2016-17 Blaze King Performance Thread (Everything BK)
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I replaced my cat at the beginning of the season. I had 5 seasons on it, it still would light off fine but wasn't creating the heat that a new cat does. My chimney was also a bit dirtier than normal too. My typical season is from the end of Sept-April with some May burning as needed.
BKVP
Minister of Fire
Your assumption is called residence time. Keep your front door gasket sealed and don't burn junk, just good dry cord wood and it will be vastly longer than 3.3 years...
aansorge
Minister of Fire
BKVP
Minister of Fire
All Blaze King combustors MUST use a gasket. The supplier does not know what they are speaking (writing of), with regard to our products. We would encourage all to use Blaze King dealers or www.firecatcombustors.com and not other online resellers.
I don't have fans and am wondering does the operation of the fans cause the flue temperature to drop? If so, by how much?
I believe it may be the opposite and causes it to rise but have no way to measured it. I believe this to be true because the behavior of the stove changed once I put the fans on it. My logic is the fans strip heat from the metal surfaces of the stove and those metal temperatures impact the thermostatic air control quite significantly and cause it to open. So you run the fans and you're taking heat out of the metal and the thermostat damper opens more to burn the fire hotter to replenish that heat (specific to the thermostats air setting). The end result is you burn a hotter fire (I.e. more fuel) at any given point in time and at all air control settings and therefore you have a hotter flue exit temperature from the stove. I've only had my fans since Friday and I've noticed the stove seems to stay high in the active zone even once the wood is in the coaling phase. It seems to burn the coals down better too.
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What are these circular red tabs? I'm going to probably pick up a replacement cat but I'm a little confused about what these are and if they would be supplied with the cat.
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Strictly a guess on my behalf but they look like a shim with some sort of high temp sealant (in red). Who makes that cat? Is that the cat the stove came with from BK? I wonder if the cat has the gasket around it if those are in fact shims.
I honestly don't know the history of the stove as it came with the house. Doesn't look original to the princess insert?
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It looks like someone put the cat in without a gasket and used two quarters to snug it up....but I could be wrong!
Quarters, oh jeez! They might be a bit too big to be that, but whatever they are, if it's not the correct BK setup, I want to fix it! Makes me wonder how much performance I could have been missing out on.. been burning this way for 3 years
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Thanks - looking at the ACI-63C, which is listed as correct for a PI 1010A. I'm not sure of the model number of my princess insert - anyone know if this is the correct cat for all the years of the Princess insert?
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
Firecat has cheaper cats! But they too recommend the use of a pipe cleaner to brush the cells.
black smoke signals
Feeling the Heat
Cat your looking at is canned YOU REALLY need the serial number or a picture of your insert check out these two links http://www.blazeking.com/PDF/manuals/old/KEI-1300_PEI-1200.pdf
Woody Stover
Minister of Fire
That looks like a diesel-foil cat. Yes, without the interam gasket, it's quite possible that a significant amount of smoke could be getting past the combustor un-burned, so less heat produced. That cat looks dusty...have you gently brushed the face and blown it out at any point? No compressed air! If the cat is more than three yrs. old, it might start to decline in performance...but it's possible that cat may still be working. Can you see it glowing after you've re-loaded the stove, have it up to temp, and closed the bypass? If you feel like messing with it, you could also try cleaning the cat to see if that will improve its performance. Either use distilled white vinegar in a pan to soak the cat a while, then thoroughly rinse several times with distilled water. Or you can do this, probably works a little better but it's a little stinky in the house; http://www.condar.com/combustorcleaningmanual.pdf
Then, using masking tape to hold the ends in place, wrap interam gasket snugly around the edge of the cat as many times as necessary to fill the gaps between the cat and the frame (the gasket will get a little thicker when heated, so the wrapped cat doesn't need to be tight in the frame when first installed.) http://www.woodmanspartsplus.com/782441/products/Interam-Gasket-Material.html
My insert looks like the one in the video and not the one in the manual. Does that give enough confidence to go ahead with the Firecat one?
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Woody Stover
Minister of Fire
Yeah, pull the surround, then you should be able to use a mirror or something to get a look or take a pic of the metal tag.
But that's a diesel-foil cat, not canned...
Thanks for the info. I know from some BKVP posts that diesel foil is not ideal to use and I'm likely going to replace with a ceramic cat with proper gasket.
The cat does glow and yes, I gently brushed it when I did my sweep a few months ago. I've never been blown away by my burn times or heat output so if a new cat will help I'm definitely going to give it a shot.
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Ok great, I'll give it a look when I get home.
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Woody Stover
Minister of Fire
Looking at the firecat link, the ceramic cat has the Princess listed in the applications, but I also see a new-generation steel cat (Dura-Foil) with the same dimensions, so I'm pretty sure you could use either type even though they don't have the Princess listed under the steel cat.
http://www.firecatcombustors.com/category-s/1209.htm
In your place, I would probably get a new cat to have one in stock, but I might try the cleaning procedure on the old one, just for the heck of it.
But even though your old cat is glowing, it may be diminished in performance. If so, it will require hotter stove temps before it will light off, and will quit burning sooner as the burn matures. How long the cat burns is also going to depend on what kind of wood you are burning. The denser the wood, the longer the burn of course.
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jetsam
Minister of Fire
That doesn't look like dieselfoil to me from the photo... in any case, you could actually see a nice performance bump just from gasketing the old one. If it was me, I'd buy a new one and a couple gaskets, and hold the old one for a spare.
Also, while googling for a copy of that substrate spec sheet from emsclad, I came across another forum where some internet denizens named Highbeam and Woody Stover were discussing cat maintenance...
Also, while googling for a copy of that substrate spec sheet from emsclad, I came across another forum where some internet denizens named Highbeam and Woody Stover were discussing cat maintenance...
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