Blaze King Princess and King question

It's not off my long term list. But it is still too early to tell if it would fit my needs. Ideally I would like to do three of the same stove. So, if the Progress has a problem holding a full load and burning at a certain temp, I'm not sure if that is for me.

But, the occasional report that it can burn for 24 hours is promising.

Also, with three stoves start-up time is important, and soapstone is slower to heat up. If you are only dealing with one stove, it really isn't that much of a difference, but when three stoves are involved, that is extra time spent waiting for heat each time. The difference from the 30 and Defiant when compared to the Heritage is pretty big when it comes to throwing heat and warming the room.

I agree with all you say but the dang thing is so sexy..lol.
I bet you could find a way to block off that secondary air for the tubes if you wanted.
If that was done is the cat big enough to get er done I wonder?

Checked the stove before bed, stove top 450, cat 1100, flue 380. The sides are relatively cool at about 250. The sides were hotter when I reloaded this afternoon, now the fire is burning through the middle leaving unburnt wood insulating the sides. I bet tomorrow morning the sides will be hotter.

Thanks. The numbers help me understand how it would heat each area of my home.

It is a looker, no argument there. And I think it would work incredibly well as a cat only stove, but it's not. So I need to see if it would work for me in the form it is in in case blocking the air tubes is not an option. Thankfully, I'm in no rush, I'm warm, and have a 5+ year window to plan this out (which is about the time the VC stoves might lose their luster).

B-Bar, the stove's you're thinking of swapping out, what are the flue requirements? 6" or 8"? Are you good with going to an 8" if required?

I'm at 6" for all three. Two chimneys are at about 25'-28' and the third is at 18'. I'm almost inclined to try a King with a 6" liner. I seriously wonder what that would be like. I ran a vigilant that requires a 8" liner with a 6" liner and had good results, though a Pre-EPA stove is hardly a good comparison for a modern stove.

Still, I would like to know what my results would be.

It's a good question, as far as the reduction in flue diam. is concerned.
I am not a good candidate to advise on this, as I burn Pine and my altitude screws things up. That being said, if it would work, I'd go with the King in every area.
I'm in single digits now at night, and still,- 7-10 splits of Pine in 24hrs., 70* plus in the house w/ R-11 in the walls.
I am looking at that new Regency 5100 though, more radiant heat than the BK.

If it had legs I would be more excited about it. As far as looks go, I would lean towards a BK with legs than something else with a pedestal.

Fess up. You like the looks of "Jabba the Hot", don'cha.

I don't usually load the stove full unless it's cold out (below zero). 3-4 splits with the air cut off will keep the houabout around 70* for 12-16 hrs.

Stove temps at 400+ that whole time would have me opening windows!

Just check the stove at 8:30am, stove top 330, cat 700, flue 250, sides 265. Still plenty of fuel in the stove. I'll let it go til 4pm, should keep the house above 70. Sometimes if the house temps drop I can just turn up the stat for a bit then turn it back down. No need for that today.

Because of this thread I drug out the surface meter and stuck it in place right in front of the cat probe meter. Should be the hottest spot. After about three hours since a reload of 5 splits (50% full) and on stat setting 1.5 (lowest I can go) the top temp in that spot is 550.

As part of trying to truobleshoot my stove I borrowed the thermal camera from work. You can see some of the temperature distribution... although it was after 1 1/2 hours on 2 or 2.5 and I did alot of fiddling with the "stat".

Cool. Raging BK. Wonder how the distribution would change for the lower burns.

I hope you do buy three Ashford 30's... when you do your annual stove replacements the following year, I'll take them off your hands.

Either that, or we could place a joint order for a cool six-pack of them.

Ok, coming up on 24 hours, time to reload. Stove top 295, cat 600, flue 240, sides 275. House still holding temp with outside highs in the mid 40's today. So it looks like after it settles in for a low burn at 1.5 the stove top temps right on top of the cat starts out in the 500's then slowly drop down to 300 by the end of my 24 hour burn. You can also see slight spikes in the temps every time the t-stat opens up but I'd just average the whole burn to around 400 for the 24 hours.

Interesting. That's still usable heat .

Cool beans!
I want one!

Hot beans if your cooking.

Cool thermo pics!! I'm surpised more manufacturers don't have thermo pics like that of their stoves running at different levels on their websites. Although, alot of them probably don't want people to see what they "really" look like (aka they might not be favorable...?).

Amazingly, it looks like your sides are 65 degrees, while the middle of the top (cat?) is about 400 in those pics. So the quesiton to me is, if you are standing 5 feet in front of the unit how much heat (if any?) do you feel coming off the unit? Does it feel like your in front of a fireplace with some hot radiant heat? Or is it just barely warm, or nothing at all? And the same questions for if you are 10' in front of it.

Great thread!!

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Mach, check out the glass temps. Tons of radiant heat will pour out of the glass of all stoves when there's a fire.

5 feet away I can feel the heat from the glass, 10 feet none at all. Very similar to an open fireplace.

With my stove, the heat I "feel" standing in front of it is mostly the radiant variety, thru the glass, and therefore highly dependent on "fire show". Standing 5'- 10' in front of the stove, I can actually make it feel hotter at cooler stove temps with a small load burning wide open, than at higher stove temps with a larger load throttled down.