2017-18 Blaze King Performance Thread PART 2 (Everything BK)

[black smoke signals]

New hypothesis about where my char smell is coming from after trouble-shooting with the installers at my place today. Draft and my chimney system have been eliminated as the issue, however when we temporarily removed the cat probe and blocked that hole, i could have sworn that my smell problem significantly decreased. Increased as soon as we replaced the cat probe in the hole. I have a convection deck on my stove. Has anybody else experienced issues with char smell coming out of their cat probe hole? Thoughts? Fixes? Seems to me if the stoves are designed to have this hole there, then i shouldn't be getting smells out of it? Is positive pressure at the probe hole even possible?

Just guessing when first lightning the stove and you get Choo choo effect positive negative my stove will get smell from here. But not very often I would suggest plug the t/stat hole and try it again IDK

 

[BKVP]

@becasunshine , the size 30 boxes and the princess are very very close together in the BK lineup. I wanted a princess, the wife insisted on either an Ashford - or shop other manufacturers. So we got an ashford.

I have no real regrets. In challenging cold conditions i am confident i could run the princess at max output for a few weeks every season, and spend more of thrle shoulders in 24 instead of 12 hour reload mode.

With just the wife and i home we consume right at 11 kwh daily of electrical average, month in and month out. Thats like running a 1500 watt hair dryer about 8 hours every day, and using no other elctricity for lighting, refrigeration or charging devices. And that same 11kwh daily is about the difference between the ashford and princess.

There is no doubt, as above, in low burn modes the combustor and convection deck are where the heat is coming from.

Also as above, at high throttle settings everythig heats up, the wood in the box, the box and the combustor.

So at low burn the wood can burn very slowly and the smoke keeping the combustor fed and warm is enough to heat a lot of homes a lot of the time.

At high tstat settings you get all the same heat out of your big hot fire as you would with any other technology, with the added benefit of the combustor getting raging hot burning up smoke particles that would other wise be wasted.

The heat from the combustor, the combustor exhaust, crashes into a steel curtain welded to the top of the firebox 3 or 4 inches from the back face of the combustor. That curtain conducts heat to the the top of the firebox, where the deck fans can strip it off and blow it out into the room. It's beautiful.

It's called a combustor baffle.

 

[MissMac]

on a positive note for those of you interested in hearing about great burns, my little "test fire" today, which included birch bark, kindling, and three 5" splits has been burning in the active range for going on 7 hrs and 40 minutes so far. Not bad for a couple twigs of dried up jack pine

 

[kennyp2339]

@becasunshine - Beautiful setup

 

[patrickoneal]

No, it won't work. I've got the standard shroud and my box is 30" and it is quite short. The installer fabbed up a piece of sheet metal that I painted with high temp paint. Looks fine, but I would prefer the larger shroud.

I did the same thing with my shroud. I had a sheet metal rectangle bent up by a sheet metal shop, then bolted it to the top panel that came with my stove. There's a photo here: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/blaze-king-princess-insert-completed.160683/

 

[MissMac]

on a positive note for those of you interested in hearing about great burns, my little "test fire" today, which included birch bark, kindling, and three 5" splits has been burning in the active range for going on 7 hrs and 40 minutes so far. Not bad for a couple twigs of dried up jack pine

So 10 hours and 20 minutes those 3 splits kept me in the active zone. Fell asleep on the couch waiting for it to drop!

 

[Tar12]

So 10 hours and 20 minutes those 3 splits kept me in the active zone. Fell asleep on the couch waiting for it to drop!

You got to love that!

 

[Diabel]

So 10 hours and 20 minutes those 3 splits kept me in the active zone. Fell asleep on the couch waiting for it to drop!

What kind of cat and stove top temps were you getting on the three splits over the 10hr burn? Just curious.

Thanks

 

[kf6hap]

So 10 hours and 20 minutes those 3 splits kept me in the active zone. Fell asleep on the couch waiting for it to drop!

I used to struggle with my other stoves just to not be cold in the morning by overheating the house at night.

 

[black smoke signals]

What kind of cat and stove top temps were you getting on the three splits over the 10hr burn? Just curious.

Thanks

I like this question

 

[17vljoe]

So with this cold weather im running my stove pretty high around 2.5, i usderstand that the 20 box is small but its supposed to get 8hrs on high? At 2.5 im only getting around 4hrs. It heats great, as long as im around to feed it. My door gasket is tight, not sure about the bypass seal though, could that be affecting my burn times if it was not tight?

 

[Ashful]

So with this cold weather im running my stove pretty high around 2.5, i usderstand that the 20 box is small but its supposed to get 8hrs on high? At 2.5 im only getting around 4hrs. It heats great, as long as im around to feed it. My door gasket is tight, not sure about the bypass seal though, could that be affecting my burn times if it was not tight?

I would expect a 20 box to get about half that time on high. The larger 30 doesn’t even go 8 hours on a full load of oak, when run wide-open.

The beauty of these stoves is that you can rip thru a load of wood in 4 hours, or turn them way down to stretch it for 20 hours. However, they’re not magical machines able to break the laws of physics and thermodynamics. BTUout = BTUin x efficiency.

If they limited the “high” setting to a burn rate able to stretch that small load of wood for 8 hours, folks would complain they can’t turn them up high enough.

 

[SuperJ]

So with this cold weather im running my stove pretty high around 2.5, i usderstand that the 20 box is small but its supposed to get 8hrs on high? At 2.5 im only getting around 4hrs. It heats great, as long as im around to feed it. My door gasket is tight, not sure about the bypass seal though, could that be affecting my burn times if it was not tight?

The 8hr rating is at a specific btu rate that probably corresponds to less than high (especially if you're running the fans). On high with fans I would expect a lot more BTU/hr and correspondingly shorter burns. It's the same amount of heat on a long and short burn, the knob just lets you choose how fast to let that heat out and does it pretty evenly over time.

 

[kf6hap]

Stoves are just like a car. Keep it floored and the tank will empty quickly. A BK car at idle might crawl at 1MPH while a non BK stove will be doing 20 MPH with your foot off the gas. If you make a non BK idle at 1 MPH it will be smoking like the dickens and creosote deposits will be bulding.

 

[MissMac]

So with this cold weather im running my stove pretty high around 2.5, i usderstand that the 20 box is small but its supposed to get 8hrs on high? At 2.5 im only getting around 4hrs. It heats great, as long as im around to feed it. My door gasket is tight, not sure about the bypass seal though, could that be affecting my burn times if it was not tight?

when i burn a load of jack pine on wide open it usually lasts me about 4-5 hrs tops.

 

[MissMac]

What kind of cat and stove top temps were you getting on the three splits over the 10hr burn? Just curious.

Thanks

so the only instrument i have on my stove is the cat probe, so i can't tell you stove top temp., however with my dial at the 3 o'clock setting, my cat needle was hovering around the middle of the lowest 1/3 tick in the active zone, maybe just a tad lower

 

[Diabel]

so the only instrument i have on my stove is the cat probe, so i can't tell you stove top temp., however with my dial at the 3 o'clock setting, my cat needle was hovering around the middle of the lowest 1/3 tick in the active zone, maybe just a tad lower

I see.
In these fright temps, was the stove throwing enough heat to keep your house comfortable? Of course everyone's house sebup is different...

 

[MissMac]

I see.
In these fright temps, was the stove throwing enough heat to keep your house comfortable? Of course everyone's house sebup is different...

So for sure no - i had it turned down to this setting for an experiment - my furnace kicked on a few times to keep the house at 20*C. I'd say that the only room that would have been comfortable heat wise at that setting was the room the stove is in - rest of house would have been colder than how i keep the house - hard to say exactly what temps though, cause the furnace was running some.

all that said, i'm still pretty stoked that i could stretch that wood out that long

 

[Diabel]

So for sure no - i had it turned down to this setting for an experiment - my furnace kicked on a few times to keep the house at 20*C. I'd say that the only room that would have been comfortable heat wise at that setting was the room the stove is in - rest of house would have been colder than how i keep the house - hard to say exactly what temps though, cause the furnace was running some.

all that said, i'm still pretty stoked that i could stretch that wood out that long

Yeah, that is what I thought. In shoulder season BK is definitely "alien"!!

In these temps that we are experiencing this burtime spread is much closer to all the other stoves out there.

 

[MissMac]

Yeah, that is what I thought. In shoulder season BK is definitely "alien"!!

In these temps that we are experiencing this burtime spread is much closer to all the other stoves out there.

yup, i mean that setting would have kept my house warm enough to not create issues, but it wouldn't have been what i consider comfortable given that it's almost -40*C here. Now i'm up and running to stay cozy, and i'm wide open on full loads of jack pine, which keeps the room the stove is in probably around 23-24*C, with the other rooms on the main floor around 20*C. i run my forced air furnace fan on a low speed non-stop to try and get some of the heat into the basement, but i can only keep the basement around 10*C with the stove wide open. and that's mostly because my duct work isn't set up to pump the stove heat down there - maybe a project for this summer...

 

[Diabel]

yup, i mean that setting would have kept my house warm enough to not create issues, but it wouldn't have been what i consider comfortable given that it's almost -40*C here. Now i'm up and running to stay cozy, and i'm wide open on full loads of jack pine, which keeps the room the stove is in probably around 23-24*C, with the other rooms on the main floor around 20*C. i run my forced air furnace fan on a low speed non-stop to try and get some of the heat into the basement, but i can only keep the basement around 10*C with the stove wide open. and that's mostly because my duct work isn't set up to pump the stove heat down there - maybe a project for this summer...

I would try to keep that basement a bit above 10*C especially if you have any water pipes running on the outside walls....in this temp that is.

 

[Ashful]

Yeah, that is what I thought. In shoulder season BK is definitely "alien"!!

In these temps that we are experiencing this burtime spread is much closer to all the other stoves out there.

Yep. They’re great stoves, probably the best stove by most measures, but they’re still just stoves. The thing is, everyone has two shoulder seasons per year.

I have no hope of any stove keeping the larger and older half of my place better than 65F (unless I were to dedicate my life solely to feeding a stove) in these sub-zero windchill temps. But these stoves just keep pumping even heat into my house at whatever rate I set them, keeping my oil bill much lower than it’d be otherwise.

 

[MissMac]

I would try to keep that basement a bit above 10*C especially if you have any water pipes running on the outside walls....in this temp that is.

ya when it's this cold, i can only keep it at 10.1-10.3*C consistently. i'm out in the country - no pipes on outside walls, and my water line coming up from the lake is heat traced, so not too too worried. probably the testiest piece of equip down there is my furnace. i wouldn't want to see it get any colder down there, that's for sure

 

[estepracing]

So can I ask what maybe a newbie question what is the difference between Jack Pine and regular Pine. I've always been told ever since burning wood that you should not burn Pine but I was never really given a reason or is it different with the Blaze King.

Blaze King King Wood Stove

 

[MissMac]

So can I ask what maybe a newbie question what is the difference between Jack Pine and regular Pine. I've always been told ever since burning wood that you should not burn Pine but I was never really given a reason or is it different with the Blaze King.

Blaze King King Wood Stove

well jack pine is a specific species - "regular pine" would be a slang term, not a technical term. so the "regular pine" would have a scientific and common name - if you know someone good at tree ID you could ask - also knowing the bush and types of trees that grow in your area will help you narrow it down.