Blaze King 40 vs BUCK 28000 wood size and moisture meter

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WASPKFD

Member
Nov 3, 2013
92
Iowa
With the new Blaze King 40 up and still warm here Im looking at my wood pile.. MY Buck would BLAZE thru anything you threw at it. I've been doing a lot of reading on the new BK40 and it seems its a lil picky, so I bought a moisture meter, The light stuff you see with no bark is on the money at 20, no if and or butts where I split it, I get 19 or 20, the yellowish barkish wood is anywhere from 20-23 reading and of course the darer stuff is at 15-16. And I guess my only concern to is the size of my splits, Again the Buck would devourer this stiff in a heartbeat, please any feedback on the size of the splits or moisture in the wood working with the BK40.. Thanx

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If the moisture readings are taken after the wood has been resplit in half, on the freshly exposed, inside grain of the wood, then most of it should be ready to burn. The BK40 will sip on this wood as compared to the old Buck.

I'd get that wood off the ground, preferably into a woodshed asap. Wood on the ground is going to have a higher moisture reading. Often a lot higher. Is there more wood? This amount would not take me through a winter.
 
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OH YA I have a crap more wood,, at the end of season I move the bottom to top. I did split each row and check with pin tester. We get sub zeros here -50 windchills .. I really hope this stove lives up to the hype.. what about the size of the splits?
 
I had an old Earthstove that I replaced with a BK 40. The BK will burn anything the Earthstove would, although I only cut already dead trees. The BK burns much less wood, you can set it for long slow burns, and absolutely no smoke. You can burn anything you can fit through the door. You are going to love yours.
 
The split size is fine. Take a look at the size of split's BKVP runs in his BK 40.
 
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I think you'll be much happier with <20 pct wood than with the 23 pct wood.

But it should eat the 23 pct as well. (I think the testing was done with 20-25% wood. Should be listed in the manual.)

I concur; get it off the ground. Pallets, or stringers. Otherwise the bottom foot of your stacks will just suck.
 
The split size is fine. Take a look at the size of split's BKVP runs in his BK 40.
I do burn very large rounds. However, I'm testing this winter and burning the NIELS only for the test. So long as you have a hot coal bed, you can load for bear. I agree with BeGreen, get the wood up and under cover. Get a bunch of pallets. Make a floor, side and back walls all out of pallets. Run 2 x 4's down inside the pallets to build a strong wall. This design allows for lots of air circulation.

Then, find a few 4 x 4's make a tilted roof (running to the back) and get some tin on the top of OSB. You can build this in under 8 hours, hold 6-8 cords. An employee here got a rubber top off an RV trailer that was in the wrecking yard. That stuff is TOUGH and thick. he laid that on the OSB and it turned out great.

Stay warm!

BKVP
 
HEY thanx for the replies. SO you do burn full rounds? were in the middle of a drought here so not too concerned with bottom row,, this will more than likely be burned up before then, I use to keep it sheltered in the garage but dealing with critters was annoying lol.. THanx again!! Still waiting on first burn!!!
 
HEY thanx for the replies. SO you do burn full rounds? were in the middle of a drought here so not too concerned with bottom row,, this will more than likely be burned up before then, I use to keep it sheltered in the garage but dealing with critters was annoying lol.. THanx again!! Still waiting on first burn!!!
We are permitted to cut up to 24" diameter trees, measuring up from ground 12". I split those in half and put 4 at a time into my King.

I have also burned 10" full rounds because they fit into the door opening without any issues.

I mentioned, this year I'm burning a manufactured fuel, North Idaho Energy Logs (NIELS) as part of a research project.

Have fun and stay warm.
 
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