2014-2015 Blaze King Performance thread (Everything BK)

Yay, 1000 posts to this thread!

Parallax said:

Still learning how to burn the Home Fire logs. They burn so differently than cord wood. Longer and slower. They last a long time but it's hard to get the house above 60 degrees even with the stove set to 3.5 with a bunch of logs in the box.

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I am seeing that too. A slow start, then a lot of heat near the beginning, and then a long and cool cruise. Not even the thermostat on our BKs can overcome a wood product that gives up most of its energy all at once.

Highbeam said:

Yay, 1000 posts to this thread!





I am seeing that too. A slow start, then a lot of heat near the beginning, and then a long and cool cruise. Not even the thermostat on our BKs can overcome a wood product that gives up most of its energy all at once.

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My chimney is pouring out the blue smoke. My stove is 500* . With these sawdust bricks . The cat is alive and well (glowing).

Rich2343 said:

I did not see that in the manual. I'm wondering what else I'm missing

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Page 25 of the online manual.
"ICE - FORMATION AND PREVENTION
Most of what you see coming from the chimney of a properly operating catalytic stove is water vapor. In
extremely cold weather - and with some exterior chimneys - this vapor may freeze in the chimney, to the point of
actually blocking the chimney and extinguishing the fi re. In such weather, occasionally burn the stove for 4 or 5
minutes with the bypass open and the thermostat set at maximum to melt any possible ice buildup. "

rdust said:

Page 25 of the online manual.
"ICE - FORMATION AND PREVENTION
Most of what you see coming from the chimney of a properly operating catalytic stove is water vapor. In
extremely cold weather - and with some exterior chimneys - this vapor may freeze in the chimney, to the point of
actually blocking the chimney and extinguishing the fi re. In such weather, occasionally burn the stove for 4 or 5
minutes with the bypass open and the thermostat set at maximum to melt any possible ice buildup. "

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Thank you Rdust. I will have to check out the online manual.as to see what else im missing. A little snow and ice on my end however more insulation running stove more efficiently this will more than likely become an issue.

My princess might be ready for pick up as early as this Thursday.. Can't wait I got the old country hearth 2500 cranking but I'm filling the fire box 4 x a day.. I really hope I get good heat out of the princess and reduce my wood consumption.

Rich2343 said:

My chimney is pouring out the blue smoke. My stove is 500* . With these sawdust bricks . The cat is alive and well (glowing).

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My princess ultra smoked excessively with the biolog products too. Despite fully warmed up and very active or glowing cat. They burned much cleaner in my other non-cat stove. Last night I had to give up on the logs and put real firewood in the firebox on top of the leftovers. The partially burned biologs weren't making enough heat. The BK seems to love real, actual, firewood. Back to a light and intermittent smoke along with good heat.

kennyp2339 said:

My princess might be ready for pick up as early as this Thursday.. Can't wait I got the old country hearth 2500 cranking but I'm filling the fire box 4 x a day.. I really hope I get good heat out of the princess and reduce my wood consumption.

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Your days of constantly tending the stove will soon be over.

Lovely evening yesterday with BKVP, I enjoyed my carbonated beverage very much. Thanks Chris.

Nothing really earth shattering was revealed in person. Burn dry wood; no, no drier than that.

I've gotten started splitting my wood for next winter already, going smaller. So far anything in my stack with bark on it, the last molecule of of cellulose to dry out is less than 1" from air. Mostly I have birch with two inches of bark on the base of the triangle and sides 4-6" long. I don't want to see any "20" anything on my MM next fall, I want 16% and under everywhere I look. I do have some gnarly knotty pieces that will get two summers in the sun before I stick my MM into them.

I did learn a vendor here in Fairbanks brought in a container load of actual NIELs from northern Idaho. $650/ ton local, more expensive BTU for BTU than heating oil. I am not buying a ton of them at that price, but if I can talk the vendor out of 20-50# I'll give them a shot to see what all the fuss is about.

Been cold enough here long enough that my wood for next year splits real easy, but it hasn't been cold enough long enough for the bark to break hardly at all. Complete pain in the neck. I'll get back to the wood pile when its been down below -20dF for a while.

The Ashford is running with consistency and predictability bordering on boring. I have found in colder weather I can rake the coals forward and burn them down a bit before reloading the stove without the house cooling off too much.

I did dig up an old thread that explains a thing. If you go looking for threads started by BKVP you'll find his introduction thread that he started in 2011. Somewhere in there he mentions at the BK lab they find most of the water in the cordwood load boils out in the first hour of the burn. Once you get that water, and most of the volatiles with it burnt off, your stove will be coasting on charcoal and very low emissions whether or not the cat is hot enough to be active. I am finding if I shut the Tstat down early, less than an hour into the burn, then several hours later when I am ready to burn the coals down the splits on the floor of the stove in the corners still have some volatiles in them and and I can get quite a bit of heat out of them before I reload.

I think really I could get away with having a bigger stove in my house, but burning down the coals while I am home in the evening to see pretty flame instead of grey charcoal is kind of a good thing.

Poindexter and Mrs Poindexter were most gracious and left me all the hot wings! I enjoy meeting BK owners. Stay tuned...my next stop (and your free spirits) may be coming to a town near you. Poindexters' go eat those Fuji apples!


quote="Poindexter, post: 1829867, member: 36095"]Lovely evening yesterday with BKVP, I enjoyed my carbonated beverage very much. Thanks Chris.

Nothing really earth shattering was revealed in person. Burn dry wood; no, no drier than that.

I've gotten started splitting my wood for next winter already, going smaller. So far anything in my stack with bark on it, the last molecule of of cellulose to dry out is less than 1" from air. Mostly I have birch with two inches of bark on the base of the triangle and sides 4-6" long. I don't want to see any "20" anything on my MM next fall, I want 16% and under everywhere I look. I do have some gnarly knotty pieces that will get two summers in the sun before I stick my MM into them.

I did learn a vendor here in Fairbanks brought in a container load of actual NIELs from northern Idaho. $650/ ton local, more expensive BTU for BTU than heating oil. I am not buying a ton of them at that price, but if I can talk the vendor out of 20-50# I'll give them a shot to see what all the fuss is about.

Been cold enough here long enough that my wood for next year splits real easy, but it hasn't been cold enough long enough for the bark to break hardly at all. Complete pain in the neck. I'll get back to the wood pile when its been down below -20dF for a while.

The Ashford is running with consistency and predictability bordering on boring. I have found in colder weather I can rake the coals forward and burn them down a bit before reloading the stove without the house cooling off too much.

I did dig up an old thread that explains a thing. If you go looking for threads started by BKVP you'll find his introduction thread that he started in 2011. Somewhere in there he mentions at the BK lab they find most of the water in the cordwood load boils out in the first hour of the burn. Once you get that water, and most of the volatiles with it burnt off, your stove will be coasting on charcoal and very low emissions whether or not the cat is hot enough to be active. I am finding if I shut the Tstat down early, less than an hour into the burn, then several hours later when I am ready to burn the coals down the splits on the floor of the stove in the corners still have some volatiles in them and and I can get quite a bit of heat out of them before I reload.

I think really I could get away with having a bigger stove in my house, but burning down the coals while I am home in the evening to see pretty flame instead of grey charcoal is kind of a good thing.[/quote]

Weird things happening. Loaded the Princess with a mix of Beech and Locust yesterday morning at 11am. Went through the usual procedure with stove thermostat ending up at 1.5 as usual. Came back in at 1pm and my wife had the stove fans running. She said temps got to 650*F and the cat probe thermo was pegged.

At this time, I shut the thermostat completely and shortly there after, shut off the fans. Around 3pm stove top temp and cat probe thermometer had crept back up so the fan came back on until stove top was at 500 and probe was around 2o'clock.

After that, thermostat still at 0", temps steadied out at 600*F and cat probe sat around 2 to 3o'clock until bedtime around 11pm.

Now it is 6:30 am, thermostat still at "0" and of course has not opened. Stove top is at 300*F and cat probe at 10 o'clock. There's a good amount of wood left in the stove and I expect an easy 24 hour or more burn.

Ok, so the problem "I theorize" was the weather. Of'course, number one is it was 40 to 45*F outside yesterday through this morning so I did not need "that" much heat. 85 in the stove room with windows and doors open.

Now, here's what I "think" could have contributed to my, basicly loss of control over the stove. Besides great burning wood, a high pressure system with rain and temps in the 40's. This kind of weather made running my old tube stove nearly impossible. Never could get it up and running right, the draft just wasn't there.

On this stove however, I think the high pressure system acted more like a pipe damper, holding the heat in the stove. Not sure but I do know the cat was doing the majority of the work as it was bright red and very active while the wood load appearance changed very slowly.

Also could be the door gasket. I will check it once stove cools but it "should" be ok as I have adjusted it twice.

tarzan said:

Weird things happening. Loaded the Princess with a mix of Beech and Locust yesterday morning at 11am. Went through the usual procedure with stove thermostat ending up at 1.5 as usual. Came back in at 1pm and my wife had the stove fans running. She said temps got to 650*F and the cat probe thermo was pegged.

At this time, I shut the thermostat completely and shortly there after, shut off the fans. Around 3pm stove top temp and cat probe thermometer had crept back up so the fan came back on until stove top was at 500 and probe was around 2o'clock.

After that, thermostat still at 0", temps steadied out at 600*F and cat probe sat around 2 to 3o'clock until bedtime around 11pm.

Now it is 6:30 am, thermostat still at "0" and of course has not opened. Stove top is at 300*F and cat probe at 10 o'clock. There's a good amount of wood left in the stove and I expect an easy 24 hour or more burn.

Ok, so the problem "I theorize" was the weather. Of'course, number one is it was 40 to 45*F outside yesterday through this morning so I did not need "that" much heat. 85 in the stove room with windows and doors open.

Now, here's what I "think" could have contributed to my, basicly loss of control over the stove. Besides great burning wood, a high pressure system with rain and temps in the 40's. This kind of weather made running my old tube stove nearly impossible. Never could get it up and running right, the draft just wasn't there.

On this stove however, I think the high pressure system acted more like a pipe damper, holding the heat in the stove. Not sure but I do know the cat was doing the majority of the work as it was bright red and very active while the wood load appearance changed very slowly.

Also could be the door gasket. I will check it once stove cools but it "should" be ok as I have adjusted it twice.

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Lots of little pieces? Or large chunks of that high btu wood? I've only had that runaway experience with biologs. The cat apparently doesn't need much oxygen to eat the smoke so the smoke gets the cat hot which bakes more smoke out of the wood which feeds the cat into this runaway.

Highbeam said:

Lots of little pieces? Or large chunks of that high btu wood? I've only had that runaway experience with biologs. The cat apparently doesn't need much oxygen to eat the smoke so the smoke gets the cat hot which bakes more smoke out of the wood which feeds the cat into this runaway.

Click to expand...

Well, the cat probe thermometer fell out of active after 24 1/2 hours. Did the dollar bill test and door gasket passed all the way around.

The wood I am using is large 6" splits of Beech and round Locust for the most part.

In some of my above posts I eluded to how well this stuff was burning but this was, I think, the second load I have ran without the blower running. I am going to bypass the rest of this wood for now and save it for colder weather when I will be running with the blower on.

I am tempted to buy another moisture meter out of curiousity cause this wood was all from standing dead and hasn't been split long. The Locust not split at all.

tarzan said:

Weird things happening. Loaded the Princess with a mix of Beech and Locust yesterday morning at 11am. Went through the usual procedure with stove thermostat ending up at 1.5 as usual. Came back in at 1pm and my wife had the stove fans running. She said temps got to 650*F and the cat probe thermo was pegged.

At this time, I shut the thermostat completely and shortly there after, shut off the fans. Around 3pm stove top temp and cat probe thermometer had crept back up so the fan came back on until stove top was at 500 and probe was around 2o'clock.

After that, thermostat still at 0", temps steadied out at 600*F and cat probe sat around 2 to 3o'clock until bedtime around 11pm.

Now it is 6:30 am, thermostat still at "0" and of course has not opened. Stove top is at 300*F and cat probe at 10 o'clock. There's a good amount of wood left in the stove and I expect an easy 24 hour or more burn.

Ok, so the problem "I theorize" was the weather. Of'course, number one is it was 40 to 45*F outside yesterday through this morning so I did not need "that" much heat. 85 in the stove room with windows and doors open.

Now, here's what I "think" could have contributed to my, basicly loss of control over the stove. Besides great burning wood, a high pressure system with rain and temps in the 40's. This kind of weather made running my old tube stove nearly impossible. Never could get it up and running right, the draft just wasn't there.

On this stove however, I think the high pressure system acted more like a pipe damper, holding the heat in the stove. Not sure but I do know the cat was doing the majority of the work as it was bright red and very active while the wood load appearance changed very slowly.

Also could be the door gasket. I will check it once stove cools but it "should" be ok as I have adjusted it twice.

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Tarzan, have you had the cover off and watched the tstat to make sure it is closing and is not one of the mysterious wound backwards tstat? Just came to mind when I read this.

claybe said:

Tarzan, have you had the cover off and watched the tstat to make sure it is closing and is not one of the mysterious wound backwards tstat? Just came to mind when I read this.

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Yes, it is closing.

Got the stove settled in now at 450*F after 3 hours running with T-stat shut. It has been at 450*F for about an hour and a half now with cat probe pointed at the I in active with no change.

Two things are different than last night. First is it's a little cooler outside at around 36*F and it finally quit raining. Second is something that may seem counter intuitive but I let this load burn in on 3 for about 20 minutes. Maybe this burned more of the gases off before shutting it down.

Either way, after I use up what I have brought in the house I am going to save the rest of this particular wood for colder weather.

I had an interesting super hot burn last night. I got into some small splits of very dry cottonwood in my stack and loaded up a warm stove with it. Charred it on high for ten minutes then turned it down to 1.5 ish like I would normally do at these mild temps (20-30f).

The house was already warm 80 down and 75 up. 2 hours later went to check on stove before bed and instantly felt a blast of heat as I was going down to stove room. 90 deg in stove room and lively active flames. Wtf! I turned it down a quarter click and instantly flames start receding I turned the blowers off. I think the top was 600, cat was real high but too dark to see.

I have a good routine with the larger splits of spruce and full rounds that I normally burn so def. wasn't expecting that. Another factor I think might of been at play is the fresh 4 or 5 inches of snow on my roof the same day increasing the insulation on an already well insulated new construction. Today I get home it's 30 outside I got 400 top, cat in the middle. 84 down and 79 upstairs. I just turned the blowers off again and told my wife to keep them off.

Fyi, the wife put a few splits in today at 3:30 on not much coals, about 16 hours which I was surprised to hear. It's definitely too hot but I think I can cool off by not using fans. I can't get myself to open windows! I will open door to garage though to cool off stove room, I figure that keeps the garage furnace from kicking on.

Burn on

Well tomorrow is D-day... New princess is ready to be picked up, I'm giving the old stove her last couple loads.. Kinda feel bad but I know this is for the better... Lol here's to the old 2500 country hearth (3rd season)thank you old girl for keeping me warm, although you developed cracks in you from poor Chinese manufacturing and your new factory listed spec of a 5/8 gasket didnt fit ( to small ) oh and your secondary burn tube mounts went bad and fell apart thank you for keeping me warm on the coldest polar vortex days last year , you will go to semi retirement in my buddies garage and keep us warm on the coldest of Sundays when we all watch the greatful giants lose, and the jets lose, and all the teams we don't like win against us.

kennyp2339 said:

Well tomorrow is D-day... New princess is ready to be picked up, I'm giving the old stove her last couple loads.. Kinda feel bad but I know this is for the better... Lol here's to the old 2500 country hearth (3rd season)View attachment 146601thank you old girl for keeping me warm, although you developed cracks in you from poor Chinese manufacturing and your new factory listed spec of a 5/8 gasket didnt fit ( to small ) oh and your secondary burn tube mounts went bad and fell apart thank you for keeping me warm on the coldest polar vortex days last year , you will go to semi retirement in my buddies garage and keep us warm on the coldest of Sundays when we all watch the greatful giants lose, and the jets lose, and all the teams we don't like win against us.

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Keep the faith! If they play the rams you might win!

I don't know about that.. Unless there hands are still up

kennyp2339 said:

I don't know about that.. Unless there hands are still up

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LMAO! Thanks for the laugh!

I'll have a drink to that, from the state that gave you Geno!

Well, off for another two nights in paradise.

How she looks.



Stay warm.

Rossco said:

Well, off for another two nights in paradise.

How she looks.



Stay warm.

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Wow, those are small splits. Like kindling.

Highbeam said:

Wow, those are small splits. Like kindling.

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Hopefully that's what my stove looks like tomorrow, btw the splits look like mine ... Lol normal east coast style

Highbeam said:

Wow, those are small splits. Like kindling.

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Yeah I buy pallets of chop-sticks and throw them in there .



Good luck Kenny

Anyone notice a change in your t stat after hooking up an OAK.
Ran my stove a few weeks without one. Was just getting used to where it needed to be set to get X temp output.
Installed OAK yesterday, did my usual startup, 3.5 to char, then down to 2 for a bit the 1.5/1.75. Now on 2 i can get to 600 ST and the flap never seems to close all the way. On 1.5 today i am seeing 500+ before it starts to close. I ended up running it on 1
i did notice the OAK pipe is very cold, as expected... could the cold air coming in cool down the stat housing enough for this ??
House didn't need an OAK. Installed to meet code. Sorry for such a long post.