2015-2016 Blaze King Performance thread (Everything BK)
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Highbeam
Minister of Fire
Cool. Madrona (you say madrone) is about the holy grail of PNW wood species. Baby butt smooth thin bark, ultra dense, but hard to find. If you have a source, don't waste it. It's harder to get started but has way way more btu per split. 23.7 vs 17.4 MBTU/cord for Madrona vs. doug fir so almost 36% more heat per split. If you burn 10 cords of fir a year you would only need 6.4 of Madrona. Madrona actually beats out the black locust that so many eastern folks seem to cherish. Our bigleaf maple is also good at 17.9. Heck, people don't realize it but even plain old lodgepole pine is 14.3. For reference, cottonwood is 12.6.
https://chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm
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Definitely save the hardwood for cold days. We have a stash of madrona, cherry and locust for the very cold days. I love burning that stuff. It puts out a lot more heat and the fires last longer too, especially locust which burns with a ghostly purple/blue flame. It's like burning coal.
At current temps we may not burn any hardwood this year.
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
Ignore the color and don't worry about lead or copper. You had cat cloggage, pretty common on the other brand and especially so with the smaller cells of the steel cats. I bet it has to do with your full throttle operating style as the WS guys have found that turbulent fireboxes stir more ash which flies up into the cat easier. I can't believe that a chunk of steel cat actually fell off.
To prevent cloggage with your apparently clog prone burning style, you should be cleaning that cat frequently. Lamp shade vac at least. I bet that cat would have worked fine if somebody could have unclogged it but with the cracks and spalling, a new one is the best bet.
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
No kidding, I've been burning a full load every other day since this warm up. This is even warm for the shoulder season.
Poindexter
Minister of Fire
Don't doubt you. I would have rather had a princess, but our old stove had a low enough grams per hour rating that I would have had to pay for a Princess or get reimbursed by the Air Quality Authority for an Ashford 30. Plus the wife said Ashford 30 only, or we look at stoves not made by Blaze King. Done.
Traded a couple emails with BKVP and my local BK dealer today. I have no idea how long a combustor autopsy takes or where the thing needs to be shipped to.
I dunno about the frequent cleaning, I suspect it varies with how dry the wood supply is. The factory cat chewed through a bunch of wood last year, 9 cords green shrunk 18% to 7.38 cords of seasoned, burnt all of that plus a cord of biologs and came into this season running like a champ. It's like it tripped over a wire last month, running good one day, the next day I was scratching my head.
BK owns the cat now, they gave me a new one. If BKVP posts autopsy results here, that's his business, his combustor and his choice.
My hypothesis is the combustor got poisoned, but my experience is BK picked up the tab for a new combustor.
Yessir, a chunk fell out of the face of my cat. A hemispherical piece about the same diameter as a US or Canadian penny. I was being super super gentle with the bristly wand tool of the vacuum cleaner.
Quick question for everyone running the 30.1 firebox, what seems to be "enough" chimney height? About to finish install on my Sirocco 30, manual says 12' minimum, I keep seeing on here they now recommend more than that. I have everything in place just need to set stove and hook up chimney. Have 8' above ceiling box and apps 5.5' stove pipe below, all double wall, straight up no bends. Is this enough or should I put another couple feet on right away before I fire things up? Don't want to go any more than another 2' unless absolutely needed don't want t have 2 ugly roof supports one is bad enough...
Poindexter
Minister of Fire
I found 13.5 feet total was fine on my 30.0 box last year with wood that averaged 12-16% - at below freezing temps. Stove was a bit fussy above freezing.
This year with my wood pile at 18%MC and 15.5 of pipe the stove settles down at warmer temps....
This year with my wood pile at 18%MC and 15.5 of pipe the stove settles down at warmer temps....
Jeff in Maine
Feeling the Heat
Well I learned today that the Princess I have been running since the end of October has never had the bypass closed. Let me explain a little, this morning when I closed the bp door (it always stops at the 4 O'clock position) well today it went clear down to the like 5:30 position it moved easily another 3 inches lower.
I had to leave so while on the road I called the stove shop in Bangor after a little phone tag I got a fella on the phone. He told me that yea that lever I supposed to go all the way to the 5:30 position. Mine has always stopped at the 4 position when it moved the additional distance there was a lot of squeaking .
So is it possible... , that my bypass door has never really been closed ? at the least closed tightly? The book says make sure you hear /feel an audible click / clunk to let you know the door is closed.
I think the book should have said " The lever that operates the bypass door may stop at a position that may indeed not be fully closed. Be sure to apply some firm pressure to this handle to be sure it has moved as far as it can,.. approximately the 5:30 position. Failure to do this will not only affect the length of burn times but will create possible temperature's so high they may damage your Catalyst.
Further more you may increase flue temperatures to such a point that this may be dangerous if the stove is left unattended. ~~Just a thought,~~ Kinda glad it did not burn my house down,.. that would have sucked a bit ! My chimney is always in great shape and clean and I watch the stove closely so I doubt this would have ever happened to me but someone new to wood heat altogether this story may not have had such a happy ending.
Now my question is I wonder if this has affected my cat life?
I had to leave so while on the road I called the stove shop in Bangor after a little phone tag I got a fella on the phone. He told me that yea that lever I supposed to go all the way to the 5:30 position. Mine has always stopped at the 4 position when it moved the additional distance there was a lot of squeaking .
So is it possible... , that my bypass door has never really been closed ? at the least closed tightly? The book says make sure you hear /feel an audible click / clunk to let you know the door is closed.
I think the book should have said " The lever that operates the bypass door may stop at a position that may indeed not be fully closed. Be sure to apply some firm pressure to this handle to be sure it has moved as far as it can,.. approximately the 5:30 position. Failure to do this will not only affect the length of burn times but will create possible temperature's so high they may damage your Catalyst.
Further more you may increase flue temperatures to such a point that this may be dangerous if the stove is left unattended. ~~Just a thought,~~ Kinda glad it did not burn my house down,.. that would have sucked a bit ! My chimney is always in great shape and clean and I watch the stove closely so I doubt this would have ever happened to me but someone new to wood heat altogether this story may not have had such a happy ending.
Now my question is I wonder if this has affected my cat life?
blueguy
Feeling the Heat
It's doubtful. If there was any high heat damage, it's most likely to the bypass gasket retainers that are known to warp when the stove is burned at high heat with the bypass open. That being said, the bypass door is actually closed with the handle not rotated all the way over (the weight of the door holds in closed), the additional rotation to the stop locks the door closed and compresses the gasket slightly ensuring a tight seal. If you're worried, let the stove cool and do a dollar bill test on the bypass. For added piece of mind, you could also do a light test on the door to check for any warping. The best way is to pull the pipe which will also give you a chance to watch the bypass mechanism in action and lube the bar to bracket area for smoother action.
Usernamemustbeunique
New Member
My SC 30.1 manual calls for 15'. I have 12.5'. Its been really warm out since switching from the SC20.1 so I have not had a chance to see how it will be during cooler weather. At these tempertures I get a bit of smoke rolling out the door which reloading and have to open the door slowly. I have one set of braces....I will likely add 2-4ft of height soon. Just have to make sure the supports I have will work.
The bypass door is a hunk of steel about 1/2" thick. The weight of it alone is enough to provide a decent seal with a good gasket. And if you pull the pipe up and take a look, you'll see that the last bit of travel of the lever actually only pulls the door towards the cat a bit and puts a little downward pressure on it. It's already closed at that point.
I doubt there's any harm done.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Good point. Having only ever had cat stoves (now on my fifth), I'm just used to feeling the mechanism cam over when the door is locked. If I don't feel that, I know it's not locked. As others have said, door weight alone will probably block it 95%+, but it'd be a good idea to pull the pipe and watch it work to see what's going on in there.
Dieselhead
Minister of Fire
Maybe we should lobby for a "swoosh" label or would some numbers be better? Hmm, "o'clock " references seem to work fine.
BKVP
Minister of Fire
Which side of the family??? The "o'clocks" side of the family or the in laws....the "swooshers"?
BKVP
Minister of Fire
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Ashful
Minister of Fire
I will agree that these stoves are too boring to run. So much so that I've flat-out forgotten that I hadn't loaded one, on two separate occasions. That never happened with the Jotuls, since I was always watching them.Ten years here and I have never seen anything like this numbers vs. swoosh thing. If the stove is that boring then you really need to get a non-cat to keep you busy.
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