2016-17 Blaze King Performance Thread (Everything BK)

[Poindexter]

Could your cat thermometer be fried? Wouldn't think it would stop working but something else to check.


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Good question, but I think the cat probe is working fine. I didn't mention it in the original presentation, but the cat probe has been working fine all season. I am getting to the active notch from a cold stove in 10-15 minutes, the controlling variable seems to be how much kindling I use.

On track, at the last disappointing burn the indicator got to the notch in the usual 10-15 minutes, i closed the bypass door and started the fans, but instead of leaping up into the active zone as if the cat had lit off the indicator sort of meandered on up as if it was being heated by the firebox instead of the active combustor. It was well up, maybe halfway across the active zone when I was sure I have a problem because the living room only went from +64dF to like +68dF in 30 or 40 minutes instead of getting from +64dF to +85dF in 90 minutes.

Off track, couple observations.

1. Shavings from a hand plane make AWESOME kindling if you are a regulated burner going for a fast cold start. I am building a boat in my garage, collected possibly a bushel of plain wood planer shavings in my kindling box before I started with epoxy and putting my planer shavings in the trash instead of in the kindling box.
If you got a softball to cantaloupe size wad of clean wood planer shavings and maybe four pieces of cordwood split down to 2x2 nominal cross section (@8% MC), you too can have an active cat and clean plume (from cold stove) in probably 15 minutes or so. I have been using poplar. My next boat will be producing spruce planer shavings, looking forward to those.

2. Play with your stove, get to know it. The first season especially, I had a bunch of birch on my stacks that seems to coal 'forever'. What I did on Christmas vaca that first year was see how warm I could keep the house with one split of spruce on the birch coals to keep the cat active while the coals were burning down. It sorta seemed like wasted time, but now I have a deep appreciation for how much heat the cat actually makes that I wouldn't have without having played with it.

 

[Poindexter]

The cat meter is of no value other than to determine if the cat is active or not. Bk owners needn't worry about overfiring a cat.

True, with cord wood at 12+ % MC.

Poindexter is using dry fuel like a Neil, but unlike bkvp he is running at high stat settings so perhaps a better chance of rapid off gassing.

This is where I am beta testing. The concern is if I turn the stove down too soon the cord wood may keep off gassing faster than air is coming in, creating a fuel rich mixture of gasseous VOCs that can cause deleterious rapid combustion events.

I am seriously considering putting a set of four strain gauges under the stove, one under each leg, to monitor the weight of the unburnt fuel so I can find where it is safe to turn the stove down without blowing out the front glass. The hard wired ones aren't that expensive, but a raspberry Pi with a wireless card on it is technically a combustible.

I would love to turn the stove down. At ambients below about -30dF or so I run the stove wide open throttle 24/7, but really that is only 6-8 weeks centered around January. The rest of the winter, Sep through May I can run at mid or low throttle without cooking the fam out of our insulation envelope.

Still, the stove self regulates and is supposed to turn itself down to stay safe once the door and bypass are locked down.

As long as the stove is operated within designed parameters I agree. "The industry" (I trust @BKVP on this one) finds that "most homeowners with woodstoves" (who aren't active on hearth dot com either) can consistently get their cord wood down to 20-25%MC, but rarely have cord wood under 20% MC.

So all of us are in a pretty small club already.

 

[Poindexter]

I did run a door seal test with some heavy cotton bond paper this evening. Neither the wife or I are in the habit of carrying paper money. I'll get some tomorrow and break it into small bills, but I expect both the loading door and the bypass door are going to pass with flying colors.

Didn't get to my dealer tonight after work because of life, but it is my first stop when I clock out tomorrow.

 

[Poindexter]

I put my current and ongoing problems related to over dry wood in a new thread.

I don't even have snow on the ground yet and my stacks are proving to be a PITA. My goal for next year is to stop at 12% MC and go back to operating a low maintenance stove. Enjoy.

 

[begreen]

Not sure why this would be the culprit. It's been stated here and in the manuals that these stoves work best with <13% MC wood. I would think that the NIELs that are burned in these stoves are <12% too.

 

[Ashful]

Not sure why this would be the culprit. It's been stated here and in the manuals that these stoves work best with <13% MC wood. I would think that the NIELs that are burned in these stoves are <12% too.

Exactly. BK put the 13% MC right in the user manual for your stove, so by that standard, you're much closer to their target MC% than most.

 

[kennyp2339]

Hmmm - I tried looking back at poindexter's previous posts but page 12 is deleted? I'm want to ask him about smoke, what the chimney doing while he's having these troublesome burns, also did he do anything this year to the chimney? like extend it, change to a different style cap? Also it maybe that the cat is finally done, running the stove wide open for 2 seasons 6-8 weeks is asking a lot especially when you start burning in September and shut it down in June.

 

[webfish]

Hmmm - I tried looking back at poindexter's previous posts but page 12 is deleted? I'm want to ask him about smoke, what the chimney doing while he's having these troublesome burns, also did he do anything this year to the chimney? like extend it, change to a different style cap? Also it maybe that the cat is finally done, running the stove wide open for 2 seasons 6-8 weeks is asking a lot especially when you start burning in September and shut it down in June.

That is odd. I will try to fix.

 

[webfish]

Hmmm - I tried looking back at poindexter's previous posts but page 12 is deleted? I'm want to ask him about smoke, what the chimney doing while he's having these troublesome burns, also did he do anything this year to the chimney? like extend it, change to a different style cap? Also it maybe that the cat is finally done, running the stove wide open for 2 seasons 6-8 weeks is asking a lot especially when you start burning in September and shut it down in June.

Page is there. Just go to 11 and hit next. Not sure why the number is not displaying.

 

[Mr. Jones]

It's been doing that page missing thing to me for awhile. Thought it was just me on my old computer. Anywho, finally got it. [URL=http://s1297.photobucket.com/user/peachride89/media/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20161007_162904654_zpswxvtfd2o.jpg.html][/URL]

 

[begreen]

Looks like we have ignition. Is performance proper now?

 

[Mr. Jones]

Nah. That's a light reflection, and a cat sitting on top of the stove. Waiting on glue, cement to cure, and temps jumping back to the 80s for a few days.

 

[Mr. Jones]

Ok. First little fire after replacing damper gasket, and brand new cat. Tiny fire since it's still warm here, more less to cure the gasket cement. Anyways, I noticed I can't turn it down too fast, or it will create excessive smoke inside, and give the cat too much fuel. It glowed pretty well, almost like poindexters pic. Got the cat gauge 3/4 up to high. Unfortunately, I did notice that when I did have flames at first, and closed the bypass, the flames didn't rush to the front of the stove like I thought it would. I also noticed quite a bit of smoke still coming out of the chimney, but this was toward the end of the burn when it was basically coaled out, and the cat wasn't glowing any more. Does your guy's still smoke, like at all out the chimney? I feel like there's still a leak somewhere in the box itself. Maybe the new seal around the cat hasn't expanded all the way yet? It's hard to explain how much smoke in words that was coming out of the chimney without a video. My wood might not be dry enough either. I don't have a gauge though. I split it into tiny splits last year, and it's un popular wood, so it drys out pretty fast. I'ts day and night difference in weight from when I split it last year. That's my gauge. Oh, and about the "glowingness". I don't want to ruin a brand new cat, or at least cause it to prematurely fail. Is it hard on it to glow? Or is that ok and normal, and just pay attention to the cat gauge? Thanks

 

[Woody harrelson]

I lit the princess 24 hours ago because it was raining and cool here in Nj. By the look of the amount of wood left I would say I have about 10hrs left. I will see when I get home from work. I could run this thing so low and slow it's amazing. I used to hate the shoulder seasons because I was always starting a fire and the house was always to hot. Now I welcome the shoulder seasons. Felt good to light the first fire of the year!

 

[Ashful]

Going to 36F tonight. High of 61F today. Boiler was running this morning. I guess it's time to haul some wood up to the house from the wood lot, but I'm in building mode at the moment, was outdoors framing until midnight last night. The beginning of burn season and the end of the summer projects always overlap in painful fashion.

 

[kennyp2339]

Mr. Jones - I think the smoke is normal on a new fire in a clean box, my theory is that you need atleast an inch of ash in the base to keep the fire box warm and self sustaining

 

[kf6hap]

It is normal and good for the cat to glow. The purpose of the cat thermometer is to tell you when to close the damper and that is all. It has no other purpose. Dollar bill test all your gaskets, then do not worry about overfiring the cat as the amount of air entering the combustion chamber is limited by the thermostat. Overfiring is a danger in some non BK stoves. The cat need not be glowing to be operating! Buy a moisture meter. They are not expensive. Bring a few pieces into the house and let them come to room temperature. It makes a difference. Split the pieces again and take 3 readings , two readings 1/3rd of the way in from the ends and one in the middle. Average the readings. This will be a good approximation of the actual moisture content. As moisture increases, smoke will too so burn smaller hotter fires. When starting the stove ALWAYS run the stove on high for 20-30 minutes. This "charring" drives out a lot of the moisture (even in relatively dry wood) to prepare it for the smokeless long low burn. I cut, split and stack all my wood before the end of April and have no moisture problems. In my opinion, you have the world's finest wood stove! Do enjoy.

 

[Mr. Jones]

I'm still stumped on the amount of smoke coming out of the chimney. Not really a difference between engaged and not. Pretty sure my new bypass gasket passes the dollar bill test. There's some small gaps in the corner of the cat where the gasket hasn't swollen enough to seal up, but it might be the size of one or two of the cells in the cat. It's hard to tell if there's a difference in the smoke when the flames die down, and new wood is just coaling and smoking in the box. I mean whether it's leaking straight up through the bypass, or coming toward the glass and up into the cat, because the airwash is blowing down by the glass, while the smoke is supposed to be coming up right there to feed teh cat. Cat was working, and even glowing at times after turning the t stat down until it could catch up with the excessive smoke after the flames went out. Then it would just coal there, with smoke rolling around in the box, and no visible glow to the cat. Went outside to look at smoke, and it's definitely there. Like, I might have to sweep this thing after every 4 or 5 fires. After just one fire, there's already wet looking creosote all in the box, since the design of this stove is supposed to be ran real low like that. It's definitely not like the bk video where the guy lifts the flue up, and sticks his hand over the hole to demonstrate how cool it is, and no smoke coming out. If he tried that with mine, he'd had to leave the doors and windows open for a week to get rid of the smoke smell everywhere.

 

[kennyp2339]

Whats the moisture content of the wood your burning? Take a split, resplit it and test it on the fresh split face, dry wood should not leave any liquid creosote marks.

 

[Mr. Jones]

Whats the moisture content of the wood your burning? Take a split, resplit it and test it on the fresh split face, dry wood should not leave any liquid creosote marks.

Where does one get a decent moisture meter? 80 percent of my 8 cords was split last year around September. I do have about a cord that is from the previous year, so two years old. I may have to dig that out. Hopefully it's just my wood is too wet, because if that's not the issue, then I don't know what else to do for the excessive smoke after cat is engaged and working great.

 

[Ashful]

After just one fire, there's already wet looking creosote all in the box, since the design of this stove is supposed to be ran real low like that. It's definitely not like the bk video where the guy lifts the flue up, and sticks his hand over the hole to demonstrate how cool it is, and no smoke coming out. If he tried that with mine, he'd had to leave the doors and windows open for a week to get rid of the smoke smell everywhere.

Sounds like wet wood. You can pick up a decent moisture meter (General brand) at Lowes for under $30. As stated previously, bring wood inside for a day to reach equilibrium temperature, split, test middle and both ends of freshly-exposed face, average the three numbers.

 

[kennyp2339]

Where does one get a decent moisture meter? 80 percent of my 8 cords was split last year around September. I do have about a cord that is from the previous year, so two years old. I may have to dig that out. Hopefully it's just my wood is too wet, because if that's not the issue, then I don't know what else to do for the excessive smoke after cat is engaged and working great.

I got mine at Lowes, I think it was around $25.00, works real good, I simple test you can do also is to make a regular fire with the by-pass open, t-stat turned up and see if your hear the wood hissing or notice any excessive steam.
Also don't forget this BK's are a little more picky when it comes to wood, most stoves makers say 20% moisture for burning were BK says 15% moisture content

 

[begreen]

split, test middle and both ends of freshly-exposed face, average the three numbers.

Good advice, minor clarification - test middle and right and left sides of the freshly split face of the wood. The end grain will not provide an accurate reading.

 

[Dieselhead]

Boil the cat day

 

[Dieselhead]

Water/vinegar WAS clear