BK Ashford 25 (and Sirocco 25)

Just got mine finished I will know in a couple days how it all works out. Currently burning a hot fire to cure the paint and boy did this thing smoke worse than my lopi during breakin. But I believe most is gone now.



Lopi Rockport
Blaze King Ashford 25

In terms of looks, the ashford 25 is awesome. Like freakin awesome. Esp for an insert...Many compliments from guests that are now considering getting an insert of their own....(says a lot)

In regards to performance, I am heating 2700sf with it running @ 75-100% throttle. Downstairs 80-68(depending on where you are. Upstairs 64-66. Now it hasn't really been THAT cold although we did have a few 27-32 F nights and it has worked great.

I do keep all unused rooms closed.

That being said this is all with an average burn time of 6 hours. Wood is seasoned hand split oak (<15%)

I am now experimenting more by turning it down on lower burns since it does pump out some very nice high heat. I'll keep everyone posted. My worry is i do notice a slight smoke smell when i set it lower than 1/2 throttle, or 3:00 as some say on here. Is this normal? Could it be a draft issue since it's not super cold out?

I am going to try SLOWLY and incrementally turning the stove down tomorrow during the day and see if I can eliminate the smoke smell.

someone mentioned earlier they are heating a large home with the Sirroco 25 on low and getting 10 plus hour burns. I am hesitant to believe I will get that....Unless the Sirroco is can heat a larger area.

Glass stays clean so far for me. But I haven't burned low as noted above

I have an ir gun and can check tomorrow on temps. I have a temp sensor on the mantle that says it is 85 degrees up there. There is quite a bit of heat that rises up right there or so it feels. Like I said I will take some measurements tomorrow.


Lopi Rockport
Blaze King Ashford 25

So after reloading it this morning and running on high for about 45 min the top lip it is reading about 300.

The top edge of the mantle shield is at 153 and the lower part of the mantle is reading 99.

This is with a mix of pine and hemlock which I’m trying to get rid of cause most of it is cut at 12” and our heat demand isn’t much right now.


Lopi Rockport
Blaze King Ashford 25

exterior chimney - It is over 15' but under 20'.

Last night I had it turned to 35% and had just under an 8 hr burn.
I would like to get to a 10 hour burn @ 25%. I did find that the needle will get close to falling out of the active zone as I turn it down low.

I am still new to wood burning but did tons of research. Love this stove.

I also have found that mixing in a large split or 2 will extend an over night burn time.
All of my larger splits are at the bottom of my wood stacks.....I am going to fish some out today so that are more easily available for night burns...

I don't need to rely on the wood stove for whole house heat but I like trying. I have 7 acres of woods, mostly red oak.

Few questions that I have meaning to poll the group:

What does the thin black line in the active zone indicate on the T-stat?
Is it okay to for the fire to go out with the cat being engaged? I see no way around this if you leave for work and cant make it back to reload.
I did ask our dealer to install roxul and a block off plate - they acted like they never heard of this. They just told me it would be full insulated and sealed.

The dealer lit a small kindling fire to check all seals, draft etc when it was installed NOV 3. After a week, I cleaned it out to notice one of the triangle shaped fire bricks was cracked. The dealer is ordering replacement bricks for me. Is this normal to have a firebrick crack that early? I feel like I should keep a box in my garage as back up. Any one else do this?

Anyway, this forum is great. Best place to obtain info. Appreciate everyones input and experiences.

Tegbert said:

Just got mine finished I will know in a couple days how it all works out.

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Hi Tegbert, did you replace the Lopi Rockport with the Blaze King, or is the BK for another part of the house?

DBoon said:

Hi Tegbert, did you replace the Lopi Rockport with the Blaze King, or is the BK for another part of the house?

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Still have it and have no plans to get rid of it anymore it’s a great heater it just can be too much in the shoulder season.


Lopi Rockport
Blaze King Ashford 25

Tegbert said:

it’s a great heater it just can be too much in the shoulder season.

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Am I correct to assume that the Blaze King gives you better control over a low burn?

DBoon said:

Am I correct to assume that the Blaze King gives you better control over a low burn?

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I wouldn’t say better control but the bk will burn lower than the rockport. The rockport when we had temps in the mid to high teens last year was still ran on low to keep our house comfortable.

But that stove is right in the middle of the house so that helped in being able to run low all the time.

My main reason for getting the bk was to burn even lower so it hopefully won’t be too overwhelming in shoulder season so we don’t get heated out and not use our baseboards instead.

Also we only have 8 foot ceilings so the heat doesn’t have much space to go up. So if we had taller or vaulted ceilings it might have worked perfectly by itself. We don’t even need to use the fan on it and haven’t for some time now.


Lopi Rockport
Blaze King Ashford 25

SculptureOfSound said:

Curious if anyone had grabbed any video of high/med/low burns? Would love to see the Ashford in action!

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Here is my Ashford 30.1

Low Burn (note my bypass wasn't fully "cam'd over"):


Medium/mediumlow Burn:


High Burn:

DBoon said:

Am I correct to assume that the Blaze King gives you better control over a low burn?

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Absolutely, the tstat does all the work for you. Set and forget and have even heat ouput, no curves like a tube stove.

Both the Rockport and the Ashford are cat stoves. I would expect that the Ashford gives a longer, better controlled low burn, but am just looking to understand is the Rockport on low 2x the heat output of the Ashford for 1/2 the time, or something different.

SuperJ said:

Here is my Ashford 30.1

Low Burn (note my bypass wasn't fully "cam'd over"):


Medium/mediumlow Burn:


High Burn:

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That high burn was a little weak mine makes me wanna grab a bucket of sand and a phone with 911 on speed dial lol. I kid thanks for posting it will help others.

Blazing said:

That high burn was a little weak mine makes me wanna grab a bucket of sand and a phone with 911 on speed dial lol. I kid thanks for posting it will help others.

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Yeah, I feel like my thermostat might have been calibrated kinda weakly compared to others. If I run it on high for more than about 15 minutes the thermostat really seems to throttle it hard. But I can easily overheat the room so I'm not really concerned. As long as it can hold it's own in January at -25C I'll be happy.

SuperJ said:

Yeah, I feel like my thermostat might have been calibrated kinda weakly compared to others. If I run it on high for more than about 15 minutes the thermostat really seems to throttle it hard. But I can easily overheat the room so I'm not really concerned. As long as it can hold it's own in January at -25C I'll be happy.

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I don't run my stove anywhere near full out so as long as it does what you need then cheers to that. I also think that running something on the edge lowers the life of the unit but that's me.

SculptureOfSound said:

Thanks for the vids SuperJ! It's nice to see it in action.

How long can you keep those medium flames going if you left it at that setting with an average to full load of hard wood?

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Since we are sharing . It’s travis large

SculptureOfSound said:

Getting closer to pulling the trigger on this - would love to hear how it's working for you all. Rama, any more smoke issues?


Curious to hear about burn times in relation to outside temp and Also curious if people are able to keep the glass clear when burning medium or higher.

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Hey Sculp, been out of town for a while. I had my AF25 burning for about 3 weeks straight and have been experimenting with it.

I've gotten 24 hour burn times on a single full load of eucalyptus a couple of times but had to play with thermostat to keep the cat active. Burn times are not my issue.

I do have issue now and again keeping the thermostat in active range while burning low. And yes, I do get a smoke/creosote smell inside my house when burning at about 35% or less and it is most strong in the hours after turning a new load down to low (and yes I've properly charred the new loads on high, then turned to medium, then to low just as the manufacture recommended). This is my biggest annoyance and I would like to resolve it, otherwise the stove is great. Per the dealer recommendation I will try different wood and keep testing.

Here is a temp of the upper shelf with the unit burning low for a few hours. With the unit on high I've gotten 240F

Regarding clear glass: from the glass being COMPLETELY black, here is a picture of my unit two hours after being turned up to high. So far, the outer lower edges of my glass have never fully cleared up.

I only got the smoke smell from mine during the warmer days of the shoulder season when it got up to 50-60 during the day and in the 30's at night. During the day I had to run it a bit hotter to keep the draft going.

@Rama Is your liner insulated? And how tall is your liner?