2014-2015 Blaze King Performance thread (Everything BK)

[HotCoals]

I think the sirricos and Ashfords can't be lumped into the same category as the princess and king. The air control is different. From my experience and others I've seen, they just don't like to run on 1. It's a different beast. I turn mine down just under 2 and the cat will fall off over time, I just crank it back up in the morning and the cat fires right back up.

Prolly right..they aint the same...the king rules! lol

 

[Highbeam]

Nice one Diesel.

My Cat don't glow like that on '1' no more.



Tell us more about the burn.

All I have to do to get a glow like that is to get a big load ripping and then slam the stat down to 1. The switch from lots of flames to glowing red wood early in the cycle generates a lot of smoke for the cat to eat. That eating makes it hot. My biggest glowing events have happened with no flames in the box and low stat settings.

This sounds a lot like my issues. I get smoke (white). For probably an hour or two and then its clear. My cat won't run near that hot when I'm at 2. I will get an active can for 9-12 hours like you but its its not even up at 12 o'clock. I'm Adding 3-4 feet of pipe today. Will see what happens. My stove is the sirocco 30.

White smoke eh? That's a sign of wet wood. What you're seeing is steam. Incomplete combustion is blue smoke. Wet wood would also cause your other "low draft" like problems.

 

[HotCoals]

All I have to do to get a glow like that is to get a big load ripping and then slam the stat down to 1. The switch from lots of flames to glowing red wood early in the cycle generates a lot of smoke for the cat to eat. That eating makes it hot. My biggest glowing events have happened with no flames in the box and low stat settings.

Same here.

 

[Rossco]

High beam:

Burning Western Larch at the moment.

An gonna fish out some super dry pine from the back of the shed.

Nothing gums the window up like 'Instant chimney fire' Pine.

See if we can see the cat reflecting off the basement floor again.

Wodda you guys burning?

 

[blueguy]

All I have to do to get a glow like that is to get a big load ripping and then slam the stat down to 1. The switch from lots of flames to glowing red wood early in the cycle generates a lot of smoke for the cat to eat. That eating makes it hot. My biggest glowing events have happened with no flames in the box and low stat settings.

Same here

 

[Highbeam]

High beam:

Burning Western Larch at the moment.

An gonna fish out some super dry pine from the back of the shed.

Nothing gums the window up like 'Instant chimney fire' Pine.

See if we can see the cat reflecting off the basement floor again.

Wodda you guys burning?

Right now I'm doing 12 hour loads of medium quality doug fir plus a bit of alder. The doug fir was standing dead this spring on my woodlot. It was actually leaning and I wanted it gone for liability reasons when I sold the lot in Summer. The tree was a bit punky in places but too big and good to waste. I processed it and put it with my other junk wood for campfires and shop stove burning. Well it actually burns pretty good with no bubbles or hiss so I've been using it up in the shop and home. Then I'll be into the good stacks of well aged (2.5 years CSS, photo in my avatar) doug fir and some sort of cypress/juniper thing.

 

[webby3650]

Prolly right..they aint the same...the king rules! lol

Do you know the only thing that's wrong with the Princess? It ain't a King!

 

[Rossco]

Highbeam: I like Fir as well. Burns pretty high BTU's for a soft wood.

We cut a decade dead fir down last yea r and it was sappy and poppy. Probably still to wet to burn at the stump end (the ends I like)

Do you know the only thing that's wrong with the Princess? It ain't a King!

Problem with the King is it holds more wood than most wood sheds.

 

[jeffsk7]

Another question. How far counter clockwise should the knob turn? Mine goes about to 7 o'clock.

 

[tarzan]

plus 2 or 3 or so on shutting the air control on a hot fire. Getting the stove up to 400f or so on a setting of 3 and then going directly to the setting I want to run at has proven to work for me. Love shutting it down and watching the probe needle climb rapidly. Then it's cruise control for hours and hours.

I'm not going to discuss my wood with you "westerners". I don't want y'all getting the impression I think I'm better than you!

 

[Parallax]

Starting to run into problems here. We finally got some cold weather with temps dropping into the 20s at night. If I run the stove high enough to get some serious heat, I wake up in the morning to find just ashes, the cat probe at zero (and the house temp at around 62 or so). If I set it low enough to maintain a long burn, the house is even colder.

I'm using Doug fir that isn't fully seasoned. Perhaps that's the problem. When I do a fresh split, I get anywhere from 22 to 24 percent moisture content. Picked up some wood that's more like 17% but the outsides are really wet because it was all left out in the open and it rains here a lot. I'm trying to get that stuff to dry out at the surface but it takes time because it's got some rot and that part has really gotten waterlogged. Right now those splits are unburnable.

The house is 2650 square feet with an open floor plan. Perhaps it's too big for the Ashford. We'll have a better sense once my wood is fully seasoned. That means we may not know until next year.

 

[HotCoals]

Starting to run into problems here. We finally got some cold weather with temps dropping into the 20s at night. If I run the stove high enough to get some serious heat, I wake up in the morning to find just ashes, the cat probe at zero (and the house temp at around 62 or so). If I set it low enough to maintain a long burn, the house is even colder.

I'm using Doug fir that isn't fully seasoned. Perhaps that's the problem. When I do a fresh split, I get anywhere from 22 to 24 percent moisture content. Picked up some wood that's more like 17% but the outsides are really wet because it was all left out in the open and it rains here a lot. I'm trying to get that stuff to dry out at the surface but it takes time because it's got some rot and that part has really gotten waterlogged. Right now those splits are unburnable.

The house is 2650 square feet with an open floor plan. Perhaps it's too big for the Ashford. We'll have a better sense once my wood is fully seasoned. That means we may not know until next year.

Have you tried some compressed wood bricks yet?

2650 is getting up there. I'm at 2500 ..two story with a basement. The king handles it good though.

 

[Shane Collins]

What is your reloading routine Parallax? and what thermostat setting are you setting it to on your overnight burns?

I'm burning hard wood so that changes things from you. My house is about 2600 square feet and a pretty open plan. It's currently 20 outside and its 68 degrees in here. I loaded the stove full last night at 10ish so this wood has been going for 20 hours. I reckon I'll get another 1-2 hours out of it. Every house and setup is different though. My wood isn't ideally seasoned, 18-22% but it is a little better than yours.

Are you letting it run on high for a bit when you first load it to get the wood nice and charred? and when you load it are you packing the wood as tight as possible and putting in as much wood as you can fit?

I would imagine the main problem is the MC in the wood which sucks. What about mixing each load with a couple compressed wood bricks?

 

[tarzan]

Parallax, to add to Shane's post. Are you saying your stove is going cold in 8 hours or so?

 

[Parallax]

It has been going cold pretty fast. Last night, I went to bed around 2 a.m. The stove still had quite a bit of wood. It had been going for 2 or 3 hours. It was running fairly hot. When I woke up 6 hours later, there was just ash.

I don't have a routine yet. Have been trying different things. Nothing's working when the weather is real cold. I am charring it before turning the t-stat down.

Have not tried the compressed wood bricks. Perhaps with the wood not fully dry yet, that's what I'll have to do, at least when the weather is real cold.

 

[Shane Collins]

I'm still working on my routine, hopefully others can tell me if what I'm doing sounds good or bad. So far this is what works for me.

I load up when there is still a good bed of embers and the cat thermo is still in the active zone.
I set the tstat to 3.5, open the bypass and rake the coals forward.
Load the stove as tightly packed and full as possible.
Close the door and keep my eye on the stove, within a minute or two the flames get going.
After 20-30 minutes on 3.5 I shut it down to 2 and leave it there.

I only just reloaded the stove from last nights load. Got a 24 hour burn. I set the thermostat to 1.75 when I went to bed last night to see how low I could go but when we woke up it was 64 in the house, my wife likes it a little warmer. So far it seems if I set it to lower than 2 the cat stays active, but the house isn't as warm. 2 seems to be my sweet spot.

8-9 hours doesn't seem very good. Was that on a full load packed tight?

 

[Stump shot]

Another question. How far counter clockwise should the knob turn? Mine goes about to 7 o'clock.

It should go to 6 o'clock.

High beam:

Burning Western Larch at the moment.

An gonna fish out some super dry pine from the back of the shed.

Nothing gums the window up like 'Instant chimney fire' Pine.

See if we can see the cat reflecting off the basement floor again.

Wodda you guys burning?

Fir and lodgepole.

 

[Rossco]

I'm not going to discuss my wood with you "westerners". I don't want y'all getting the impression I think I'm better than you!

Please tell, I love hearing story's about seasoned 35% MC oak on this site

Fir and lodgepole.

Good man.

 

[tarzan]

This Box Elder and Fir and such things you speak of? Sounds really soft like it would blow out of the back of the truck without a tarp. LOL

I burn a lot of soft woods to. I don't like cutting live nut bearing trees off my land and living on a mountain side most of the standing dead are just not worth the effort to get out.

I use Cherry, Maple, and Poplar most years but this year I lucked into a good amount of seasoned Oak and Hickory.

 

[tarzan]

It has been going cold pretty fast. Last night, I went to bed around 2 a.m. The stove still had quite a bit of wood. It had been going for 2 or 3 hours. It was running fairly hot. When I woke up 6 hours later, there was just ash.

I don't have a routine yet. Have been trying different things. Nothing's working when the weather is real cold. I am charring it before turning the t-stat down.

Have not tried the compressed wood bricks. Perhaps with the wood not fully dry yet, that's what I'll have to do, at least when the weather is real cold.

It does sound like you are asking a lot of your stove to heat 2650 sq ft in cold weather and get long burn times.

Compressed wood bricks should let you know if your wood is an issue though.

 

[jeff_t]

Wodda you guys burning?

House is on the market, and if it sells now, great. If not it will by next winter. Therefore, I'm burning all the good stuff I have. Right now it's 5 yo oak. Big, straight heavy splits, easy to stuff the firebox. I'll save the ash and elm in case we get some cold weather.

I'll leave all the Siberian elm for the new owners. It makes great heat and lasts a long time, but the amount of ash is incredible.

 

[Rossco]

Ha that's kinda funny Tarzan, no need for 1 ton dually's for a load of wood around here.

Well: I got 15hrs out of it, just waiting for the coals to die down a little before reloading.

Around 21:00 loose load of Larch splits, cranked her as we had guests, they left around 02:00am. Knocked the fans off and dialled her down. Woke with a mega hangover and the 'Stove had gone out' feeling. Wrong, still on, turned it up and bang, back to 2 o clock on cat meter and a lovely bed of chunky coals.

Jeff: Good luck with the house sale. I negotiated the wood pile into the deal. Along with appliances.

 

[Niko]

Just curious to ask on our dials obviously past the normal range does anyone run the stove at 2.5 or 3 or 3.5 for long periods of time? Meaning overnight burns when the outside temps get real cold out. Im usually at the corner of the normal ramge which i assume is 2.5 roughly. I turned her up to 3 today just for a hour and took some stove temps and saw aroud 600F with my infared thermometer . I didnt really get percise measurements as far as the top of stove or glass(forgot to be honest with you). I normaLy dont pack the stove tight at 2.5 I usually refill the stove in the 12-q8 hr range. I rarely let her go to coals I just put more wood in before i go to work.

So if i put her on 3 would that be bad? Or what can i do to check to make sure 3 is ok?

 

[tarzan]

Just curious to ask on our dials obviously past the normal range does anyone run the stove at 2.5 or 3 or 3.5 for long periods of time? Meaning overnight burns when the outside temps get real cold out. Im usually at the corner of the normal ramge which i assume is 2.5 roughly. I turned her up to 3 today just for a hour and took some stove temps and saw aroud 600F with my infared thermometer . I didnt really get percise measurements as far as the top of stove or glass(forgot to be honest with you). I normaLy dont pack the stove tight at 2.5 I usually refill the stove in the 12-q8 hr range. I rarely let her go to coals I just put more wood in before i go to work.

So if i put her on 3 would that be bad? Or what can i do to check to make sure 3 is ok?

The best thing to do is to run it on 3 when you are there to watch it and see what happens.

My "guess" is (since I haven't ran my stove on 3 for over an hour) is the thermostat will take care of things but you will blow through some wood, but heat, if needed, takes priority over long burns!

 

[Rossco]

I haven't ran mine over the 'Norm' range for a prolong period of time. Not even during shoulder season.

I have it on 1.5 now that's simulating 2.5 because of the voracious draft.