2018-19 Blaze King Performance Thread Part 1 (Everything BK)

[webby3650]

My last house had an 8” flue when I bought it. I added a 6” flue in the middle of the house. I ran most every stove I’ve had, and it’s a bunch... on both flues as a comparison. Both were straight up class A chimneys. Every single stove, even the tiny Jotul 602, performed as good or better on the 8” flue. I’m not not so sure 8” is a bad thing for performance. If it’s really tall then it may be? Mine were around 15’

 

[ben94122]

"I sure hope people aren’t reading this thread and being scared off from owning a BK. Here’s my reload/fire starting procedure: put wood in the stove, close the bypass, set the tstat to desired setting, walk away... repeat approximately 24 hours later. It’s so simple!"
@webby3650 wrote this in last year's BK thread. I'm running very dry fuel (4-7%MC ponderosa pine, room temp fresh split face, not end grain), and wondering if i need the 20-30 min char on high after a hot reload. @Poindexter mentioned back when he had very dry fuel from his solar kiln that he shortened from the then-recommend 30 min to 20 min. Just wondering what to monitor to see if i can get away with a shorter char period--is it just stack particulates and cat staying in active temp range?

Sorry--I see that this was already discussed a few pages back in this year's thread (#960)...

 

[Ashful]

ashfull, you probably know this, how think of steel does BK use on the inner portion of the ashford? I believe the princess is .250.

I had thought this was listed on their site or the brochure, as I remember seeing it before, but now I can’t find it. I remember all of them being much thinner than 0.250, though.

What I did find, which was a surprise, is that the brochure lists each of the 30 stoves as 2.9 cubic feet in the brochure. Then at the end of the brochure there is a table that labels the same stoves at 2.75 cubic feet. Yet the site used to have all three 30’s listed at 2.65 cubic feet. Which is right? I had always assumed the 2.65 number was correct, that’s the one they published back when the stove was introduced, five years ago.

 

[kf6hap]

I’m not not so sure 8” is a bad thing for performance.[/QUOTE)

The larger diameter pipe will cause the flue gasses to cool more than a 6" pipe as it will have more surface area and the transit time is increased. In spite of all, try it. If you have problems (gooky creosote etc.) sleeve it to 6". At very low burn the flue gasses near the stove can be close to condensing.

 

[webby3650]

I’m familiar with the likely issues. That’s what I’ve always been told and believed. I didn’t experience this at all though with vertical runs of class A pipe.

 

[tarzan]

I had thought this was listed on their site or the brochure, as I remember seeing it before, but now I can’t find it. I remember all of them being much thinner than 0.250, though.

What I did find, which was a surprise, is that the brochure lists each of the 30 stoves as 2.9 cubic feet in the brochure. Then at the end of the brochure there is a table that labels the same stoves at 2.75 cubic feet. Yet the site used to have all three 30’s listed at 2.65 cubic feet. Which is right? I had always assumed the 2.65 number was correct, that’s the one they published back when the stove was introduced, five years ago.

I believe the top is 1/4” while the sides are closer to 0.140 on the Princess.

 

[bholler]

I’m familiar with the likely issues. That’s what I’ve always been told and believed. I didn’t experience this at all though with vertical runs of class A pipe.

I have seen it to many times to count. Maybe it works for you but it doesnt for many more people.

 

[jetsam]

" Just wondering what to monitor to see if i can get away with a shorter char period--is it just stack particulates and cat staying in active temp range?

I think if you solicit candid responses from everyone here, you will find a pretty good number of people whose complete reload procedure takes around 60 seconds.

Then again, there's a lot of 24/7 burners hereabouts!

 

[webby3650]

I have seen it to many times to count. Maybe it works for you but it doesnt for many more people.

Like I said, I’ve seen it too. I didn’t have that experience. If the flue is on the shorter side, it may work just fine. Assuming it’s an interior flue with minimal offsets/or straight up.

 

[bholler]

Like I said, I’ve seen it too. I didn’t have that experience. If the flue is on the shorter side, it may work just fine. Assuming it’s an interior flue with minimal offsets/or straight up.

I dont see why a shorter flue would be better.

 

[Woody Stover]

all below %20 MC.
View attachment 232422

I cut a standing dead red oak a few weeks ago, and it was over 60%, all of it..

Yeah, but that stuff has been out there lying around for 10 years or more..all the sapwood has rotted away. Get as much of that as you can.

 

[lsucet]

"I sure hope people aren’t reading this thread and being scared off from owning a BK. Here’s my reload/fire starting procedure: put wood in the stove, close the bypass, set the tstat to desired setting, walk away... repeat approximately 24 hours later. It’s so simple!"
@webby3650 wrote this in last year's BK thread. I'm running very dry fuel (4-7%MC ponderosa pine, room temp fresh split face, not end grain), and wondering if i need the 20-30 min char on high after a hot reload. @Poindexter mentioned back when he had very dry fuel from his solar kiln that he shortened from the then-recommend 30 min to 20 min. Just wondering what to monitor to see if i can get away with a shorter char period--is it just stack particulates and cat staying in active temp range?

Sorry--I see that this was already discussed a few pages back in this year's thread (#960)...

I did tried that 3 times, two times with just pine that the MC is around 6. CSS for more than 3 years. The other time was with a mix of OAK and alligator juniper that have been seasoning for almost 5 years.
I don't like how chimney smoke, period. Too much smoke, more if you load it tight that air is not moving between that much. And it is obvious. The mix is too rich due to the lack of air, regardless if was loaded on a good bed of coals. I did try it for the sake of living the experience. Not for me. I maybe don't go 30 minutes with dry pine, but I let it char at least 10 minutes or depending on how the fire is doing.

 

[webby3650]

I dont see why a shorter flue would be better.

Well, it worked great for me. I spent years telling people that it was a bad idea. After giving it a shot myself, I’m not so sure, and would encourage anyone to give it a try first.

 

[bholler]

Well, it worked great for me. I spent years telling people that it was a bad idea. After giving it a shot myself, I’m not so sure, and would encourage anyone to give it a try first.

I usually tell people to try it first to. I know it works ok sometimes. The chimney just needs monitored closely the first year or so.

 

[ratsrepus]

I believe the top is 1/4” while the sides are closer to 0.140 on the Princess.

you are correct. I miked it earlier

 

[showrguy]

Yeah, but that stuff has been out there lying around for 10 years or more..all the sapwood has rotted away. Get as much of that as you can.

Normal summer I'd agree with ya Woody,
We had the wettest and most humid summer on record here in central Pa. Stuff that would normally be dry, is/was nottttt..
This thing was standing dead for years, basicly a wick this year........

 

[Ryan723]

Thought you all might find this interesting:

A chart of my BK Ashford 30 turned down low and doing its thing last night. Top plot is 8 hours of data, bottom is 24 hours.

On the bottom chart, you can see my hot reload at ~9:45PM (21:45) last night, where the stack temp and the stovetop temp cross over as the new load catches.

EDIT for additional details: In the plot: Stovetop sensor is in blue, combustor in red, stack in green. All are K-type thermocouples. The Catalyst Probe is in the normal BK Ashford cat thermometer hole with the actual thermocouple junction ~1/2" above the tip of the probe thermowell, so it probably read a tad lower, but i get a lot more life out of the thermocouple juction that way. The stovetop sensor is touching the plate steel top in the front-center of the stove, under the convection deck. The outer surface of the stove is WAY cooler than that reads. The Stack sensor is in the flue ~28" above the collar with the thermocouple probe ~midway in the center of the 6" pipe.

Then you can see it start to cruise and settle in, with the thermostatic air control cycling to keep the stovetop temps fairly constant. At 06:15 AM, we turned the fan near the stove on to push air across it and into the other rooms a bit better. It was then turned off around 7:15.

A few minutes later, you can see a quick downward spike in the stack temperature. Having noticed that stack temps (at ~28" above the collar) had dipped well below condensing levels (low 200s °F) several times during the burn, pulled the stack probe to check for any gooey deposits on it, but all that was there was a thin coating of fine black soot.

For any non-believers or folks on the fence about the BK's thermostatic air control, I hope this makes you a believer!

I should also note that this is year 5 and ~14000 hours for this cat and I have a replacement one on the way. Burns like this are getting harder to 'hit the sweet spot' like this when dialing it back, and a 10-12-hour burn on low is more the norm where when the cat was fresh, this would have easily been a 24-hr burn on this same load of wood.

 

[Ashful]

Awesome info, Ryan. Could you please edit your post to include the location of the three thermocouples / line colors?

 

[Nigel459]

Awesome info, Ryan. Could you please edit your post to include the location of the three thermocouples / line colors?

I see a legend right on the charts... fyi, right side

 

[Ashful]

I see a legend right on the charts... fyi, right side

Thx. The image zoom in Tapatalk won’t let us see it (too small), but I’ll check it on a PC later.

 

[Nigel459]

Thx. The image zoom in Tapatalk won’t let us see it (too small), but I’ll check it on a PC later.

No prob, it reads
Blue - stovetop
Green - stack
Red - catalyst

 

[Woody Stover]

The rest of the stove world is way behind with developing a stove offering such a wide range of outputs.

I guess you already forgot, but last year on the BK thread I dispelled this tired old claim when it was made by anothert BK dwarf...I think Bashfull was his name. This time, try not to drift away to your fantasy world again.
Just about any cat stove on the EPA certified stove list has a greater range of outputs than the BKs. The only BK that got anywhere close was the King, which managed to claw its way up over 30,000 BTU/hr. It almost caught up to the Woodstock Fireview and the non-cat Buck 94. The undisputed KINGS of output range are the Woodstock hybrids, the Progress weighing in with a low-output to high-output range of over 60,000 BTU/hr. Here are a couple of examples:



You can see all of the other stoves that kick the BKs' butts in the output-range department here:
https://www.epa.gov/compliance/list-epa-certified-wood-stoves

 

[Ryan723]

Awesome info, Ryan. Could you please edit your post to include the location of the three thermocouples / line colors?

Thanks!
I added a bit about the line color and the location of each sensor to the post above.
Some more information about my setup is here for those interested: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...-display-and-datalogging.170402/#post-2297975

 

[SuperJ]

I guess you already forgot, but last year on the BK thread I dispelled this tired old claim when it was made by anothert BK dwarf...I think Bashfull was his name. This time, try not to drift away to your fantasy world again.
Just about any cat stove on the EPA certified stove list has a greater range of outputs than the BKs. The only BK that got anywhere close was the King, which managed to claw its way up over 30,000 BTU/hr. It almost caught up to the Woodstock Fireview and the non-cat Buck 94. The undisputed KINGS of output range are the Woodstock hybrids, the Progress weighing in with a low-output to high-output range of over 60,000 BTU/hr. Here are a couple of examples:

View attachment 233305 View attachment 233306 View attachment 233307

You can see all of the other stoves that kick the BKs' butts in the output-range department here:
https://www.epa.gov/compliance/list-epa-certified-wood-stoves

The EPA test results are interesting but aren't necessarily reflective of the real world. Outside of BK there aren't really stoves that can crack 20hrs (Woodstock gets here). There might be stoves that can go lower, but it doesn't seem like they can stay there for a load without stalling.
Woodstock seems to have the high end covered with their secondary burn, at some point the cat just won't be able to handle the flow velocity or feed-rate of a high burn without either overheating and suffering a short lifespan, or just allowing particulates to blast thru too quick to be consumed.

My calculated heat loss on my house comes out to about 40kbtu/hr, and the BK handles 95% of the heating season on low, I only step up above low when I've got some recovery to do if I let the fire go out for a couple hours, or if we want to enjoy some flames in the evening.

That being said, I'd love to try out a Woodstock eventually, I like their quirkiness, double glass, and nicer fireview. I'd keep the Ashford as my reliable heavy hitter for heating without a fuss.

Here is my house temp over the last day or so (my furnace is off), space temp is measured about 25' from the stove. So steady it's almost boring.

 

[Highbeam]

I guess you already forgot, but last year on the BK thread I dispelled this tired old claim when it was made by anothert BK dwarf...I think Bashfull was his name. This time, try not to drift away to your fantasy world again.
Just about any cat stove on the EPA certified stove list has a greater range of outputs than the BKs. The only BK that got anywhere close was the King, which managed to claw its way up over 30,000 BTU/hr. It almost caught up to the Woodstock Fireview and the non-cat Buck 94. The undisputed KINGS of output range are the Woodstock hybrids, the Progress weighing in with a low-output to high-output range of over 60,000 BTU/hr. Here are a couple of examples:

View attachment 233305 View attachment 233306 View attachment 233307

You can see all of the other stoves that kick the BKs' butts in the output-range department here:
https://www.epa.gov/compliance/list-epa-certified-wood-stoves

I guess you already forgot, but last year on the BK thread I dispelled this tired old claim when it was made by anothert BK dwarf...I think Bashfull was his name. This time, try not to drift away to your fantasy world again.
Just about any cat stove on the EPA certified stove list has a greater range of outputs than the BKs. The only BK that got anywhere close was the King, which managed to claw its way up over 30,000 BTU/hr. It almost caught up to the Woodstock Fireview and the non-cat Buck 94. The undisputed KINGS of output range are the Woodstock hybrids, the Progress weighing in with a low-output to high-output range of over 60,000 BTU/hr. Here are a couple of examples:

View attachment 233305 View attachment 233306 View attachment 233307

You can see all of the other stoves that kick the BKs' butts in the output-range department here:
https://www.epa.gov/compliance/list-epa-certified-wood-stoves

Didn’t forget but disregarded the trolling. See, those epa output ratings are not dependable information. Any manufacturer could put whatever they want. In the future, we might get more accurate numbers but not now. We all know that no other stove can do 30 hours on low or too hot for my safety on high.

None, no matter what the other trolls told you.