cmcramer said:
cycloxer said:
That is a massive amount of wood consumption. At that rate, you'd burn 10 cords from November through March. Wow. What are you trying to heat?
My Quad 4300 is located in my walk-in basement: very handy for wheelbarrows of wood, but not so handy for heating our living space above. I have to run it close to full out, I burn 10 cords...from November to March (and a cord for October + April), using maple and beech I have seasoned for 1.5 years. I can't imagine that stove burning that much wood in a living room or den....
Holy Cow!
I want to see this thing.
I used to burn in a hugely inefficient wood burning furnace that was located in the basement. It could eat three wheelbarrows a day during the coldest months (last two weeks of Dec. - first two weeks of Feb.) - good beech, hickory and black locust. It seemed all I ever did was cut, split and stack. Bought a ton as well.
The unit was about 50 years old and leaky as hell. I used to prop a big log against the draft door (about 4" x 12") at night to slow the thing down. No gaskets anywhere. It had a piece of cast iron inside it that was bigger than some wood stoves built today that ran through the top of the mammoth firebox. The design called for getting that chunk of iron hot enough to start pumping hot air into an enormous air plenum that ran out into a network of ducts leading to various spots in the huge old farm house (even draftier than the stove) and cold air returns led back to the basement. The ducts were covered in asbestos that was peeling so bad I was afraid to go near them, and I wouldn't allow my kids to go down there because I was worried about the loose asbestos. The whole setup looked like a deranged Medusa head with snakes in full molt.
Still, even though this thing could consume massive amounts of wood when it needed to, the most I ever burned in a full season was about 10 cords.
My mother used to run an Episcopal conference center in Cooperstown, NY. The main "house" was the 39 room, four story Ryerson mansion (old man Ryerson went down on the Titantic), and it was heated by
three wood furnaces nearly identical to mine, but in much better condition. They told me they went through 75 cords of wood a year, but when I did a quick count of the wood on hand, I realized that they meant face cords. I estimated pretty near 25 cords were packed into the enormous basement. They ran these things constantly, with the caretaker doing midnight fills of all three. 24/7 for six months, and they burned less than 10 cords each.
I wonder how hot a 57,000 BTU stove with an 80% efficiency rating would make a modern home burning that much wood? 10 cords of seasoned beech will produce 240,000,000 BTUs of heat energy. 57,000 BTUs x 24 hours x 30 days/month x 5 months = 205,000,000 BTUs. 10 cords of beech burned at 80% efficiency = 192,000,000 BTUs. That implies several possibilities:
- If you buy your wood, you may be getting screwed
- You may not have an insulated basement
- The QF efficiency numbers may be off
- The QF 4300 would have to running constantly at peak, 24/7 without a rest, for 5 months a year.
- You need to get a bigger stove... that one will be burnt out in short order
No disrespect intended, but that is more wood than I thought was possible to shove through just about any modern stove. My stove is rated at 50,000 BTUs. I estimate I will burn 5 1/2 cords this year based on consumption so far. I burn 24/7 from Nov. through the middle of April most years. Backup is electric resistance, and at 15 cents/KWH I can't afford to use it except in the coldest times of year (to bump up a degree or two). My old stove would have used about 4 1/2 cords and the place would have been 3-4 degrees colder that we are enjoying now.
The 12 cords of wood through the BK King are even more amazing since that stove is only rated at 47,000 BTU. From the BK site (sections in bold type by me):
The Facts on Btu's
There are only two rating methods that mean something to you, the consumer:
1. The first is the Btu output that is achieved during EPA testing. This testing is quite complicated and costly milled woods are burned. This is a standard for all manufacturer testing and is not intended to provide consumers with a model for how a stove will burn in their home.
2. The second method is what Blaze King refers to as the "Real World" method.
These Btu's are achieved during in house testing using the same thing a consumer burns, split, dry cordwood. In our tests, we use fir. The "Real World" Btu's listed are what the average consumer can expect to achieve, with slight variations depending upon geographical location, type of wood, elevation and amount of fuel added. Higher Btu's are possible. If you were to stand in front of your stove and frequently add fuel, burn the unit on high and have optimal conditions, the PE1006 could produce as high as 87,850 Btu's and the KE1107 could exceed 90,000 Btu's!
However, maximum Btu's would only be achievable at a certain "peak" during the burn.
Blaze King does not wish to mislead you, so we give you all the facts.
So, yes.... these stoves will put out mega amounts of heat, but only for short periods of time. Each addition of wood will drop stove temps a bit for at least a little while, (unless you are standing there feeding small pieces every few minutes like a pellet stove), and overnight burns will not be maintained at near peak at all.
Then there are the shoulders of the wood heating season to consider. Yes, I can feed my stove 1/2 a cord of wood in a week during a -20ºF cold snap, but I can't imagine even walking into the basement if I did that during most of Nov. or Mar... or
any of Oct. or April.
