Looking for recommendations to replace damaged blazeking

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EastGarry29

New Member
Oct 3, 2018
14
Canada
Hi everyone - new to the forums, so bear with me through this lol

Our BK Princess died a terrible death this past burning season, after only 3 years. Long story short, we have to get a new stove and don't want to go with a BK again. Looking for recommendations!

Our house is approximately 1500sqft excluding basement (where we have the wood stove). We have open stair treads and an extremely open concept design so heat can flow as easily as possible through the house. We also installed a forced air vent from directly above the wood stove to the upper floor of the house that can be turned on when needed. We live out in the country and are in a high wind area, so we do loose some heat to the wind, no matter how well insulated we are.

We are out of the house for work approximately 11 hours a day during the week, so we need a stove with as large a fire box as our 6" chimney pipe can handle as well as a stove that can manage long burn times and then be cranked when we get home to get the house out of the deep freeze.

Our area doesn't have a tonne of stores so I would like to get some recommendations before going so we don't get talked into a stove that won't work for us.

Brands that seem to be available in our area:

PE
Osburn
Napoleon
Lopi
Quadra-fire
Enviro
Jotul
Hearthstone

I have heard some interesting things about the Heartstone stoves, but am unsure if they will work for our situation.

Any information/recommendations are appreciated!
 
Can you elaborate on how the BK suffered such a painfull death ??
I can't imagine how you could kill one without doing it on purpose ??
 
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Quadrafire 5700, PE Summit or Osburn 2400 will work. It would also be worth taking a look at the Woodstock Ideal Steel and Progress Hybrid stoves and the Regency F3500.
 
showrguy said:
Can you elaborate on how the BK suffered such a painfull death ??
I can't imagine how you could kill one without doing it on purpose ??
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Definitely didn't do it on purpose. We think it was an installation issue as both of us are experienced stove users and did not over heat the stove (but the stove literally started to fall apart on the inside). We learned the hard way not to let some random third party install just because they are WETT certified.
 
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begreen said:
Quadrafire 5700, PE Summit or Osburn 2400 will work. It would also be worth taking a look at the Woodstock Ideal Steel and Progress Hybrid stoves and the Regency F3500.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions! I have not looked at the Woodstock or the Progress. The PE Summit has been recommended by a few friends, but we wanted to do more research so we aren't jumping the gun. I liked the look of the Osburn.
 
EastGarry29 said:
Definitely didn't do it on purpose. We think it was an installation issue as both of us are experienced stove users and did not over heat the stove (but the stove literally started to fall apart on the inside). We learned the hard way not to let some random third party install just because they are WETT certified.
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Did you contact blaze king about a warranty claim? Can you describe your setup a little bit if it was an install issue and you will be hooking the new stove up to that chimney you may end up with the same thing. And stove can have a failure but they are pretty uncommon with blazekings especially as quickly as yours happened.
 
bholler said:
Did you contact blaze king about a warranty claim? Can you describe your setup a little bit if it was an install issue and you will be hooking the new stove up to that chimney you may end up with the same thing. And stove can have a failure but they are pretty uncommon with blazekings especially as quickly as yours happened.
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The store our contractor bought it from contacted them, but all we heard back was that it had been over fired and warrantee null. Honestly, we never over fired that stove. We used it every day when it was cold, but didn’t abuse it. We were told BK said the stove is only to be used for low temp burning, which I must say was not explained in the manual or anywhere else we read. Our normal burn would be to load it up, let it get nice and hot and then lock it down. Pretty typical we thought, until a piece fell off on the inside. The store contacted our contractor to discuss and he was supposed to contact us, but we have heard nothing from him.

A bit about our setup? Stove is in our basement, which is insulated. We have an insulated 6” stovepipe that runs up through the centre of the house. There’s only one bend in the pipe and that is just before the roof. Nothing around the stove that could be messing with it (too close walls etc.). Not sure what other info would be helpful?

We cut and split all of our wood ourselves. Mostly ash and maple with some oak where we can get it. Wood is seasoned a full year, more if we can manage it.

We had a PE at our old house and never had any problems with it.
 
EastGarry29 said:
The store our contractor bought it from contacted them, but all we heard back was that it had been over fired and warrantee null. Honestly, we never over fired that stove. We used it every day when it was cold, but didn’t abuse it. We were told BK said the stove is only to be used for low temp burning, which I must say was not explained in the manual or anywhere else we read. Our normal burn would be to load it up, let it get nice and hot and then lock it down. Pretty typical we thought, until a piece fell off on the inside. The store contacted our contractor to discuss and he was supposed to contact us, but we have heard nothing from him.

A bit about our setup? Stove is in our basement, which is insulated. We have an insulated 6” stovepipe that runs up through the centre of the house. There’s only one bend in the pipe and that is just before the roof. Nothing around the stove that could be messing with it (too close walls etc.). Not sure what other info would be helpful?

We cut and split all of our wood ourselves. Mostly ash and maple with some oak where we can get it. Wood is seasoned a full year, more if we can manage it.

We had a PE at our old house and never had any problems with it.
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What height is the chimney? What temperatures was the stove running at? I think you are giving up on getting this taken care of by bk to easily. Hopefully bkvp stops by soon to address this
 
bholler said:
What height is the chimney? What temperatures was the stove running at? I think you are giving up on getting this taken care of by bk to easily. Hopefully bkvp stops by soon to address this
Click to expand...

Honestly, if they want to weigh in on it - that’s fine. Definitely didn’t come on here to trash BK as the stove worked great for us up to this point.

Chimney is 32’ of pipe from the stove to the top. We never maxed the temp according to the gauge that is on the top of the stove for the catalyst, but we don’t have a digital temp so can’t be more accurate than that.
 
EastGarry29 said:
Honestly, if they want to weigh in on it - that’s fine. Definitely didn’t come on here to trash BK as the stove worked great for us up to this point.

Chimney is 32’ of pipe from the stove to the top. We never maxed the temp according to the gauge that is on the top of the stove for the catalyst, but we don’t have a digital temp so can’t be more accurate than that.
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And i am not defending bk either. I just want to make sure you dont have it happen again. And see if you can get the problem addressed by bk. At 32' you are going to have really strong draft. Probably way to strong do you have a pipe damper?
 
bholler said:
And i am not defending bk either. I just want to make sure you dont have it happen again. And see if you can get the problem addressed by bk. At 32' you are going to have really strong draft. Probably way to strong do you have a pipe damper?
Click to expand...

We don’t have a pipe damper. The pipe makes two 45 degree turns at the 25’ mark. We thought that may help prevent the drafts. We rarely got any down drafts so I didn’t think that was an issue. I’m sure we could get one installed if that would protect the new stove.
 
EastGarry29 said:
We don’t have a pipe damper. The pipe makes two 45 degree turns at the 25’ mark. We thought that may help prevent the drafts. We rarely got any down drafts so I didn’t think that was an issue. I’m sure we could get one installed if that would protect the new stove.
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I am talking about the suction created by a chimney that tall. These stoves are designed to run on a 15' chimney. Yours is more than twice that. You are going to have a really strong draft which can lead to an overfire. I am sure you need a pipe damper if not 2. My last house with 35' of chimney required 2 dampers to control the draft when it was really cold
 
If there is a Buck stove dealer in your area you might check out their offerings. Solid stoves.
 
bholler said:
I am talking about the suction created by a chimney that tall. These stoves are designed to run on a 15' chimney. Yours is more than twice that. You are going to have a really strong draft which can lead to an overfire. I am sure you need a pipe damper if not 2. My last house with 35' of chimney required 2 dampers to control the draft when it was really cold
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Well that is something we’ll definitely need to install then. Neither of the two houses I lived in previously had chimneys over 15’ so I didn’t even know separate dampers were a thing. The contractor who installed the stove also replaced the entire chimney length and didn’t suggest/mention it either, unfortunately. Could that be what killed our stove?
 
EastGarry29 said:
Well that is something we’ll definitely need to install then. Neither of the two houses I lived in previously had chimneys over 15’ so I didn’t even know separate dampers were a thing. The contractor who installed the stove also replaced the entire chimney length and didn’t suggest/mention it either, unfortunately. Could that be what killed our stove?
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Yes it absolutly could be the problem.
 
At 32' of chimney I would be worried about destroying all the stoves on your list before destroying a BK. The stoves on your list are all good, minus the Hearthstone which it might be.....(I am not familiar with it.)

Like bhollar said you may have given up on your claim too soon. I can not imagine a 3 year old BK destroying itself. I have a friend who has horrible burn practices and his princess is never below full open and it burns very hot but he is on year 5 and still going. Honestly after seeing him burn I thought he woulda destroyed the stove in 2 years tops.
 
Rickb said:
At 32' of chimney I would be worried about destroying all the stoves on your list before destroying a BK. The stoves on your list are all good, minus the Hearthstone which it might be.....(I am not familiar with it.)

Like bhollar said you may have given up on your claim too soon. I can not imagine a 3 year old BK destroying itself. I have a friend who has horrible burn practices and his princess is never below full open and it burns very hot but he is on year 5 and still going. Honestly after seeing him burn I thought he woulda destroyed the stove in 2 years tops.
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Yes the thermostatic control is supposed to prevent an overfire. It apparently didnt in this case.
 
I agree but that is a lot of chimney........ Still if the BK overfired can you imagine how hard it will be to control any of the stoves on his list? I also agree he will most likely need a damper in there. I would still talk to BK personally if it was me.
 
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Rickb said:
I agree but that is a lot of chimney........ Still if the BK overfired can you imagine how hard it will be to control any of the stoves on his list? I also agree he will most likely need a damper in there. I would still talk to BK personally if it was me.
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Any of them can be controlled easily if it is set up correctly
 
Rickb said:
Absolutely..... But my post was considering the current setup.
Click to expand...
Yes the current setup with enough damper could be controlled easily with any of of those stoves.
 
bholler said:
Yes the thermostatic control is supposed to prevent an overfire. It apparently didnt in this case.
Click to expand...
I don't think the chimney is what caused a bunch of overfires, if that were the case my stove woulda been destroyed by now as well..
Mine is 34-35 ft, installed a damper last season, so I ran a few years without one, and never an overfire.
There's more to this story than what we know right now...
Open door, bad door or glass seal, are about the only two things that could cause the stove to overfire...IMHO

Oh, and to the OP, I'm not saying you intentional destroyed your stove, just to be clear..
 
Was the thermostat/air supply inspected post failure? Door/glass gaskets? Was it just the removable cat shield that fell out? Maybe it just got knocked out accidently. Pics would be interesting to see. Just a few thoughts.​
 
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