher for the two stoves.

For me, it's the same wood, same house, and the same fire-up time. My BK will heat most or all of the house for 18-24 hrs with ease on one load of wood and the "hybrid" does good to get 8-14 hours of unsteady heat on a load. They are both doing what they advertised, the Cape Cod has a bigger firebox and a higher Efficiency rating. In the real world, you can't tell me that the CC is more Efficient!
Don't get me wrong here, the CC pumps some major heat if needed, and has an amazing fire view! But that comes at the expense of the burn times.

 

[Kool_hand_Looke]

I understand that at some points i cat buning you'll have smoke, or what appears to be smoke. My point was at in nrmal oeration you shouldnt ever hve smoke with the combustor active.

 

[webby3650]

That better be a promise, my man! I'd love to see how much more wood you think the Oslo uses. I mean, if its twice as much wood, it wouldn't take long to pay that off if you're buying wood and using a lot.

It's a promise! I hate to tell ya, but it will use twice the wood, no doubt at all! But it's all good! It's a beautiful burning stove, and very high quality!

 

[aaron1]

Webby, the CC has a bigger firebox? If you measured the weight of the *same type of wood* into both stoves, you're saying the BK can heat the same space for 18-24 hours and the CC only 8-14? Is the lost efficiency just going up the chimney? How much of it is due to the fact that the CC gets the house up to a higher temp (less efficient due to greater difference in temp b/w indoor and out)?

If you ran the BK on full high would it still beat the CC? Would it smoke if you ran it on full high to keep up?

 

[webby3650]

If you ran the BK on full high would it still beat the CC?

Yes

 

[aaron1]

I'm starting to wonder if the Jotul flameshow is worth twice as much wood Since I'll only burn less than 4 cords this year (I think) that computes to only $200 worth of unseasoned, split wood. Is $200 worth a fantastic flame show for 1/3 of the burn cycle? Hmm. Maybe.

 

[webby3650]

Webby, the CC has a bigger firebox? If you measured the weight of the *same type of wood* into both stoves, you're saying the BK can heat the same space for 18-24 hours and the CC only 8-14? Is the lost efficiency just going up the chimney? How much of it is due to the fact that the CC gets the house up to a higher temp (less efficient due to greater difference in temp b/w indoor and out)?

If you ran the BK on full high would it still beat the CC? Would it smoke if you ran it on full high to keep up?

The biggest difference(and this goes with any non-cat) is the uneven heat. The first 3 hours it pumps more heat than is needed, 3 hours are right on, and 3 hours it's idling along not really making enough heat. The BK starts out at great temperature and remains that way until it's out of wood. There is nothing like getting up in the A.M. with outside temps in the teens and not even adding wood before work!

 

[Kool_hand_Looke]

I hate my phone and it's terrible ability covert , or lack thereof, a series of letters typed in variable sequences to compute words. It makes me look like an idiot.

 

[webby3650]

I'm starting to wonder if the Jotul flameshow is worth twice as much wood Since I'll only burn less than 4 cords this year (I think) that computes to only $200 worth of unseasoned, split wood. Is $200 worth a fantastic flame show for 1/3 of the burn cycle? Hmm. Maybe.

I choose both!

 

[aaron1]

Webby, where is the real efficiency gain of the cat.? Is it the fine balance b/w not overloading the cat with smoke/particulates and providing just enough air to make the catalysis complete? I assume that we can trust the EPA particulate ratings for stoves, and the BK cat. stoves are not as good as the hybrids, so the hybrids must be tossing the extra heat up the chimney while the BK cat. stoves are not combusting it all as well but are letting less heat up the chimney?

 

[aaron1]

KHL, I thought you were just a dumb Illinois farmer! Just kidding! I hate my spell check on MacMail too. It made me look like a douche recently.

Webby, can you post some photos of what the BK looks like when it is burning on, say, low, medium, and high settings?

Not everyone can choose both!!

 

[webby3650]

Webby, where is the real efficiency gain of the cat.? Is it the fine balance b/w not overloading the cat with smoke/particulates and providing just enough air to make the catalysis complete? I assume that we can trust the EPA particulate ratings for stoves, and the BK cat. stoves are not as good as the hybrids, so the hybrids must be tossing the extra heat up the chimney while the BK cat. stoves are not combusting it all as well but are letting less heat up the chimney?

I'm not sure how this all shakes out.
The BK's hold up really well in particulate ratings. After the first 20 minutes I get no smoke at all on a 24 hour soak in the BK, that's clean!
The fact is, non-cats run their cleanest on med-high, cat stoves are their cleanest on med-low. Most stoves, if properly sized will be ran on med-low 80% of the time. So, a hybrid stove might get through the EPA test with a lower emission based on an average, but if it was tested on med-low like a cat stove the results would be very different!

 

[aaron1]

Maybe I am missing something. Is the "efficiency" of the EPA ratings how much of the BTU potential of the wood is converted to BTUs, or is the EPA efficiency how much of the BTU potential of the wood is converted to heat into my house? It seems like it must be the former if non-cats even hold a candlestick to cats.

Is the King, Princess and Ashford particulate discrepancy meaningful or would it average out over multiple replicates?

 

[BrotherBart]

Is the "efficiency" of the EPA ratings how much of the BTU potential of the wood is converted to BTUs, or is the EPA efficiency how much of the BTU potential of the wood is converted to heat into my house?

The EPA doesn't care if the stove converts anything to BTUs, heats your house or burns it down. Their test is for how clean the stuff is coming out of the pipe. The clean chimneys and more heat from the wood were an accidental side benefit of implementation of the rules and testing.

 

[aaron1]

BB,

I assume you are referring to the particulate measurements, which makes perfect sense to me that it is simply a measurement of how much crud is coming out of the chimney. How about the efficiency measurement? Surely it's based on a BTU measurement?

 

[aaron1]

Isn't the HTF a fair estimate? Sounds like exactly what I was referring to before. Why aren't cat stoves much higher in efficiency for the HTF test, or are they? I don't think Jotul even does this on their stoves right?

Heat Transfer Efficiency: this testing is performed in calorimeter rooms equipped with temperature sensors. Similar temperature sensors are installed in the exhaust flue. The degree changes in the room and flue are monitored for the duration of the test fires to determine how much of the heat extracted by the fire is delivered into the room, as compared to the heat lost up the flue. -chimneysweeponline.com

 

[webby3650]

BB,

I assume you are referring to the particulate measurements, which makes perfect sense to me that it is simply a measurement of how much crud is coming out of the chimney. How about the efficiency measurement? Surely it's based on a BTU measurement?

The way all this testing is done is such a racket! Most stoves will use a default efficiency rating, because its better than the numbers they were able to produce in the test. With the exception of Blaze King, Woodstock, and Lopi Hybrids, no one to my knowledge is publishing actual tested numbers. If you notice, most EPA hang tags will say " not tested for efficiency" even though they give an eff. rating. It's very misleading to say the least.

 

[aaron1]

The Cape Cod shows an actual efficiency of 80.1, and the only Jotul is the F602 CB at 70.7. I am assuming most of the Jotuls would be around the same. Is the CSA B415.1 test the heat transfer efficiency test? Would you say that the Jotul Oslo would use around 14% more wood than the Cape Cod? You're saying the Jotul would use twice as much wood as the Blaze King, so what is missing in the efficiency calculation of CSA B415.1?

 

[rdust]

I burned a non cat Lopi Endeavor for 2 seasons, this is my 3rd season with my BK. The 2 seasons with the Endeavor I burned 5+ cords of wood, the first 2 seasons with the Princess I burned just over 3 cords each year. Same chimney, same house, same stove location.

I obviously have no scientific data but the BK is a much better heater for my house. The biggest difference I find with the BK is the ability to control the amount of heat I'm putting into the house. The Endeavor was UP then Down, the BK allows you to dial the stove in which allows for a long even burn.

My chimney was cleaner with the Endeavor.

 

[aaron1]

Interesting, rdust. Maybe you were the one commenting on your chimney accumulation. Do you mean that you burned 3 cords of wood/season for each of the two seasons with the Princess? (ie 6 cords over 2 years?) That would seem to indicate you were burning half as much wood with the BK.

 

[aaron1]

This incredibly long-winded url is a very interesting read from intertek.com on "Engineer's Guide to Efficiency Requirements for Wood." related to efficiencies of stoves.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...=PyXQUUnpfSecKdFIHozrbA&bvm=bv.57799294,d.cWc

The article seems to be saying that 80-82% is the absolute maximum efficiency capable in a wood-burning appliance if you are considering the heat that is lost "up the flue" and for vaporizing water in the wood. They go on later to claim that over 90% efficiency is capable if woodstove/chimney designs could include a recovery of heat through condensation of water from the flue gases (such as in a high efficiency natural gas furnace where water is always pouring from the furnace into your drain - fricking amazing engineering!)

If we could have flue gases at room temperature, we could get 100% "efficiency" from the wood stove. (or if we recovered the heat further up the chimney we could have high 90s I suppose.)

The Blaze King KEJ 1107 is listed at 82% efficiency at (broken link removed to http://www.epa.gov/Compliance/resources/publications/monitoring/caa/woodstoves/certifiedwood.pdf). Does that mean it is getting as much heat out of the wood as possible into the room while sending up the least possible heat up the flue?

 

[rdust]

Interesting, rdust. Maybe you were the one commenting on your chimney accumulation. Do you mean that you burned 3 cords of wood/season for each of the two seasons with the Princess? (ie 6 cords over 2 years?) That would seem to indicate you were burning half as much wood with the BK.

Probably closer to 7 cords(hard to figure in the shorts/uglies) in the 2 years with the BK but yes a significant wood savings. The Endeavor pumped out the heat but it gave you all the heat at once, that's the main reason I switched to the Princess.

 

[aaron1]

Check out this video. The Blaze King wood stoves are quote "four times more efficient than ANY non-catalytic wood stove" (~0:56). How is that calculated?

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The most impressive part of the video is at ~1:59 when h puts his hand into the flue. That must be where all of this amazing Blaze King efficiency comes from?

 

[rdust]

Check out this video. The Blaze King wood stoves are quote "four times more efficient than ANY non-catalytic wood stove" (~0:56). How is that calculated?

Clearly comparing to a smoke dragon, not an EPA non cat.(not sure how they get away with the "any") They just hoped you were an uniformed viewer and bought the video at it's face value.

 

[aaron1]

Hey, man, "ANY non-catalytic wood stove" I'm gonna sue right now.