mhrischuk said:
I was under the impression that you had to get the cat very hot before it begins to do it's thing. How does turning the stove way down keep the cat hot?
The temperature does need to be up with a cat stove. In the old ceramic cats the interior temperature needed to be 500, which, as you can imagine is not that difficult to reach that temperature in a very short time. The newer steel cats operate at a lower temperature.
How does turning the stove down keep the cat hot? Good question and thank you for asking. It is simple in that the cat burns smoke. Turn the draft down and you'll get more smoke. To give you an idea, many times we will fill the stove and go to bed. During the night us older folks somehow can't seem to sleep the whole night without having to tend to certain bodily functions. It is also my habit that anytime I am in the house or like at night, in the opposite end of the house from the stove, I naturally go look at the stove.
Shortly after beginning to use our present stove one night I was up around 2:00 am and was a bit concerned because I could see no reflection from the fire that should have been in the stove. When I went to the stove, I could see only a glow coming from the area of the cat. I could see absolutely no flame nor could I see a hot coal. Yet, with our stove we can look up through the glass and see the cat and that thing was glowing fiery red. The stove top temperature was somewhere around 550 (don't remember precisely) and the house was warm. I was amazed.
So when I had posted this, some folks got the idea that with a cat stove you get no flame to observe. Not so! All that is needed is to open the draft just a tiny bit and it will look like the pits of Hell itself.
Another thing happened along these lines after we started using the stove. We were watching the flame and the darndest thing happened. The flame actually appeared to lift right off the wood so that it ended up with a beautiful rolling ball of fire at the top of the stove that seemed to keep moving but stayed at the top. It was beautiful and when this happens it is usually a deeper red color. We were awestruck to say the least.....until I started getting a bit too warm and looked at the temperature gauge. It was 600 degrees and climbing. No problem yet but then it got to 650 and still climbing. I can tell you that it was definitely beginning to concentrate my attention as 700 is the recommended high temperature for this stove. The temperature finally stopped climbing just a tad below 700. Relief! Except it was hot in the house. lol
We do know for other folks experience that this particular stove can withstand much higher temperatures than 700 but I still would not recommend burning them that hot. We have had ours a little over 700 but found that it is very easy to tame down.
I do hope this answers a few of your questions about a cat stove but I have experience only with the Woodstock stoves.
Maybe I can wake up North of 60 for some of his input as he also burns a cat stove and lives up in the Yukon.