. I'm going to put a small load in a minute. I went to nearly daily fires the end of September last year, so we're not too far off. I must be missing some insulation because the wife would be far from cuddling me if I didn't build a fire with these temps. She might cuddle for a minute during the night, then kick my a** in morning. Our house would probably be low 60's at best by morning, which is completely unacceptable to my better half.
Working with temperatures in both units everyday, i dont even think about the conversions, but you can do this pretty simply in your head. Just think in "degrees above freezing," and roughly double it (9/5, if you want to geek out). His 5C = 9F above freezing, or 41F. You can do this almost as quick as you read.
I like to keep some flame going.
Yes. 1.75 does sound a lil' high though, at least it is on the Fireview.
Only if you have enough draft to suck flames through the cat continuously (flame impingement.)
18' is sufficient.
No, running without flame won't hurt the cat, but keeping some flame helps prevent backpuffing.
, remedied by the same steps taken to light the stove- open bypass, get the temps up, re-engage cat (close bypass), set draft. Most of the time I can glance at the stove from my chair and see a cherry red cat, so I know its working. But the cat doesn't always glow when working. Earlier in the burns there is more off-gassing/smoke and the cat is more active. Later in the burn less so. If the cats not glowing a look at the stove top temp (STT), if its above 250 you're good. An infrared thermometer will also show a hot spot right above the cat, cooler off to the sides when its active.
Higher draft settings produce more heat-- more air=more fire=shorter burn times. But draft settings above ~2 become inefficient. The smoke passes through the cat so fast it doesn't fully burn. This shouldn't be a concern because the stove will reach max stove top temps at around 2. Lower draft settings--less air=less heat=longer burns. Most people burn around 1. It will depend on the outdoor temps, sqft heated, insulation, wood species, indoor temps, etc.
Cat stall- picture a match going out. The cat will not relight until the smoke reaches ~550
Its not as complicated as it sounds. If you have any questions you've found the right place and Woodstock is a phone call away. When you call them, you talk to English speaking people that know their products, most have them in their own homes. Have you read the manual yet? It is written very well. Also Fireview and Keystone operate very much alike and there are many threads about burning the FV. The main difference seems to be, the FV can have very high (over fire) stove top temps when the draft is set to 0, seems counter intuitive but the stove top gets very hot above the cat due to lack of fresh air flow. I've burned at 0 often and never had any problem. The Keystone has a 1/4 inch air inlet hole on in the ash behind the ash pan that the FV doesn't have, probably why 0 burns are fine (at least for me, never heard from any other KS owners about the issue).
Within reason.......I've never had one with the KS, so hopefully others with experience will reply. I would open the bypass and set the draft to about .3/4. Dennis (Back Woods Savage) is the only FV/KS owner I can remember with first hand experience. Seems like it wasn't really a over-fire, more like a STT that was at the max and needing attention, that was remedied by increasing the draft from 0 to ~1. There are probably others that will chime in.
