2019-20 Blaze King Performance Thread Part 1 (Everything BK)
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BKVP
Minister of Fire
That was a printed error. We are updating manuals. Feel free to reload anytime the cat is active.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Good to know, but the fact remains his needle is sitting between 10 o’clock and noon, with no wood left in the stove. I suspect that if his description is accurate, the thermometer must’ve been knocked way out of whack.
jetsam
Minister of Fire
You can reload whenever you want. I reload based on my work/sleep schedule, not the stove's schedule. (Sometimes I even throw a split in just because I feel like sitting in front of the stove and poking the fire, though this is not good for efficiency.)
The trick with the ceramic cat is to not subject it to air that is hundreds of degrees different from its current temperature. The easiest way to mess that up is to just open the door with the cat engaged- 1000 degree cat, 80 degree air entering it. To avoid that when reloading, turn up the air and let the firebox air warm up for a while on high air before putting the cat back inline. This also cooks some moisture out of the wood, which lowers the amount of water passing through the cat later.
The consequences if you screw this up a couple times a year are pretty small, in my experience. I retired my first ceramic cat after 2.5 years and ~13k hours, and it was still in good mechanical shape despite some abuse including several accidental door-openings.
So reload whenever you want, but try to match air temperatures to cat temperatures, give or take a couple hundred degrees. The cat probe thermometer is really not a helpful tool in this process. Just bypass the cat, load up, burn on high until the firebox air is warmed up (bear in mind you just added some 0-70° thermal mass), put the cat back in, and walk the air back down.
I don't wait a long time- if I just had coals to start with, the cat wasn't super hot to start with. If I had a raging inferno to start with, it won't take long to get back to that temp!
And like Ashful just said, those cat probe thermometers are not precision instruments and they should be calibrated to room temp regularly. Pop it out and see what it reads. Yours may be reading high.
I should also mention that if this is all a big deal to you (it shouldn't be), you have the option of switching to a steel cat, which isn't vulnerable to this kind of thermal shock. I am running steel now, and I like it slightly better than the original ceramic.
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lsucet
Minister of Fire
Woody Stover
Minister of Fire
If I need to reload when the cat is still active (doesn't happen often,) before I open the door I'll first open the bypass for a few minutes to cool the cat off a bit.
Indiana wood
Member
Is a cat stove more efficient burning at higher settings? Since my house is large and I often burn at 4 o’clock position and often at 5 and 6 oclock position is the cat in the stove still giving me extra heat? Id like to understand the benefits or lack of better
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
Low burn rates have highest efficiencies and lowest emissions.
ratsrepus
Minister of Fire
Installed my new steel cat in the Princess and man what a difference. The ceramic one I removed was only two months old. So now I have received two crappy cats from condor. I thought I fried the first one, but now Im starting to wonder sense they both laid down. Neither would stay active for more than 4 hrs.
I can almost guarantee the cat isn’t the problem. 2 months? 2 different cats both gave up? Somethings not right here.
After having both, I wouldn’t trade 1 ceramic cat for 2 steel cats.
Diabel
Minister of Fire
Gooseduck
Member
Ashful
Minister of Fire
You'll receive a thousand opinions on this, so I'll just claim mine is most right.
Cat's don't die, unless subjected to a severe abuse event, they just fade away. At some point in the fade, most of us call it ready to replace, when the temperature or time at which it drops out of active becomes noticeable or bothersome. Many of us are doing that near the 15,000 hour mark, which is about 3 years for most full-time burners.
BKVP will tell you, from actual test data, that most (nearly all?) of the cat's they get back and replace are still operating near 90% of their new level. People are sensitive.
Your first cat is warranted for 10 years. If you're a full-time burner, and manage to go thru it, you can count on one replacement from BK.
Gooseduck
Member
You'll receive a thousand opinions on this, so I'll just claim mine is most right.
Cat's don't die, unless subjected to a severe abuse event, they just fade away. At some point in the fade, most of us call it ready to replace, when the temperature or time at which it drops out of active becomes noticeable or bothersome. Many of us are doing that near the 15,000 hour mark, which is about 3 years for most full-time burners.
BKVP will tell you, from actual test data, that most (nearly all?) of the cat's they get back and replace are still operating near 90% of their new level. People are sensitive.
Your first cat is warranted for 10 years. If you're a full-time burner, and manage to go thru it, you can count on one replacement from BK.
[/QUOT
Gooseduck
Member
Indiana wood
Member
Are you sure they have the lowest emissions? I don't know but that just doesn't make sense to me
ratsrepus
Minister of Fire
You'll receive a thousand opinions on this, so I'll just claim mine is most right.
Cat's don't die, unless subjected to a severe abuse event, they just fade away. At some point in the fade, most of us call it ready to replace, when the temperature or time at which it drops out of active becomes noticeable or bothersome. Many of us are doing that near the 15,000 hour mark, which is about 3 years for most full-time burners.
BKVP will tell you, from actual test data, that most (nearly all?) of the cat's they get back and replace are still operating near 90% of their new level. People are sensitive.
Your first cat is warranted for 10 years. If you're a full-time burner, and manage to go thru it, you can count on one replacement from BK.
OK so what in your opinion is the problem, same very dry wood, clean chimney, good door gasket, bypass door and gasket good.
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
You'll receive a thousand opinions on this, so I'll just claim mine is most right.
Cat's don't die, unless subjected to a severe abuse event, they just fade away. At some point in the fade, most of us call it ready to replace, when the temperature or time at which it drops out of active becomes noticeable or bothersome. Many of us are doing that near the 15,000 hour mark, which is about 3 years for most full-time burners.
BKVP will tell you, from actual test data, that most (nearly all?) of the cat's they get back and replace are still operating near 90% of their new level. People are sensitive.
Your first cat is warranted for 10 years. If you're a full-time burner, and manage to go thru it, you can count on one replacement from BK.
I've read over and over plus experienced that 15000 actually being 12000 but whatever. They do wear out and they are way less than 90% effective when they do. If you're paying attention at all, you can't miss it!
ratsrepus
Minister of Fire
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
Yes, at low burn rates the cat is oversized to eat the smoke. The residence time is high in the cat as well. Both of these add up to higher efficiency. Of course, you can't go too low that you stall the cat. At high burn rates the cats don't get enough time to eat the high velocity smoke.
I think the owner's manuals now give you the efficiency and emissions at low/med/high. I'll take a look.
I'm back:
Here you will see that at high burn rates the stove emits almost 7 times the emissions as at the lowest possible rate and 10 times as much as at the "medium-low" burn rate. Efficiency and emissions are not directly related but the efficiency at different burn rates has been hard to find. I ran out of research time!
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ratsrepus
Minister of Fire
all I can say is a fairly new ceramic wouldn't stay active for more 6 hrs, changed to the steel and stayed active for going on 16 hrs now.
ratsrepus
Minister of Fire
Ive been running this stove for 2 years, I think im pretty aware of my thermostat setting
ratsrepus
Minister of Fire
I had great service from my original ceramic cat for two years, so Im saying i bought two at the same time from condar, and the possibility exist that there might be a defect in the material used or the process. This was mentioned in the forum a while back
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