2017-18 Blaze King Performance Thread PART 2 (Everything BK)

[lsucet]

You are right the cat keeps higher temp or I can better say that stays for more hrs at higher temps without much of wood comsuption. I also have ponderosa pine. I have the choice of going to Jemez mountain for other pine species or to the other side of the highway about five miles down where everything is ponderosa pine. I like that it makes the cat burn hotter and fans don't affect to much the tstat when the setting is on low.

 

[black smoke signals]

You are right the cat keeps higher temp or I can better say that stays for more hrs at higher temps without much of wood comsuption. I also have ponderosa pine. I have the choice of going to Jemez mountain for other pine species or to the other side of the highway about five miles down where everything is ponderosa pine. I like that it makes the cat burn hotter and fans don't affect to much the tstat when the setting is on low.

Blazing and pointdexter figured this out for me I don’t cut any standing dead pine trees down there way to dry for me. Thanks for posting pictures

 

[Poindexter]

@drz1050 , my AF30 can burn a box full of spruce down to small coals in four hours flat if:

I have really good draft from it being -20 dF or colder out and i run the stat at the highest labeled setting and i run the deck fans on high.

In shoulder seasons with weaker draft at lower settings i can get 18 hour burns pretty easy. I am not claiming 24 hour burns.

12 hour burns in moderate winter weather, back to back hot reloads, easy-peasy.

 

[Poindexter]

I just set a new personal record for cold start. I got from cold stove to clean plume with active cat in 17:32.

I shut the loading door when my flue gas temp probe was showing 800dF. It crept up to 1000 while the stove settled down, dropped to about 600 and then was back up to 1000 just as the cat probe reached active.

I engaged, slipped in to boots coat and hat, have bright moon 90 degrees away from my viewpoint, bam.

 

[aaronk25]

I set a record for pine in my princess. 35 hours. Ok it’s kinda cheating because we built a 5 level wood apartment building and I had all the 2x10s, 2x6s, and 2x4s I could dream of and after filling the stove to the top with the most dimensional schematic of wood I calculated about 5% firebox spaces that wasn’t solid wood. At a moisture content of under 8% almost all the fuel could go to heating and not evaporating moisture. Lots of load time stacking boards though.


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[lsucet]

I set a record for pine in my princess. 35 hours. Ok it’s kinda cheating because we built a 5 level wood apartment building and I had all the 2x10s, 2x6s, and 2x4s I could dream of and after filling the stove to the top with the most dimensional schematic of wood I calculated about 5% firebox spaces that wasn’t solid wood. At a moisture content of under 8% almost all the fuel could go to heating and not evaporating moisture. Lots of load time stacking boards though.


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Not many stoves out there that you can do that without have a real bad experience.lol

 

[Poindexter]

Pretty darn tickled with the look of my freshly clean stove. The light from my flash hasnt reflected off the stove top and on to the back wall in a lonnnng time.

 

[kf6hap]

Yes, the Ashford is a good looking stove destined to become a classic. I bet they sell a lot of them.

 

[Alpine1]

I agree. The only reason we didn’t buy an enameled one was the price...

 

[kf6hap]

Does anybody know if used combustors are recycled and if so, by whom?

 

[Ashful]

I have trouble understanding why anyone would like burning pine. Yes, it can be burned in a BK, without any problems controlling it, but it still has half the BTU’s of better woods. No way I’m doing almost the same amount of work to fell, limb, haul, split, and stack wood for half the BTU’s.

 

[Tegbert]

I have trouble understanding why anyone would like burning pine. Yes, it can be burned in a BK, without any problems controlling it, but it still has half the BTU’s of better woods. No way I’m doing almost the same amount of work to fell, limb, haul, split, and stack wood for half the BTU’s.

I don’t know about anyone else but around here I can get truckloads of it already cut to length rounds usually free. Just have to split and stack and at least the pine I have is under 20% in less than a year. So while it’s not a high btu Wood the work isn’t bad for being mostly free besides my time to split and gas for the splitter.


Lopi Rockport
Blaze King Ashford 25

 

[Hardtopseadan]

24 1/2 hours

 

[kf6hap]

I have trouble understanding why anyone would like burning pine

The power company fells the pine, cuts it to 12' lengths and that is what is on my land. Perhaps when I am too old to do the processing, I will purchase it. Oak might be the better wood then. Pine burns without any problem for me. Most of my heating season is "shoulder" as it does not get that cold here.

 

[kf6hap]

24 1/2 hours

Does any non cat stove, without heroics, go 24 hours?

 

[Hardtopseadan]

Does any non cat stove, without heroics, go 24 hours?

A load a day keeps cold away.

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[MtnBURN]

If you lived in the Western US you'd understand why folks burn pine. In many areas above 6-7000 ft, here in Colorado..... lodgepole and aspen rule the land and comprise the majority of the available wood. (other areas have spruce/fir mixed in but it all burns about the same) There are scrub (Gambel) oaks and few other hardwood species here in localized areas/at certain elevations...but for many people there's not much choice other than pine. If you can find hardwood for sale/are stuck buying wood...it goes for a >serious< premium.

Yes...you'll get a shorter burn time with pine than oak....but like cottonwood...you'll generate far more BTU's for that timeframe. (my experience anyway). If it's truly cold here...below zero....which is common for morning lows for at least a few months on average in mid-Winter...I'll take softwood over hardwood in these stoves anyday. I burn more oak here in the shoulder season than cottie or pine/spruce because it just doesn't burn as hot. The same size load of cottonwood will simply run you out of the house. (tonight it's a base of small cottonwood on the bottom....and oak on top cus it's only going down to the mid-to-upper 20's or so.)

Every stove and house is different though....so to each their own. Happy burning, all..........

 

[lsucet]

I have trouble understanding why anyone would like burning pine. Yes, it can be burned in a BK, without any problems controlling it, but it still has half the BTU’s of better woods. No way I’m doing almost the same amount of work to fell, limb, haul, split, and stack wood for half the BTU’s.

With all respect, oak don't make much of a difference for me to say OH WOW. Yes, I will agree with you that I get more hrs out of a load of oak, but the difference on burn time don't justify the price of a cord of oak. Anyway, with pine I am doing real good without that much stress like you think it is. Pine is easy to split and dry it. For 20 dollars for permit every year for five cords is not bad and no hassle at all. You can get more than that and go back and purchase another permit for 20 dollars into the season and have 5 more cords.
Anyway I have a mix of we can call it hardwood drying up plus lots of Elm ready to split. Some ash, black locust, etc. And that is for free. A connection I have that they cut trees all over and come and drop here once a while. If not I just go to the mountains and get pine. It's just fine. Trust me on that. With BK no problems, getting decent burn times.

 

[lsucet]

Here is a picture of the log splitter. I tested it and work like a champ.

 

[shoot-straight]

Convenient to get, super easy to split, standing dead so dries in one year.

Pretty good reasons actually.

 

[webby3650]

Does any non cat stove, without heroics, go 24 hours?

No.
Now, there’s a chance a non BK stove user could possibly find a few coals buried in the ashes after 24 hours, thats possible...
When a BK user, at least in my experience, gets a 24 burn, it’s not just a few coals here and there. After 24 hours there’s still chunks of wood and the cat is at least near active still!

 

[Poindexter]

I have trouble understanding why anyone would like burning pine. Yes, it can be burned in a BK, without any problems controlling it, but it still has half the BTU’s of better woods. No way I’m doing almost the same amount of work to fell, limb, haul, split, and stack wood for half the BTU’s.

I think there is more than one right answer here. If all I could get was poplar, I would burn it. My local choices are birch at roughly 22M btu / cord and spruce at roughly 18M BTU/ cord, so not half the BTUs, but sure, spruce has only about 75% of the btus available from birch. IIRC there are some pines down around 14M btu and some oaks in the high 20s, not arguing,

The thing for me is birch coals like the dickens. In shoulder seasons when a box full of coals and a combustor hot enough to be active but not actually doing anything is enough to heat my home, OK fine, I could do that. In colder weather I need my combustor to be chewing, gorging itself even so I can run that deck fan kit on high, pull a bunch of heat off the combustor into my living space, and have enough smoke coming through the combustor so the combustor stays at an even temp. I can't do that with birch.

My short answer is run the highest BTU wood you can get easily and cheaply, that doesn't leave you with a big pile of coals to burn down and a cold house.

I fiddled with it some last winter, (the corporate) we were talking about how much the deck fans affect the reading of the combustor probe. There's a bunch of variables in there to try to control, but my observation is if the wood in the fire box is making smoke for the cat to eat you can run the deck fans as hard as you want and it wont make a hill of beans difference in the cat probe reading. OTOH when I have burnt all the smoke out of my wood and that cat probe is indicating how hot the charcoal in the box is making the block of metal, but the cat is just sitting there warm and idle, I can twist the deck fans up and unspool that combustor probe needle like a C130 in a complete stall.

 

[Hardtopseadan]

No.
Now, there’s a chance a non BK stove user could possibly find a few coals buried in the ashes after 24 hours, thats possible...
When a BK user, at least in my experience, gets a 24 burn, it’s not just a few coals here and there. After 24 hours there’s still chunks of wood and the cat is at least near active still!

Yes that last 24 1/2 hour load left a coal bed big enough that I could separate out coals, empty ash, rake coals across front reload char and shut down within 30 minutes.


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[Hardtopseadan]

Yes that last 24 1/2 hour load left a coal bed big enough that I could separate out coals, empty ash, rake coals across front reload char and shut down within 30 minutes.


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And the cat gague never went inactive.

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[Ashful]

With all respect, oak don't make much of a difference for me to say OH WOW. Yes, I will agree with you that I get more hrs out of a load of oak, but the difference on burn time don't justify the price of a cord of oak.

It’s 24 MBTU per cord for oak vs 13 MBTU per cord for eastern white pine. The Lodgepole you get out west 15 MBTU. Oak takes no longer to process than pine, so it makes zero sense to even touch the pine, unless it’s really your only option, or you’re looking for an excuse to spend more time outdoors processing wood. It would take a metric buttload if pine each year, to generate even an average 100-150 MBTU, let alone what I’m using.

When processing time is something you value, the best answer is always the wood with highest BTU per cord. That’s all I was saying. If you’re buying, and in a location where hardwoods are less plentiful, then I see your point.