Dissapointed in New Blaze King King

[webby3650]

Nope, The stove, and the forced air furnace, are in the basement.

The chimney structure, of cinder block, runs from the basement floor, up through the main floor, through the upstairs, out and above the peak of the roof line.

The fireplace in the Main floor living room, uses a separate flue, built in to the same structure. Both cleanouts are downstairs, about a foot off floor level.

Full unfinished open basement, about 1100 Sq Ft. Fully utilized main floor living space, same, upstairs, three rooms, mostly sealed off from the rest of the house (steep pitched roof, room walls slope in, reducing volume, rooms not as large an area as lower levels.

2200 feet used living space, another 900 or so above. Decently large sized house.

I spend (too much) time in the basement sitting about 4 or 5 feet away from this stove. It is not uncomfortable hot here.

Cheers
Trev

I'm doing my weekly hour long high burn, it's approaching 90 in the living room with the stove.

 

[BuckyBeaver524]

Looks like you have a lazy BK King.

 

[webby3650]

I'm doing my weekly hour long high burn, it's approaching 90 in the living room with the stove.

Actually...

 

[trevj]

Doug fir dries quickly given the right conditions. Give it low humidity and wind and it dries out very fast and I mean fresh cut green doug fir, not standing dead. I think it's safe to assume that the wood is dry and move on.

trevj, can you ask your dealer to put a manometer or magnehelic guage on the flue and measure draft? This may be a negative pressure issue, not uncommon with basement stoves.

I am going to see if I can round up a Manometer around here. The dealer is a two hours drive from here, in Kamloops. Bit far to jaunt over and back twice around.

Will see if I can get a wood moisture meter locally in the next few days. Couple of my friends do some woodworking, and may have one I can borrow to cross check results.

Cheers
Trev

 

[webby3650]

Any stovetop temperatures?

 

[trevj]

Pitch isnt the problem. I am burning spruce only this year, my combustor treats pitch like cocaine.

It doesnt seem right that you are running the cat up to near max and not having to open a window to keep from getting cooked.

I dont have a king, i have an ashford 30, but i think the king requires a 8" round or equivalent flue.

It _sounds_ to me like your wood is dry enough, but probably 75% of threads like this end up being wood wetter than 22%mc. Can you maybe borrow a moisture meter and close that door?

Ass/u/me-ing your wood probably is dry enough, i defer to folks like begreen, highbeam, bholler and webby3650 for install advice.

I suspect it might make economic sense to trade out the stove for somethibg a little smaller rather than do a bunch of chimney work. Bkvp would be another one whose advice i would take to the bank.

So I add you to the list of guys that say that pitch is not an issue. About as many say that it is, and that I should avoid it at all cost, etc.

New chimney, is definitely not in the cards. Would require either a total wreck and rebuild of what is here, or to block it off and run a new one up to height. Nope.

Smaller? Egads. I wanted BIGGER! ,<sigh>.

My perfect world is to load the box once a day around noon, have enough control to be able to scale back the heat, and enough heat when I want it, to warm the house up in a hurry without having to kick the heat elements in on my furnace.

Wood I get a LOT of, for free, for the cutting and splitting. My major cost is bar oil, followed by fuel and chains, for the saw, and gas for the quad. I don't really care so much, if I have to put a conveyor in to feed the firebox. I want the HEAT!

Cheers
Trev

 

[webby3650]

So I add you to the list of guys that say that pitch is not an issue. About as many say that it is, and that I should avoid it at all cost, etc.

New chimney, is definitely not in the cards. Would require either a total wreck and rebuild of what is here, or to block it off and run a new one up to height. Nope.

Smaller? Egads. I wanted BIGGER! ,<sigh>.

My perfect world is to load the box once a day around noon, have enough control to be able to scale back the heat, and enough heat when I want it, to warm the house up in a hurry without having to kick the heat elements in on my furnace.

Wood I get a LOT of, for free, for the cutting and splitting. My major cost is bar oil, followed by fuel and chains, for the saw, and gas for the quad. I don't really care so much, if I have to put a conveyor in to feed the firebox. I want the HEAT!

Cheers
Trev

You are describing a Blaze King King.

 

[trevj]

Any stovetop temperatures?

Just put a thermocouple onto the stove top with a insulating fire brick on top to hold in place.

Seems pretty stable right around 330 deg C, aka 625 deg F, a few inches in front of the cat temp indicator, which is pinned a bit past horizontal to the hot side, not off the scale there yet with maybe a quarter inch to go.
edit: Went and had a quick dinner, and the temp now reads at 370C/700 deg F

Real numbers, instead of "It's hot". Whoodathunkit?



Thanks!

Cheers
Trev

 

[webby3650]

625 on high is not impressive at all. Should be 800-900 right above the cat..

 

[begreen]

Actually...

Please don't post pics of you running naked around the living room.

 

[begreen]

So I add you to the list of guys that say that pitch is not an issue. About as many say that it is, and that I should avoid it at all cost, etc.

Doug fir is my favorite firewood. I have a stash of locust and madrona for extra heat, but I love burning doug fir the most.

 

[Niko]

Everytime i had or have problems with my stove its becasue of the wood not being dry, I was going crazy for a bit but it took me some time to figure out the stove. I still get some problems here and their but it all goes to the wood.

Can you post pictures of your setup?

 

[trevj]

Doug fir is my favorite firewood. I have a stash of locust and madrona for extra heat, but I love burning doug fir the most.

It's pretty much Doug Fir around here unless you find some beetle kill pine, and don't mind burning that.

Limited hardwoods, though I did buck up some standing dead maple (silver maple?) and burn that. Nice stuff.
Horses had stripped the bark, killing the tree trunks.

While living just North of Edmonton Alberta, I heated for several years on almost exclusively poplar off burn piles that had been formed while clearing land. Terrible stuff, too much ash, and the larger trunks held enough water for long enough to rot them out before they would dry, but by picking the stuff that was off the ground but dry enough the bark came off easily, it was adequate, and best of all, free.

Cheers
Trev

 

[Poindexter]

I am comfortable loading two spruce splits with baseball chunks of dried pitch on each into my stove together with a load of other splits without big globs on them, onto hot coals with a combustor ready to engage as soon as i get the door shut.

Is the pitch in yours sticky or dry like a diamond crystal?

 

[jeff_t]

I'd say with about 99% certainty that your problems are all draft related. The already cool exhaust temps characteristic of an efficient cat stove, further cooled by the masonry chimney, and the extra bends, are leading to the smoke spillage, and you don't have enough draft to let the thermostat work its magic.

But that's just my guess. It's the one glaring detail that is way off from what works for everyone else.

 

[trevj]

You are describing a Blaze King King.

Well, maybe not in these circumstances.

 

[Poindexter]

My experience with pitch from live cut white and black spruce is the beads on the ends of the split get bigger and bigger down to about 30%mc, crust over around 25%mc and are crunchy all way through when the split is down aroind 16%mc.

Doug fir doesnt grow near me.

 

[rdust]

Stoves are simple, it's the chimney, the wood or maybe the stove just isn't capable of the heat load you need it to handle. The chimney is suspect and the wood sounds like it should be good. I guess the million dollar question would be if the chimney was made up to snuff would the stove then provide enough heat to cover your heat load.

I've heard it posted many time on this forum, "if I was installing the stove in the basement it would be an ugly blaze king". I feel cat stoves are a much better fit in an insulated living space. No reason to spend the premium on a cat stove if you can never enjoy the low burning ability of the stove. When you need to burn a stove hot to heat the space I would use the cheapest stove with the biggest available firebox.

 

[trevj]

I am comfortable loading two spruce splits with baseball chunks of dried pitch on each into my stove together with a load of other splits without big globs on them, onto hot coals with a combustor ready to engage as soon as i get the door shut.

Is the pitch in yours sticky or dry like a diamond crystal?

Some block sized sections of the previous tree , were saturated almost solid clear fatwood. Other sections had checks passing above half inch in thickness, filled with slabs of buttery solid pitch. The knots around some of the branches were also pretty saturated.

So, variable, but lots of it. Mostly leaning towards dry though.

This last tree that fell for the cause, was clear, with very little pitch at all. Was almost a shame to buck it up.

Cheers
Trev

 

[trevj]

Stoves are simple, it's the chimney, the wood or maybe the stove just isn't capable of the heat load you need it to handle. The chimney is suspect and the wood sounds like it should be good. I guess the million dollar question would be if the chimney was made up to snuff would the stove then provide enough heat to cover your heat load.

I've heard it posted many time on this forum, "if I was installing the stove in the basement it would be an ugly blaze king". I feel cat stoves are a much better fit in an insulated living space. No reason to spend the premium on a cat stove if you can never enjoy the low burning ability of the stove. When you need to burn a stove hot to heat the space I would use the cheapest stove with the biggest available firebox.

I pretty much shopped for just that. And was sold this.

I REALLY wanted a big ol`plain ugly box with a chimney, and room for about two whellbarrow loads of wood at a time. Preferably in two foot long or longer chunks. I was repeatedly told that I was pretty much as close to that as I was going to get, with the Blaze King.

I was really clear to the various guys I spoke with. I didn`t need colors or patterns to choose from, I didn`t want a glass door, and I didn`t care if it was ugly, if it threw serious heat.

I repeatedly made it clear I was looking for a heating appliance, not a fashionable addition to my decor.

This one ain`t half bad to look at, I am just not getting the performance I was assured I would.

Cheers
Trev

 

[trevj]

I`m gonna bail on y`all for a while.
Will see what I can round up in the way of a manometer and moisture meters and report back.

Cheers
Trev

 

[Poindexter]

Buttery solid pitch in alaskan spruces would be north of 20%mc.

 

[webby3650]

I pretty much shopped for just that. And was sold this.

I REALLY wanted a big ol`plain ugly box with a chimney, and room for about two whellbarrow loads of wood at a time. Preferably in two foot long or longer chunks. I was repeatedly told that I was pretty much as close to that as I was going to get, with the Blaze King.

I was really clear to the various guys I spoke with. I didn`t need colors or patterns to choose from, I didn`t want a glass door, and I didn`t care if it was ugly, if it threw serious heat.

I repeatedly made it clear I was looking for a heating appliance, not a fashionable addition to my decor.

This one ain`t half bad to look at, I am just not getting the performance I was assured I would.

Cheers
Trev

And That's exactly what the King does. You were not mislead. You have some unique situation going on. My quess would be on the undersized chimney and uninsulated basement.

 

[trevj]

Buttery solid pitch in alaskan spruces would be north of 20%mc.

Maybe. What`s that work out to in resin content in a Doug Fir?

That is not the wood I am burning right now in any case. The current wood is fir from a clean dry tree, not the pitchy one.

 

[Poindexter]

I am not experienced with the pitch in doug fir. I am all the way at the north end of the AlCan and another 200km after that north and west of you.

I think its a possible indicator that maybe your wood isnt quite dry enough possibly. If it meters 16% ill chall it up to my not being familiar with doug fir.

No offense intended, just trying to help.