cat or non-cat stove for smaller house in moderate climate

[mTeryk]

We are considering a wood stove for our small house (1300sf) in the Willamette Valley, OR. We'd like to use the stove to heat the house but a large part of the draw is just the pleasure of having a wood fire and we would like to be able to do it in the shoulder seasons when the low temps are in the mid to low 40's. We are considering the new Answer Lopi NexGen Hybrid which has a cat. I am concerned that with our small house and moderate temps that it will be difficult to get the cat up to temp without overheating the house. We might be able to buy an older NexGen Fyre that doesn't have a cat but doesn't qualify for the tax refund.

Any advice on whether we should avoid a cat stove for our situation? Just buying the current model Answer and having it installed by our local dealer is certainly the easiest and cheapest route with the tax rebate. Just a little concerned about the cat.

 

[kborndale]

The main selling point of a cat stove is that you can turn it down low and not have a lot of heat being put into the house so if your worried about overheating the house than a cat stove is definitely the way to go.

 

[stoveliker]

To explain a bit more: it is necessary to get the cat up to working temperature first (above 550 F or so) , but once it is, one can (depending on the stove design, see below) turn down the air to decrease the heat output. Of course the wood will be smoldering then, but the smoke will be further combusted in the cat. That process creates heat in the cat while cleaning up the exhaust, and therefore even if the primary fire in the firebox then does not produce much heat at that time, the cat is able to maintain itself there because of the heat produced in the cat by combusting the smoke and gases there.

However, note that some cat stoves are not really designed to do this, and in these stove designs the cat is only there to clean up the exhaust (to gain EPA approval).
I do not know what the hybrid Lopi is like in this respect.

 

[Todd]

You don’t need to have a cat stove to burn in moderate temps. You can get by with a non cat just fine, it just depends on how you run the stove.

 

[Wisco Shepherd]

Small short fires in a noncat or hybrid would give you the ambiance you are looking for and properly managed will not heat you out. The lowest and slowest will be pure catalyst stoves like BK but do note when these are turned down fully most go into "black box mode" with very minimal visible flame.

 

[stoveliker]

On the other hand one can also burn smaller loads hotter in a cat stove for flame ambiance... (as long as the cat is up to temp, but for that one really doesn't need a large load either)

 

[EbS-P]

Check out the stoves by Drolet and Osborn. Several qualify. Many don’t have cats. (Might be all)

 

[Highbeam]

We are considering a wood stove for our small house (1300sf) in the Willamette Valley, OR. We'd like to use the stove to heat the house but a large part of the draw is just the pleasure of having a wood fire and we would like to be able to do it in the shoulder seasons when the low temps are in the mid to low 40's. We are considering the new Answer Lopi NexGen Hybrid which has a cat. I am concerned that with our small house and moderate temps that it will be difficult to get the cat up to temp without overheating the house. We might be able to buy an older NexGen Fyre that doesn't have a cat but doesn't qualify for the tax refund.

Any advice on whether we should avoid a cat stove for our situation? Just buying the current model Answer and having it installed by our local dealer is certainly the easiest and cheapest route with the tax rebate. Just a little concerned about the cat.

My parents are OSU alumni, I live in a similar climate in a 1700 SF but 1963 built home.

I have found that heating 24/7 full time with wood that a cat stove is ideal. I reload once every 24 hours and the house stays warm because the actual burn rate of the stove can easily match the needs of the home without overheating. My previous stove in this house was a noncat and I was warm but I was also having to reload several times per day. The noncats don't burn slowly, it's a pulse and glide situation. They work just fine with a thermostatic furnace picking up the slack and you can skip dealing with the catalyst.