2016-17 Blaze King Performance Thread (Everything BK)

[lsucet]

yeah. i really like how it looks and i am not having any issue heating up my place. i just want to know if it is an advantage on that

 

[pvfjr]

yeah. i really like how it looks and i am not having any issue heating up my place. i just want to know if it is an advantage on that

The side shields on the Ashford were the main reason I bought it instead of the Princess. Like mentioned before, you get more conductive heating instead of radiant. What this means in the end, is a warm house instead of a warm room. I liked the fact that the Ashford had side shields, and it wasn't an extra cost option.

 

[webby3650]

The side shields on the Ashford were the main reason I bought it instead of the Princess. Like mentioned before, you get more conductive heating instead of radiant. What this means in the end, is a warm house instead of a warm room. I liked the fact that the Ashford had side shields, and it wasn't an extra cost option.

For some maybe, I prefer the radiant heat. It works best in my house, for me. I like the big heat, shielded sides are fine because of the massive amount of heat from the stove top. An entirely jacketed stove isn't my thing.

 

[BKVP]

I just wanna say thank you to BLAZE KING. My family has owmed a small Greek restaurant for over 31 years and They took care of me like I take care of my customers.

Is your restaurant near Albany?

 

[BKVP]

And the bypass gasket retainers, as @Woody Stover correctly assumed, are four little steel things welded to the roof of the firebox around the rectangular bypass opening to hold the gasket. They are thin and in a pretty harsh location so have been known to melt. These retainers are the weak link of the BK IMO. Not easily replaced when melted.

Highbeam,

Sorry man they are intentionally designed to provide the abusive user a chance to keep much more costly parts from being damaged by improper use. There are hundreds of thousands of these in the field and no more than a couple by pass retainers are replaced each year. And in 100% of those cases, I call the user personally. In 100% of those calls I learn they burn the stove with the door open to "get more heat" or "the wife" never emembers to close the bypass.

The retainers are NOT difficult to replace. I have done the, in a stove with a 110 welder, in 45 minutes. They have 1" stitch welds, so the process is heavy lifting but not time consuming or requiring great experience.

Remove the stove to the outside. Remove the brick. Place pallet with blanket on it and lay stove on side. Grind away the stitch welds. Retainers fall out. Weld in new retainers with stitch welds, replace brink, stand stove up. Cement in gasket. Reinstall stove. Again, not fun, but it protects the stove from being pernamently ruined.

You know from past postings I have race cars. You know my u joints will never break unless I torture them. They ar designed to give way to protect the Curry 9+ race rear end. Same logic. Used correctly, they will last a lifetime.

 

[Jeff in Maine]

BKVP
I am glad to hear you chime in on this. I was sitting here catching up from page 34 on up,.. and read the post you replied to. I thought " great something to look forward to there" I was pleased to hear an insiders opinion on the matter. I really was not looking forward to welding on my 2015 Princess in the future. I have had to do that on some stoves i have owned and I can tell you for the most part welding inside a stove is not much fun.

 

[webby3650]

I have my hands on dozens and dozens of Blaze Kings. I've never seen a failed retainer.

 

[Jeff in Maine]

Thanks I will file this away for future reference ha ha Thanks

 

[Highbeam]

I have my hands on dozens and dozens of Blaze Kings. I've never seen a failed retainer.

Highbeam,

Sorry man they are intentionally designed to provide the abusive user a chance to keep much more costly parts from being damaged by improper use. There are hundreds of thousands of these in the field and no more than a couple by pass retainers are replaced each year. And in 100% of those cases, I call the user personally. In 100% of those calls I learn they burn the stove with the door open to "get more heat" or "the wife" never emembers to close the bypass.

The retainers are NOT difficult to replace. I have done the, in a stove with a 110 welder, in 45 minutes. They have 1" stitch welds, so the process is heavy lifting but not time consuming or requiring great experience.

Remove the stove to the outside. Remove the brick. Place pallet with blanket on it and lay stove on side. Grind away the stitch welds. Retainers fall out. Weld in new retainers with stitch welds, replace brink, stand stove up. Cement in gasket. Reinstall stove. Again, not fun, but it protects the stove from being pernamently ruined.

You know from past postings I have race cars. You know my u joints will never break unless I torture them. They ar designed to give way to protect the Curry 9+ race rear end. Same logic. Used correctly, they will last a lifetime.

Look at the bright side. If the weak link in this system hardly ever fails then we have all bought the right stove. I never said it was common but we've seen it on this forum. It's okay to have a weak link.

Also... my bypass gasket retainers are not 100%. They've sagged between the stitch welds but the gasket seal part of the retainers looks decent. I guarantee that the stove was run per the manual. Is there supposed to be apparent sagging between the stiches?

And no, I won't be welding inside my stove. And no, I don't want some random welder from the phone book doing it either.

 

[Woody Stover]

four little steel things welded to the roof of the firebox around the rectangular bypass opening to hold the gasket. They are thin and in a pretty harsh location so have been known to melt

I imagine it would only be an issue if you ran wide open for too long with the bypass open. But I wonder how many owners know that? Those that don't find out the hard way I guess...

​

 

[becasunshine]

@becasunshine , i have seen the box full of smoke like that a time or two. sounds like yours was complicated by wind.

When i have time i leave the loading door open while the fresh spits catch on the coals.

I brush my pipe every four cords now, may go even longer in the future.

I doubt you had a chimney fire, just a stalled draft the little fire was working against. once the little fire broke through the stall it hadbig draft and got to work.

Poindexter, I am sure you are right.

Chimney fire just didn't make any sense, even while it was happening. No train/whooshing sound, and there simply could not have been enough creosote in the chimney to start or feed a chimney fire.

Hubs cleaned the chimney with a Soot Eater before we started burning this year. We haven't burned a half a cord yet, probably not even a quarter of a cord. It's all really dry (11% moisture or less) aged, split oak.

We are definitely in the shoulder season, with temperatures anywhere from the twenties to the fifties. Tomorrow and the next day will be in the 60s during the day.

I just cleaned the stove and shoveled out the ash and I'm sitting here trying to decide whether I want to re-light the stove tonight or wait a couple of days. No matter what the forecast says, temps here are liable to be a little cooler, or at least the wind chill will create the feeling of lower temps. I'll probably light the stove just to keep from burning propane in the morning.

Anyway, we've been burning on low quite a bit. We've also done a good hot burn for several minutes at least twice a day, as well as burning it wide open for 30 minutes every couple of days. If needed we open the sliding glass door so we can do a "cleaning burn" without running ourselves out of the house.

I am pretty sure that the "back draft" into the house was caused by a cooling stove and an already cool chimney, but with enough coals left in the bottom that the fresh load of splits caught fire. They caught fire, the coals and ash in the bottom starting smoldering big time, and the upper chimney wasn't hot enough to draw. When the chimney heated up, it drafted and everything straightened out.

It happened again to my husband the other day. Long story but again, added splits on top of a generous bed of hot coals in a cooling stove.

Interestingly enough, the common factor in both situations was that we were *really close* to needing to clean the stove. There was, as I said, a generous bed of coals and ash in the bottom of the stove. In both cases I was wringing every BTU out of those coals and stretching toward a warming trend in the weather before I let the coals burn all the way down to clean it.

So yeah... lots of coals, lots of ash, new load of splits, cooling stove, cooling chimney = back draft. About the time I/we think it's time to let the stove burn down to shovel it out, it's time. Procrastinating, hanging on every last BTU, probably ain't doing me any good here.

Thank you for your response, Poindexter!

 

[becasunshine]

Becasunshine, did you open a door when the smoke came in? You state a breeze was at hand during the smoke event. These are clues and they suggest wind blowing down the flue cap might have caused the event. Any exhaust fan on in the house, bathroom, kitchen hood, whole house, HHV or "whole house ventilation", and even an attic ventilation fan can cause smoke spillage. A window cracked open on the down-wind side of the house can cause a negative air pressure in the house too. Except at start-up with the loading door cracked open, an outside air kit ended the smoke spillage when my wife used the kitchen exhaust fan. Things to look for.

Naw, I didn't throw the doors open until the smoke alarms went off. There was already smoke in the house. NOW, that being said- opening the doors and windows did in fact make the back draft/smoke in the house worse, until the chimney started drafting again. It was brief, but remarkable.

As I replied to Poindexter, this happened to my husband once too, just a day or so ago. Both situations had this in common: the stove was on the leading edge of needing to be shoveled out. There was a generous depth of coals and ash in the bottom of the stove. The stove was cooling down, the chimney was probably already cool.

I'm not hugely worried about building creosote because
1. We do hot "cleaning burns" often,
2. Hubs cleaned the chimney before we started burning this year (Soot Eater and a drill)
3. We are burning dry, split oak at 11% humidity or below
4. We've not burned a quarter of a cord yet.

Shoulder season, temps here are anywhere from the 20s to the 50s. Tomorrow and the next day will be in the 60s, although it may be a bit cooler here because of wind chill/wind off of the water. So yeah, we burn low a lot of times. We are diligent about cleaning burns, though, even if we have to open the sliding glass door to keep from melting.

So, both times, we added new splits to a deep bed of coals and ash and that started everything smoldering, and there was not enough chimney draft to lift the smoke right away.

But, you are right, the smoke billowing into the house increased when I threw open the doors that morning. The chimney heated up, started drafting, and problem solved.

Thank you for your response!

 

[Poindexter]

It happened again to my husband the other day. Long story but again, added splits on top of a generous bed of hot coals in a cooling stove.

Yup. You jogged my memory by quoting my earlier post. Something I do every reload that I don't even think about any more.

First thing out of bed in the AM I open the bypass and turn the Tstat up to high. Then go pee, feed the cat, get the paper. Come back and look through the stove window to see how much would I am going to need for the refill, put some coffee on, make the usually two trips to the garage bringing firewood to the hearth..

And only then do I open the door. I am giving my system, gosh, 15 minutes probably for the coal bed in there to re-establish a good draft before I open the door.

Sounds like it might be worth a try.

 

[lsucet]

I always wait a little before open the door. i go by the flue probe, when the probe start moving just a little from where it was i know it is good to go. I crack the door just a bit and few second later i can open the door all the way, no smoke at all. i start then dropping splits in there and when they start catching the smoke still going up thru the bypass. No smoke in the room what so even.

 

[Highbeam]

So these my bypass gasket retainers seem to have melted along only the front of the bypass by the cat. I tested this gasket seal with a small strip of paper and it is very tight, rips the paper before slippage. I see that the OEM uses only a skip weld to hold these retainers and between the welds is where the two sags have occurred. To all of you folks that own these stoves or have been inside hundreds of them, does this look familiar?

Since the gasket tests tight I tend to think it's okay but I don't know. You can easily feel the sags when you run your fingers along the retainers from below.

My wood tested at 14% last night. Three year CSS doug fir. Even with an active and fairly new cat I always seem to get more white smoke than others report when running on low settings.

 

[tarzan]

With the ceramic cat I always had puffs to a steady stream of light smoke while running on the low side of "active." With the new Steelcat not so much, but NEW may be the key word here.

You may not be seeing more smoke than others, you may just be paying more attention do to the restrictions that affect you.

 

[Shayne]

Have been up and running for a week straight now (24/7) on the new stove and all is working excellent. There is a orange sticker in the info package that came with the stove that indicates "Important: adjustment of door gasket maybe necessary after the first few initial fires in this appliance" . Have no idea what the first few means (loads?) as we normally start in the fall and stop in the spring but I have checked the rope and it is mating all around. What exact adjustments would I be looking to do as it has an indent all around and I see no blow-by? Do not want to burn the combustor with an air leak. I guess we can shut it down and start trying to pull money out of it? Is this required?

Regards

 

[webby3650]

Have been up and running for a week straight now (24/7) on the new stove and all is working excellent. There is a orange sticker in the info package that came with the stove that indicates "Important: adjustment of door gasket maybe necessary after the first few initial fires in this appliance" . Have no idea what the first few means (loads?) as we normally start in the fall and stop in the spring but I have checked the rope and it is mating all around. What exact adjustments would I be looking to do as it has an indent all around and I see no blow-by? Do not want to burn the combustor with an air leak. I guess we can shut it down and start trying to pull money out of it? Is this required?

Regards

The most important thing is that you are paying close attention to the stove. The gasket is showing a good indent from the knife edge, the door latches down nice and tight and the fire behaves normally. I would keep rockin, just do a dollar bill test at the first opportunity.

So many people have no idea what their stove is doing, they wouldn't notice if the door was ajar and the fire was going nuts. I think you'll be just fine.

 

[jetsam]

I guess we can shut it down and start trying to pull money out of it? Is this required?

If you can turn down the thermostat on a blazing load and see the flames go out, your door gasket is doing an adequate job.

Do test it all the way around next time the stove is cool, though.

 

[Highbeam]

If you can turn down the thermostat on a blazing load and see the flames go out, your door gasket is doing an adequate job.

Do test it all the way around next time the stove is cool, though.

BK tells us that 95% of cat failures are from leaky door gaskets. I don't recall if it is from the thermal shock of the cold air hitting the cat or from overtemp but the door gasket is very important on our BKs.

 

[Shayne]

Thanks guys, she definitely chokes down by the thermostat and having a bit of trouble below 1/2 (3 o'clock) with black glass, have tried slowly decreasing but the secret is? Since I use a ash vacuum and vacuum with hot coals still in the stove, to start a new, the stove never really gets cold, but maybe I should make a point of shutting it down and checking.

Also note you guys mention numbers on the thermostat in some of your posts, mine just has a increase in thickness line from 12 to 6 o'clock, 12 lowest clockwise to 6 wide open. Is it clock positions you are referring to or do you have actual numbers behind the knob?

Regards

 

[webby3650]

The numbers were removed from the dial a few years ago. God please! Don't get this started again!

 

[Highbeam]

The numbers were removed from the dial a few years ago. God please! Don't get this started again!

I don't believe the inserts, as Shayne has, ever had numbers. Just dots. My 2012 princess stove has actual numbers and graduations thank goodness.

 

[Shayne]

The numbers were removed from the dial a few years ago. God please! Don't get this started again!

Sorry why not? please a post point would be gr8. The old numbers were based on a knob also that went from 12 to 6 o'clock and how many numbers did it go to (divisions). When some notes I turned it down to 1 how does that relate to the new is it 1 o'clock? Just getting up to speed with this new stove, thanks.

EDIT: No insert a stand alone and definitely an idiot thinckening line that rotates from 12 to 6.

Regards

 

[Highbeam]

Sorry why not? please a post point would be gr8. The old numbers were based on a knob also that went from 12 to 6 o'clock and how many numbers did it go to (divisions). When some notes I turned it down to 1 how does that relate to the new is it 1 o'clock? Just getting up to speed with this new stove, thanks.

EDIT: No insert a stand alone and definitely an idiot thinckening line that rotates from 12 to 6.

Regards

The stats with numbers were labeled from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock but the numbers were only 0-3 so a #2 on my stat is not 2 o'clock.

Stats on different models are also different.

These days, to compare to someone else, you need to be sure that you are both saying the same thing. 3 o'clock is pretty conventional. But remember, a 3 o'clock setting on my princess with a 12' chimney and doug fir will probably behave differently than the next princess with the same stat setting and a 30 foot chimney burning hickory. This is probably why BK got rid of the numbers.