Myth that noncats provide only a few hrs usable heat

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Holy crap! Cat stoves make up 20% of sales?! I would never have thought they were growing the market share so fast.

Let’s spin that data a bit. I could call cat stoves the fastest growing market segment (assuming it was lower before) and that many people come here looking for advice on which stove to buy. Growing numbers are deciding that long burn times are important.

Wow, 1 in 5 new stoves are cat stoves. That’s really amazing considering that only a couple of “off” brands make them.

It is amazing, 20% of the sales, and 120% of the obnoxious!

 

[Highbeam]

Crap for heat once the bypass is closed? I assure you, that’s not the general consensus. Not to mention, you are using a geographical locational that’s almost impossible to survive in. Most stove owners don’t deal with extremes like this. I suppose with extremes like this, a stove that will run wildly out of control would excel, a blast furnace is what’s really needed!

I resemble that remark! (One stove installed in an oversized shop ran hard to do its best).

If the heat load is way higher than what the cat stove was designed for then it can/will fall short. Not the technology’s fault.

 

[mcstatz5829]

Crap for heat once the bypass is closed? I assure you, that’s not the general consensus. Not to mention, you are using a geographical locational that’s almost impossible to survive in. Most stove owners don’t deal with extremes like this. I suppose with extremes like this, a stove that will run wildly out of control would excel, a blast furnace is what’s really needed!

-5F for Jan highs is extreme... for the US. People have survived in places far worse before stoves, even electricity, were invented.

 

[ratsrepus]

I like the blazeking but not enough to buy one. Maybe if i had more of a shoulder season because that is where they shine. But i really am not seeing much benifit in the colder temps.

Iam, temps in the 20's and Im still going 24 hrs on a load of oak. The Oslo Id would have had to load 3 or 4 times and still woken up to a cold house.

 

[ratsrepus]

Might add its down to 20 and my house has been consistent 75. It will be down to 15 tonight and ILL bet im still 24 hrs on a load.

 

[KJamesJR]

I’ve only been burning a couple weeks but we’ve been loading our Oslo, completely loaded, over a bed of coals three times a day. 6am, 3pm’ish and lastly around 10pm.

Sometimes our second load is cut in half or spread out because we really don’t need the stove cranking throughout the day.

The only time our house dips below 70*f is around 5 in the morning. Usually it’s around 65*f when we reload. We haven’t used our furnace since getting the stove.

I would say half our heat is from coals. Which is perfectly fine. I haven’t observed any “swings” in our non cat stove either. It’s been rather consistent. Starts cold, heats up and stays around 550*f for maybe two hours, then gradually cools back down to around 350*f and still keeps us over 70*f. We haven’t had to start a fire since we finished the break in. It’s been running 24/7 for weeks.

This non cat stove has been plenty good heating for hours on end. Specially for an old drafty farmhouse. Like you we keep the air nearly closed until coaling begins when, if we’re home, will open the air up to bump up the heat. Or just burn down some of the coal bed.

I would like to imagine tube stoves are just a different technology for achieving the same results. A warm house. Maybe cat stoves use less wood? I don’t know. Do they produce the same robust heat? I don’t know. Wood only has so many BTUs. I don’t think cat stoves add anymore BTUs to the fuel your putting in there.

 

[jetsam]

Ah, the old 'cat vs noncat' thread. At least it has become less impassioned over the years, even if there's still no useful content in it.