I'm looking at the Blaze King Princess as a replacement for my stove. The web site talks about an automatic thermostat to aide in long burns. Is this thermostat just controlling the blower or does it adjust the damper thermostatically? The site does not really specify, unless I missed something.
BK auto thermostat question
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I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out. Probably just a blower thermostat, but I'm not sure.
[quote author="Hiram Maxim" date="1254940426"]It adjust the damper thermostatically?
Thermostat and fan are separate entities on the BK. The fan is adjustable for fan speed and the thermostat controls air flow to get long even burns.
Thermostat and fan are separate entities on the BK. The fan is adjustable for fan speed and the thermostat controls air flow to get long even burns.
The bimettalic thermostat opens and closes the primary air intake to add or take away combustion air to slow or increase the fire. The stat measures stove temp and works to regulate the stove temp by adjusting combustion air.
It's like cruise control for your stove. A fine feature that I wish more folks used. If it breaks, the stat defaults to fully closed to prevent overfire.
The optional fans are a whole different thing.
It's like cruise control for your stove. A fine feature that I wish more folks used. If it breaks, the stat defaults to fully closed to prevent overfire.
The optional fans are a whole different thing.
The BIG difference between the Blaze Kings and other stoves on the market is the thermostat that regulates the air for combustion. It is a simple, time proven and reliable device to relieve you from constantly getting up to manually control your stove. If you have a car with a watercooled engine, you already use this technology and it works so well you probably don't give it a second thought. Just imagine if your car didn't have a thermostat. You would shut off a valve on the engine to turn the water off. Start it and watch the temp guage, when it warmed up, you would get out and go open the valve to let cooling water get to the engine. You could only drive a mile or so before you would have to stop and adjust the water flow again to control the engine temperature. It would be difficult to keep a steady engine temperature, and you would be thinking of little else besides adjusting the flow. Of course if you did not pay attention to regulating the flow, you would be walking in short order. A simple thermostat solves this problem, so well we do not give it a second thought.
Which leads me to question why, with all the technology that has gone into making efficient stoves, hardly any use this technology. 30 years ago it was not hard to find thermostatic stoves, and was used on cheap stoves like ashley, monarch, monkey wards, etc.
With my blaze kings (owned 4 of them in different homes, but never worn one out yet) I adjust the control maybe 5 times in a winter, and have very uniform heat in the house.
From what I hear, the new models have some type of thermostat on the blowers to turn them off when the stove cools. My princess is 17 years old, so mine does not have that feature, and frankly it is not something high on my "want list" anyway. I never use the fan on mine unless it drops below zero and the wind is howling. The fans I've had on my kings are annoyingly loud, and they tend to "buzz" when the slightest piece of sheetmetal gets loose. Certainly not a deal killer, just not my favorite part of the stove.
Which leads me to question why, with all the technology that has gone into making efficient stoves, hardly any use this technology. 30 years ago it was not hard to find thermostatic stoves, and was used on cheap stoves like ashley, monarch, monkey wards, etc.
With my blaze kings (owned 4 of them in different homes, but never worn one out yet) I adjust the control maybe 5 times in a winter, and have very uniform heat in the house.
From what I hear, the new models have some type of thermostat on the blowers to turn them off when the stove cools. My princess is 17 years old, so mine does not have that feature, and frankly it is not something high on my "want list" anyway. I never use the fan on mine unless it drops below zero and the wind is howling. The fans I've had on my kings are annoyingly loud, and they tend to "buzz" when the slightest piece of sheetmetal gets loose. Certainly not a deal killer, just not my favorite part of the stove.
Are the fans standard on the king model? The guy I am about to get one from said they are. The web site says they are a option.
There isn't anything loose, I guess it depends on your reference point. It is orders of magnitude louder than the ceiling fan and the stove is in the middle of the space we spend most of our time in. Not a big deal, just won't use them unless gone for the day or overnight.
As to the fan noise, a lot will depend on your house. Ours sits in the corner of our great room which is all wood, including the ceiling, which echos a bit. We had a king in our other house which didn't have the same echo effect, and the noise was less distracting.
There is (or were, my kings were all older models) a sheetmetal grate that attaches with two screws, one on each fan. If they were the slightest bit out of whack, they emit a loud buzz at a certain fan speed. The fix is to loosen them, and either tweak the screen to make it tighter, or wedge something like a piece of cardboard between the screen and housing to eliminate the vibration. At low speed, it is not a problem, but there is a harmonic vibration that comes and goes with the speed selected. Like I said, it is not a deal breaker, but if I had to pick something to gripe about, this would be my first choice. Pretty minimal problem considering how well the stove itself works.
Before I found this forum, I quit talking about the blaze king, people simply thought I was lying about it.
There is (or were, my kings were all older models) a sheetmetal grate that attaches with two screws, one on each fan. If they were the slightest bit out of whack, they emit a loud buzz at a certain fan speed. The fix is to loosen them, and either tweak the screen to make it tighter, or wedge something like a piece of cardboard between the screen and housing to eliminate the vibration. At low speed, it is not a problem, but there is a harmonic vibration that comes and goes with the speed selected. Like I said, it is not a deal breaker, but if I had to pick something to gripe about, this would be my first choice. Pretty minimal problem considering how well the stove itself works.
Before I found this forum, I quit talking about the blaze king, people simply thought I was lying about it.
SolarAndWood said:
Does your cat go inactive when you do an overnight burn ? Haven't gotten mine yet, but that is disappointing.
That's why I didn't get 'em. Figure I could always retrofit.
I bet they went away from the thermostat stove because they don't work with the new EPA non cats since they need that separate secondary air supply. Non cats probably make up 80% or more of the total new stoves out there so the thermostat stove is dieing out. I wonder how hard it would be to rig up my stove with a thermostat?
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