BK Princess need help

Has to be fresh split, otherwise its a bogus reading. Wet wood will make flames but the resulting steam has a cooling effect on the cat......

Sucking all that flame through the cat isn't going to help it at all.When you reload on that hot bed of coals try putting in about 3 splits.With the bypass open and thermostat all the way open, let it char the wood real good,check your cat temp,make sure it's in active range,and then start turning down the thermostat over a period of a few minutes.Close it half way,then 3/4 of the way shut,turn it down until you don't have a lot of flame,don't turn it down all at once, and then close the bypass.You want smoke not a lot of flame.Your cat should light off and start to glow and the cat thermometer should start to climb.Let it burn like this for about 20 minutes and then turn the thermostat down some more until there is no flame. The cat temps should continue to climb.You have to be patient.I can do this with my princess and with no flame in the fire box and get 1400deg on cat probe and 650 stove top temps.

Take pipe off. Hell, everything is just an experiment at this point anyway.

I wonder if the cat is bad?

Sorry. Maybe my last post was a bit out of line but I can't grasp how you could have a roaring fire in a big ol steel box for 45 minutes without heating the stove top past 400*F. Then, if you shut the draft down to 2 the temps fall to 200*F. Not to mention that you are blowing through wood like a campfire.

Air in, air out. We are just trying to scrub as much heat as possible from that air before it leaves the stove.

I'm sure many here, myself included, would like to be there to help or at least bare witness.

A flue probe might provide some insight. I don't have one, but I don't have any troubles either. Blaze King flue temps are characteristically low during normal operation.

Any idea on insulation and drafts in your house? A 600° stove would have this leaky, marginally insulated 70s ranch to 80° on a day like today. On a typical winter day, say mid 20s and fairly calm, I can stay plenty warm with a 4-500° stove. If the sun is shining, less heat than that, with the blowers off.

When I do need to burn hot, I'll blow thru a load in about twelve hours. I have measured the firebox, and come up with an honest nearly 4.4 cu ft of useable space, like Blaze King claims. Assuming the same honesty with the Princess, the volume of your firebox is roughly 2/3 of mine. So, if we're both burning the same type of wood at similar moisture levels with similar btu outputs, simple math says we are on par with burn times.

Is it possible that 35-40,000 btu/hr isn't enough? That your house is losing heat faster than that?

Illinois burner said:

My dealer just stopped by. The first thing he said was it felt warm. The temperature in the house was 72, keep in mind that it is 30° outside. I then told him I was burning on high ( by high I mean 3) for 2 1/2 hours. The temperature of the stove top was 600°. The cat temp guage was about 3/4 past active. I dropped it down to 2 and the stove top dropped below 500° pretty quick.

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Sounds like everything is working as it should. You got to 600 on 3, active cat. If you can't heat your house with a 600 degree stove then your stove is too small.

Illinois burner said:

How am I the only person to have to run on high to maintain 600°?

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I can hit 600 with a fresh load turned all the way down. Nothing but a bright orange cat.

Does your dealer have, or do you have access to, a manometer to check into your draft? Know any hvac guys? I think it's supposed to be .04-.06" wc.

Illinois burner said:

Has anyone else burnt on high and only had 4 hours of good heat. You have know idea how bad I want this stove to work

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yes. mine does the same thing. but as others have said, the stove is not intended to run on high all the time. although its capable of doing so, it loses much of its effciency and therefore- its appeal. stay with it. like i wrote before, i got mine in january last year and am still tinkering. but its getting better. i have learned there is a "sweet spot" to burn in cold temps- where i get the maximum heat for a longer burn time. some days it simply cant keep up. the other 80% of the time it does a great job. keep working with BKVP and your dealer.

i am not an expert, but i do know my house is losing heat too fast. my gut tells me yours is doing so too.

Illinois burner said:

How am I the only person to have to run on high to maintain 600°?

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You seem to be the only person who needs to maintain 600 to keep their house warm. It's like asking about how long our cars can hold 100 mph.

After 30 minutes of burn time on high turn the stove down to 1 3/4-2 and monitor stove top temps for the length of the burn. If the house gets cool let the furnace run, I'm interested to see how it acts over the length of the burn on a setting most of us can heat with. Report the temps every hour or so if you can.

If the stove top is at 400* does the house lose temp, gain temp or hold steady? If a 400* stove top can't maintain temps in the house the stove isn't going to work for you with it's current amount of heat loss. What temp do you have the thermostat set to run the furnace?

I'm heating just shy of 2K in Michigan and a 350*-400* stove top will hold the house temps steady.

Illinois burner said:

I don't need 600! I need it not to drop through the damn floor if I turn it down. I turn it past 2 1/2 it falls on it face and won't heat. Maybe you don't understand what the hell I am saying.

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I know it's not what you want to hear, but I'm afraid your still going to find draft issues.

If the wood is indeed that dry, you should have no problem smoldering a load and letting the cat do its thing. If you have adequate draft.

Which makes sense if you think about it. You want to burn a given amount of wood in a 12-24 hr period, which your old stove would burn in 4-5 hrs. You do that by letting in a lot less air, which means a lot less air going up the pipe. The lower volume has a harder time overcoming the additional resistance of the directional changes, where your old stove was blowing extra air up the stack, along with a bunch of your heat.

You've had a look at how the thermostat works. When it is closed, all the air the stove gets comes thru that little hole, the size of a dime maybe? Your chimney has to pull enough thru that hole to pull gases thru the cat and up the stack, while maintaining enough heat to keep the cat active. Mine does it over two days. It takes a little boost, usually in the morning and evening, but then I can close it back down again. My chimney is 11' of class A, 5'ish of double wall, straight thru the roof. So around 16' from flue collar to daylight. I understand it's not exactly apples to apples(8" vs 6"), but it's nothing crazy, just a little over the manufacturer's recommended minimum.

My sister's King, on the other hand, is on 26' of straight up pipe. It sucked a paper towel up out of my hand before I hooked everything up. It works well, but could probably use a key damper on really windy days.

I haven't documented a burn this season but here is one I did last year. Read the first few posts in this link, it's 24hrs in the life of my stove.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...erformance-thread-everything-bk.116353/page-9

Illinois Burner; I can not even envision your headache. My early 2014 install is the BKK and it has performed flawlessly. Indeed, almost too much stove for my dwelling. Maybe I missed it but, have you done the dollar bill test with your bypass damper door? Mine actually "clunks" shut when I close it. I only burn mine on high (3) for about one hour max per day just to clean the class otherwise it cruises at about 1.5-2 on the thermostat. Although I have the blower setup (*basically an upgraded rear shield) I only use that sparingly for the wife warm after a looooong day away from fueling it. I can't even fill up the firebox entirely without opening up doors and windows. The Princess would probably been better suited for us except I am planning on eventually adding on another addition. Good Lord, I hope you get this resolved soon. God Bless

Don't know exactly where the hole should be, or how big. If you can make a 1/4" hole 18" up from the stove, you can fill it with a probe thermometer