BK Princess up and running!

[tobaccogrower]

got the call yesterday morning. my stove arrived! took the drive down and picked it up. instrall wasnt too bad. myself and a couple friends(beer helped motivate them) handtrucked the crate to the final resting place. the most diffacult part was plumbing in the stove pipe. whoever built my chimney didnt have the common sence to center the thimble.

right off the bat i had a poor draft. smoke spilling out into the room when lighting the kindling. after a bit of not so nice words i cchecked the cleanout in the basement. the chimney sweep left the door open and didnt re install the fiberglass insulation i use to make it air tight. seems good to go now.

some kindling and a few small splits and she was up and running. let the cat probe get to about the 11 oclock position the closed the bypass. cat climed till it was almost to the max position with the thermostat set at #3. i knew the stove would be smokey while breaking in but holy XXXX this thingreally smoked up the house even with all the windows open and 2 box fans running. my smoke alarms were going crazy! took a good 2 hours for the smoke to clear off and out.

burned down to coals and threw in a load load at 9 last night. closed bypass and in 5 minute incruments turned the thermostst down from 3 to 1.5

woke up this morning at 6 to a warm 70* house. turned the dial back up to 3 and to my suprise(not really) she took off again and still had 2 3/4 burnt logs and a ton of coals!

sorry about the pic's. cell camera

 

[jeff_t]

Congrats. Welcome to the boring Blaze King world. Hope you don't enjoy messing with the stove too much

 

[brian89gp]

Nice install.

edit: Moved as to not derail this thread

 

[charger4406]

congrats and hope you enjoy your new princess!

 

[raybonz]

Nice stove and hearth! Personally I would have used the straight pipe on the stove then the 45 and 90 onto that into the chimney. That's how I piped in the stove.. I attached a pic to show what I mean..

Ray

 

[Highbeam]

Nice stove. I just am so distracted by the problem.

That flue situation you have there would be unacceptable in my home. The pipe isn't even in the collar all the way, is single wall, and you aren't supposed to have a bend right on this stove. It would be better to at least shift the stove to the right and clean up that crazy bend on the stove top so that you get a good engagement at that point.They also sell a single wall slip joint so you could keep the stove centered but get all the pieces to fit properly.

 

[weatherguy]

Nice stove, that pipe would drive me crazy too, if you did it the way Ray did it would look better.

 

[tobaccogrower]

Ya I know the pipe is shotty. I'm going to do the correct vertical install with double wall pipe. Thus is jut to get up and running for now. My last install was like rays. Where is a good place to get double wall pipe?

Btw, I love this stove! Keep getting up to check it but the same old thing is going on. Only loaded it up half way e/w once today at lunch. All my seasoned wood was cut 20 inches to fit my dutch west. Time to get a chop saw!

 

[weatherguy]

Ya I know the pipe is shotty. I'm going to so the correct vertical install with double wall pipe. Thus is jut to get up and running for now. My last install was like rays. Where is a good place to get double wall pipe?

Btw, I love this stove! Keep getting up to check it but the same old thing is going on. Only loaded it up half way e/w once today at lunch. All my seasoned wood was cut 20 inches to fit my ditch west. Time to get a chop saw!

I had the same problem my first year, my brother in law dropped off four loads of wood and most of it was 2 inches too long, when I bought the wood I didnt have a stove so I thought the length would be ok, now if I have any too long I use this contraption I made, goes much quicker than a chop saw

 

[nate379]

20" will fit fine E-W loading. I've had a few that I must have cut in the dark or something that I've had to load like that.

 

[Woody Stover]

Congrats, tg! From all accounts this is a great heater and you're sure to enjoy the flexibility you have running a cat stove.

Thus is just to get up and running for now. My last install was like rays

Yeah, Ray's setup looks good. With 20+ feet of stack, you should have plenty of draft even with a couple of turns in the pipe...

 

[tobaccogrower]

loaded up with 4 splits e/w last night at 9:30. set her to about 1 3/4. just went and checked (7:30) and stove top is at 400* and have enough coals to go for a few more hours. i crancked her up just so i can load her up again. record temps here today(60) so i'll get to turn her down low and see how she likes it!


Weatherguy: how does that contraption work? do you stick the log in it and put your foot on the log and use your saw to trim to length?

anyone ever use a chopsaw to size up splits? everything i'm cutting now is 16''

 

[jeff_t]

Weatherguy: how does that contraption work? do you stick the log in it and put your foot on the log and use your saw to trim to length?

anyone ever use a chopsaw to size up splits? everything i'm cutting now is 16''

This is mine. Some use a strap to hold the splits tight.

 

[PapaDave]

loaded up with 4 splits e/w last night at 9:30. set her to about 1 3/4. just went and checked (7:30) and stove top is at 400* and have enough coals to go for a few more hours.

That would be sooooo nice.
Gotta' get me one.

 

[Todd]

Congrats on the new stove, your going to love it. The heat output control of these stoves are awesome.

 

[weatherguy]

loaded up with 4 splits e/w last night at 9:30. set her to about 1 3/4. just went and checked (7:30) and stove top is at 400* and have enough coals to go for a few more hours. i crancked her up just so i can load her up again. record temps here today(60) so i'll get to turn her down low and see how she likes it!


Weatherguy: how does that contraption work? do you stick the log in it and put your foot on the log and use your saw to trim to length?

anyone ever use a chopsaw to size up splits? everything i'm cutting now is 16''

I load em up and use a bungee cord to hold them tight, I did close to 1/2 cord in a couple hours last month, with a chop saw you can only do one at a time, I can put a dozen splits in the box and zip right through them with a sharp chain. Jeff can even fit more in his box.

Im convinced you Princess freestanders have a bigger box, mine is 18" x 18" actually an 18" split doesnt fit on the bottom row because of the clips holding the bricks.
I loaded up last night at 11pm and left the blower off since it was fairly mild (39 degrees), I turned it up this morning and still have over half the load left.

 

[raybonz]

loaded up with 4 splits e/w last night at 9:30. set her to about 1 3/4. just went and checked (7:30) and stove top is at 400* and have enough coals to go for a few more hours. i crancked her up just so i can load her up again. record temps here today(60) so i'll get to turn her down low and see how she likes it!


Weatherguy: how does that contraption work? do you stick the log in it and put your foot on the log and use your saw to trim to length?

anyone ever use a chopsaw to size up splits? everything i'm cutting now is 16''

I used a chop saw to cut some hickory splits into small chunks for smoking and broke my right fence. The problem is that splits are not very straight and it bound the blade and snapped off the fence.. Made a fence from a chunk of square oak baluster I had hanging around as they don't make parts for this old Delta chop saw anymore. It's not ideal but it works for now

Ray