2014-2015 Blaze King Performance thread (Everything BK)#2

[Wolves1]

I know that the BK cat thermamitor only reads active but is there anybody that has the temperture of the cat? I like to know what the temp is on average inside the stove not stove top.

 

[blueguy]

The cat probe doesn't reflect what the temps inside the stove are, only what temp the cat is at. Condar sells replacement cat probes with actual temps printed on them if you wanted to get down into the nitty gritty of specific cat temps

 

[Ashful]

I still have a back up stove, your welcome to run a princess for a week. Should heat the same as an Ashford.

That's an awesome offer! Let me check the specs, and logistics of moving across my lawn in this weather, and get back to you on that. I brought the F12 in thru the garage, but that path is blocked by construction right now.

 

[Highbeam]

I've finally gotten into some really dry wood under 20% and so am able to run the stat lower without stall or smoke. It's great in our mild weather to have a cool runner. After cat engagement and ten or so minutes on medium, I drop the stat to my low setting and the stove goes black. The only way to even know it is running is to read the gauges. With dry wood I still get a brown coating inside the firebox vs that black tar from wetter wood.

I am burning 2.5 year seasoned wood covered since August but just top covered with plastic. My seasoned wood is getting wet somehow. The next cord is top covered with a sheet of metal roofing and looks way better.

Dry wood is gooder in these cat stoves when run low.

 

[Poindexter]

Dry wood is gooder in these cat stoves when run low.

Amen brother, preach it.

 

[kennyp2339]

nice little heat wave today, got up to 38deg, cleaned all the ashes out of the princess, put a load of bio bricks in @ 13:00, set the temp level to 1.5, boring stove again, no flame but glowing cat, have the blower on low, it looks like the bricks are just charred, prob reload a couple pieces of cord wood around ten tonight

 

[Dieselhead]

You know your a blaze King guy when you are at Daytona 500 and your still checking in on the bk performance thread

 

[kennyp2339]

nice, watched the race on my tv, kind of upset how it ended, but hey that's racing

 

[Quentin2]

You know your a blaze King guy when you are at Daytona 500 and your still checking in on the bk performance thread

I've been in Arizona for a week and I'm still checking as well

Dang, you got a lot of alerts!

 

[Dieselhead]

I never noticed it til my wife said what's that number

 

[Dieselhead]

nice, watched the race on my tv, kind of upset how it ended, but hey that's racing

I fully agree. I'm one of those 18 fans. He went out so I went with 14. He went out I said hay lets go with bad brad, that went kaput. How bout the guy from my home state I say next and he won it. Under a yellow pretty lame 500 overall. Better sweating down here then freezing up there. On a hearth related note, first time since sept I had to set my thermostat to keep the house at 60! I'll be home wed afternoon to get the 8" of ash out, check the bypass gasket and get the King singing again!

 

[BKVP]

Just got home from New Zealand....stove still going

85 degrees in land of Kiwis ....Walla Walla 32 degrees...home of Blaze King...78!

 

[Poindexter]

Can y'all help me with some fuzzy math? I think it works as long as we are talking abotu the same size firebox. I got an A30.

So imagine a cord of spruce at 18MBTU, next to it a cord of birch at 22MBTU,next to that a cord of hickory at 25MBTU, next to that a cord of hedge at 40MBTU.

So when I load up my A30 with spruce i got 18 Wife Warming Units(WWU) in there. When I burn it down in 4 hours i am pulling 4.5 wife warming units (WWU) per hour out of the stove.

If I load it up with birch I got 22 WWUs in there, burn it down in 12 hours I am getting about 2 WWUs per hour out of the stove.

So my hottest burn is the spruce I lead off with, about 4.5 WWU per hour.

I can get down to at or near 1WWU per hour and not have to fool with the stove more than twice daily.

1. Has anyone pulled more than 4.5 WWU per hour out of a size 30 firebox?

2. Has anyone found a way to run the stove at less than 1 WWU per hour, say 0.5 to 0.8 WWWU per hour without having to open the loading door every two hours and fool with it?

 

[Stump shot]

Can y'all help me with some fuzzy math? I think it works as long as we are talking abotu the same size firebox. I got an A30.

So imagine a cord of spruce at 18MBTU, next to it a cord of birch at 22MBTU,next to that a cord of hickory at 25MBTU, next to that a cord of hedge at 40MBTU.

So when I load up my A30 with spruce i got 18 "fake" BTUs in there. When I burn it down in 4 hours i am pulling 4.5 fake BTUs (fBTU) per hour out of the stove.

If i load it up with birch I got 22 fBTUs in there, burn it down in 12 hours I am getting about 2 fBTUs per hour out of the stove.

So my hottest burn is the spruce I lead off with, about 4.5 fBTU per hour.

I can get down to at or near 1fBTU per hour and not ahve to fool with the stove more than twice daily.

1. Has anyone pulled more than 4.5 fBTU per hour out of a size 30 firebox?

2. Has anyone found a way to run the stove at less than 1 fBTU per hour, say 0.5 to 0.8 fBTU per hour without having to open the loading door every two hours and fool with it?

If I figured this right, I normally run between 7700 to 9000 fBTU per hour in a 24 hour period. The best I've done is 6000 fBTU per hour ( 36 hrs). This is with Doug fir for fuel and 35-40 pounds of it.

 

[Poindexter]

I found douglas fir at 17.4MBTU per cord on sweep dot com, so 17.4 WWU in the firebox, 24-36 hour burn, you nailed 0.8 to 0.5 WWU per hour right out of the gate.

That ought to be really nice in the shoulder seasons. Dang it, a wood I can't get.

 

[Stump shot]

Try getting your firewood down to 9-10%.

 

[Rossco]

Checking in.

Only running the BK During the night. One load or maybe two when it cools off.

Expecting -21C next week so back to 24/7 I guess.

What's the weather Doing in your part of the world?

 

[Dieselhead]

Saw this on inspection today. Had a chance to fully clean out the stove as it was dead cold. I almost forgot how deep the ash can get! Anyway, I saw this in 3 spots, just a few cells involved. Any ideas?

 

[jeff_t]

Mine started like that in its second season. It doesn't really affect performance. I still had some clean 40+ hour burns last spring, and it looked much worse than that. It is starting to get pretty sluggish now after almost four seasons, and I'm pretty sure the low burn performance isn't gonna be there.

 

[tarzan]

Checking in.

Only running the BK During the night. One load or maybe two when it cools off.

Expecting -21C next week so back to 24/7 I guess.

What's the weather Doing in your part of the world?

Here? COLD!

Teens and single digits (Fahrenheit of course becoming the norm with a few bellow zero nights mixed in.

 

[Poindexter]

My least favorite time of year to be outdoors. Monday night I had water dripping off the snow pack on the roof, the rounds I was trying to split were frozen solid to the ground, and it was snowing.

I got all three pairs of work boots out, summer steel toe, winter heavy insulated and spring/boat/mud water tight. The only specialized foot gear I don't have out right now is snowshoes and chest waders.

And its warm enough my short chimney stack is working against me, dang +30s dF. Can't complain too loudly, I was burning 2000 gallons of oil annually pretty regular before I started burning wood, I have bought 609 gallons in the trailing twelve months.

I am thinking I will do the boiling vinegar thing on my cat this summer just to go into next season with the cleanest possible cat.

 

[Rossco]

Here? COLD!

Teens and single digits (Fahrenheit of course becoming the norm with a few bellow zero nights mixed in.

Yeah that should be here. Unusual warm spell and we are enjoying it.

Starting to snow alittle. March is notorious for being One of the coolest months. November was unusually cool compaired to a few previous. Interesting to look at our gas usage and compair different years.

 

[Highbeam]

View attachment 154611






Saw this on inspection today. Had a chance to fully clean out the stove as it was dead cold. I almost forgot how deep the ash can get! Anyway, I saw this in 3 spots, just a few cells involved. Any ideas?

Normal. All three squares of my cat have cracks diagonal all the way across. I noticed them during the second season. As long as the cat doesn't get loose and fall out, it's fine.

 

[BKVP]

My least favorite time of year to be outdoors. Monday night I had water dripping off the snow pack on the roof, the rounds I was trying to split were frozen solid to the ground, and it was snowing.

I got all three pairs of work boots out, summer steel toe, winter heavy insulated and spring/boat/mud water tight. The only specialized foot gear I don't have out right now is snowshoes and chest waders.

And its warm enough my short chimney stack is working against me, dang +30s dF. Can't complain too loudly, I was burning 2000 gallons of oil annually pretty regular before I started burning wood, I have bought 609 gallons in the trailing twelve months.

I am thinking I will do the boiling vinegar thing on my cat this summer just to go into next season with the cleanest possible cat.

Leave it alone!

 

[NinjaTech]

Weather today? Mid 40F's, tomorrow, -1F.. Welcome to Missouri!