2017-18 Blaze King Performance Thread PART 3 (Everything BK)

[AlbergSteve]

Does make me wonder if I need to get one ...

Yes, yes you do.

 

[begreen]

12 hour reloads when it’s cold but those noncats only last 3 hours when they are being run hard. Weird. Where does all the wood go?

LOL. Switch locations with the Princess and 30NC and report back how it performs when pushed as hard to raise temps a big workshop space.

 

[edyit]

on my madison there's not much to fiddle with, load the stove, click the AAS, walk away, pretty simple, and it's been consistent all year without issue, not knocking bk here they are obviously a great stove with a loyal following and great service, but they're not the only boring stove to run, yeah i might load mine more but i'm willing to bet i'd be loading a bk more here as well, low slow heat doesn't work for my set up. wish it would but the 1963 sears home kit in the high peaks of the adirondacks takes some btu's to keep the mrs. happy.

 

[webby3650]

It’s just one of those things people can’t believe until they experience it for themselves.
Unless you are heating a tent, and the stove is properly sized, there’s not much reason to run on high once the home is warmed up. Even on full blast my BK will run more than 2x longer than any big non-cat I’ve had. It’s the ability to control it more than anything. I can keep the place a steady temperature around the clock with no temperature spikes, for 24 hours at a time. No other stove can do that. There’s no way to really compare it to other stoves.

 

[ratsrepus]

1963 sears home kit in the high peaks of the adirondacks takes some btu's to keep the mrs. happy.

63 Sears House, funny,

 

[MtnBURN]

Yes..it does take some time to tend the 3 BK's I run here on some nights....but I shudder to think what it would be like with 3 non-cats and the 3-4 times a day loads they'd require! Bwahahahahaha. Just keeping my greenhouse warm would be a full time job with the lackluster efficiency and frequent reloads some stoves offer. It sure wouldn't be the "set it and forget it" overnight affair it is now with the BK.

What's funny is that a lot of folks making the comparisons/critiquing BK owners for their ongoing fan boy ways forget that most of us >have ran and owned< a myriad of non-cat stoves with their short burn times, crazy emissions, and ridiculous use of wood per season. From memory here...missing some for sure...I've had an Arrow, VC, Fisher, Earth Stove, Harman wood/coal, Regency insert, Buck the Dragon......and now....3 BK Princesses....)

Been there, f-ed with that to infinity....mostly in the middle of the night.....never goin' back again. It's that simple here.

As my old hickbilly grammie used to say "If somebody woulda showed me...I'd a knowed"..... Yup!

 

[ratsrepus]

three stoves? how much wood are you going through in a year? If you were running three Jotul Oslo's, that would be a full time job.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Because it’s extremely difficult to pass the epa test with a thermostat that is controlled by the heat the stove is producing. The epa test has highly regulated guidelines, and costs tons of money for testing. Each fail cost money and time, it could easily put a manufacturer out of business. Big manufacturers already have their own technology that they’ve sunk tons of money into, switching to the thermostat would be like starting over completely. It’s BKs thing, has been for 40 years or more.

Excellent explanation, very enlightening. Hadn't even considered the role of regulations compliance. I bet it is hard to pass with thermostat control, particularly mechanical.

 

[Ashful]

You guys crack me up. @begreen makes one little jab, as one who has never even owned a BK, and you guys waste 2 whole pages refuting it. He makes a good point, in that these stoves aren't magic, we still need to reload more often when it gets cold. Of course, he is missing a lot too. Again, he's never owned one, but he is having a lot of fun with you.

Likewise, I've never owned a non-cat, but I think most of the responders here have. My reload procedure is simple, though. Rake coals forward, put new wood in the box, close the door, set a timer for 5 minutes. Come back, close bypass, set a timer for 25 minutes. Come back, set thermostat to desired setting, and enjoy heat for 24 hours.

Maybe it's only a LITTLE easier than a non-cat, but I haven't found a non-cat that will run 24 hours. I also seem to read a lot of stories here of run-away stoves, and excepting a few clear malfunctions, 100% of those stories came from non-cats.

On the flip side, I am having an issue with one of my cat stoves. I have a chimney that provides 3x - 4x the allowable maximum draft. It has caused me some issues with clogging combustors. On a tube stove, this wouldn't be an issue, as the stove would've likely melted into the floor on the first firing.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

12 hour reloads when it’s cold but those noncats only last 3 hours when they are being run hard. Weird. Where does all the wood go?

Right up the chimney! I really DON'T like how much I heat the atmosphere right above the house. It's a nice clean heat, though. And the pipe does stay clean.

Of all the factors that go into a stove choice, this is the one, for my money, that most heavily favors the bk arrangement.

Eventually you fall into a rhythm with the more frequent reloads of tube stoves, so that stopped bothering me after the first season. Sending so much heat up the chimney will never stop bothering me.

On the minus column is initial expense, which can probably be justified, and the ongoing expense of the cat. The periodic cost of replacing the cat is the deal breaker for me. It's not lost on me that the company needs to make money, and recurring consumables is one of the best business models going.

 

[Diabel]

There is no doubt in my mind that BK makes a very good product. Reading hundreds and hundreds of posts here I would say 99% are positives. If it was not for this forum I would not even know BK existed.
Like most here, I came to this forum in search of help I was having with a brad new (3k) "Neverburn" VC Encore. If I only did some online research before my purchase I would likely come across this site and would be pointed (back in 2006) towards a Woodstock product. Instead, I sold the VC, picked up an old VC Encore cat (for free), redid the gaskets replaced the cat and it worked....
In the meantime I picked up a second VC Encore 2550 (again for free) and did a complete rebuild on it . This stove is running to this day and surprisingly well. It is definitely undersized for the house but I understand that and do not try to push it to the max when it is super cold out.

This summer I will be installing a BK Chinook in my lake house. I have a very strong feeling that like many others here.... I will be quietly saying to myself "why the hell didn't I do this sooner"!!

The Encore will stay in the house in town. No point replacing it since the house will be going on the market in about three years.

Next season I will be able to compare the two cat stoves, taking into consideration different set ups.

Honestly, if I get 12hrs out of the Chinook in a dead of winter I will be completely satisfied.

 

[ratsrepus]

On the minus column is initial expense, which can probably be justified, and the ongoing expense of the cat. The periodic cost of replacing the cat is the deal breaker for me. It's not lost on me that the company needs to make money, and recurring consumables is one of the best business models going.

Even if you have to replace the cat every two years, no big deal. I spend more than that on beer and stupid stuff.

 

[tarzan]

I spend more than that on beer and stupid stuff.

Me to, and usually in that order

 

[Woody Stover]

My DW went right where it belongs, the scrap yard

Dutchwest cat? What didn't you like about it? I've had the little 2460 for about 17 years, got it used for 350 when it was 5 yrs. old and it served me well for 10 more yrs, until I upgraded. I've still got it around as backup. My SIL has the same stove. They both could use a teardown for new seam cement (hers more than mine for some reason) but other than that we've never had any problems. A stove shop here picked the line back up for a couple of years, several years ago. They were going for 1500, pretty cheap for a cat stove. Sure, the castings are thin and can warp, and if you abuse it you are gonna have problems, but whaddya want for that kind of money? Then there's that dinky window. But it's the stove that got me hooked on the ash grate which is now one of my must-haves in any stove I'd consider. For a few years now, the Woodstock steel hybrids look to me like the best deal in the cat realm.

most of us >have ran and owned< a myriad of non-cat stoves with their short burn times, crazy emissions, and ridiculous use of wood per season.

That's where I think a lot of the fanboy-ism comes from..first-time cat stove owners. If you came from a tube stoves or an old smoke-blower stove from the 70s, sure, you're gonna think your new BK is the greatest thing since sliced bread. If you've been burning cats for many years, as I have, I don't think you will find a BK nearly as amazing. Now in your situation, having that thermostat in your greenhouse would be great as far as a hands-off, foolproof setup. Good choice for you.
Nothing wrong with buying a BK..everyone here has informed themselves the best they can, weighed the features that different stoves have to offer them, then made their choice based on what they think is going to work best for them.

@begreen makes one little jab, as one who has never even owned a BK,...He makes a good point, in that these stoves aren't magic, we still need to reload more often when it gets cold. Of course, he is missing a lot too. Again, he's never owned one, but he is having a lot of fun with you.
On the flip side, I am having an issue with one of my cat stoves. I have a chimney that provides 3x - 4x the allowable maximum draft. It has caused me some issues with clogging combustors.

Begreen's comments didn't come off as "jabs" to me at all, not sure how you came up with that? You're another guy who never really had a decent cat stove before, just those downdraft Jotuls that self-destructed multiple times and were a "royal" pain in the arse from a control standpoint, according to the posts of yours that we read here. It's understandable that you're dumbfounded by how easy running a good cat stove can be.
I run into that a lot from the BK faithful..."You never had a BK, you don't know how great they are!" Like I said, I've had good cat stoves for years, and I don't think I'd be waxing as ecstatic as some of the big fans do. I, too, read quite a bit before I bought my stove, including a lot of stuff about the BKs. Then I made my choice based on what I wanted in a stove. But if I point out a reason that I didn't choose a BK, I'm attacked, when all I'm talking about is "BK performance." I'm not saying that anyone has made a bad choice, as many here seem to think I am. Seems you are a bit touchy, Ashful. You point a finger at begreen as a pot-stirrer, but then turn around and corroborate his point by mentioning that you are having to "fiddle around" cleaning ash out of your combustor. You have to fiddle around with ashes as well, right? I don't.
Let's face it, we are all fiddlers in some regard, or we wouldn't even fool around with burning wood.

 

[ratsrepus]

It wasnt a cat stove, it was one of those downdraft stoves, never did work worth a dam

 

[Highbeam]

Right up the chimney! I really DON'T like how much I heat the atmosphere right above the house. It's a nice clean heat, though. And the pipe does stay clean.

Of all the factors that go into a stove choice, this is the one, for my money, that most heavily favors the bk arrangement.

Eventually you fall into a rhythm with the more frequent reloads of tube stoves, so that stopped bothering me after the first season. Sending so much heat up the chimney will never stop bothering me.

On the minus column is initial expense, which can probably be justified, and the ongoing expense of the cat. The periodic cost of replacing the cat is the deal breaker for me. It's not lost on me that the company needs to make money, and recurring consumables is one of the best business models going.

On the recurring costs thing, blaze king doesn’t make cats. You go to amazon and buy a new one no more than once per 2 years (10000 hours) from a vendor. I don’t think bk makes nearly as much money from parts as say Englander with the very expensive baffle boards and gaskets or the pellet stove line.

The cat for my princess is 186$ shipped. That amount of money is easily recovered by the wood savings in part of just one year of burning.

I burn my Englander nc30 hard to heat my workshop and I strip as much heat as I feel possible from a long single wall flue pipe but when I go outside I see that huge plume of clear exhaust and how much energy is puking right up the stack in order to be “clean” enough for epa. It’s an effective technology but wasteful.

My home is also from 1963 and when we’re in single digit temperatures I have to turn the princess to 50%. My reloads are then more often than every 24 hours but it is important to note that I never need high output. Long burn times mean you can keep your house warm so you don’t need to run these things hard to catch up. Keeping the house warm is also possible with a noncat if you are there to load it several times per day. The whole recovering thing is why people think they need so much stove power.

 

[ratsrepus]

see they even write books about blaze kings

 

[webby3650]

Dutchwest cat? What didn't you like about it? I've had the little 2460 for about 17 years, got it used for 350 when it was 5 yrs. old and it served me well for 10 more yrs, until I upgraded. I've still got it around as backup

Of all the stoves I’ve had, the Dutchwest was the least impressive stove. They are pretty durable, I’ll say that. I got a good deal on it and was able to make a little money fortunately.

 

[MtnBURN]

three stoves? how much wood are you going through in a year? If you were running three Jotul Oslo's, that would be a full time job.

Since this is my first year with 3 stoves.....good question.

There are honestly just too many factors in play this season to say for sure. It should also be duly noted that I do not burn all 3 stoves consistently.

It's also hard to say because...unlike many guys here...because I live IN the woods and have to consider forest fires seriously....I don't cut "live" wood and let it season....nor do stack and store piles of wood for future years in cords/etc. on my property. What I bring in is mostly cut from standing dead....dead fall...brush piles/etc. I try to cut from the forest what would burn readily in the forest...and unless it blew over live...it's all dead as a door nail stuff. Basically...I only try to bring in close to the buildings what I think I'll use in a season...and no more.

Last year I guesstimated had about 3.5 cords on hand and ended up with about 1/3 of that leftover. This year I put up roughly the same amount...slightly more pithy/light crap in there...slightly more oak in there as well...so we will see.

Also keep in mind...my house is 800 sq ft. and well insulated for the most part. It is the only stove that is consistently fired everyday..

The garage is 900 sq ft.... new construction....R-19 walls with 6" + of closed cell in the ceiling. Average of 11 ft ceilings. Holds heat well...a fire every other day will keep it above 50 most of the time.

GH...550 sq ft. R-3...heated at night only....and some nights it doesn't need heated at all. Gonna guesstimate 90 nights per year average of use.

So in all honesty...I'm firing 3 stoves but likely using the wood of about 2 on the whole.

Another perspective...stacking it up to other BK guys here....everything I'm heating would probably fit in Ashful's basement. LOL. (and holy shee-at..what a cool house...literally and figuratively)

So honestly..after all that blabbing...I have no clue "how much' wood I'll use...I only know I'll use far less than I did with one, "Buck" stove...the VC...the Arrow...the.....the....the....burning THREE STOVES.

I also know that if I have any wood leftover left this year...it will be the oak. Time will tell.

 

[jetsam]

You guys crack me up.

Did you miss the part where someone else is running THREE BKs?

If you filled up 2 more fireplaces with stoves, you could load 'em all every 24 hours all year, AND regsin your throne...

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

On the recurring costs thing, blaze king doesn’t make cats. You go to amazon and buy a new one no more than once per 2 years (10000 hours) from a vendor. I don’t think bk makes nearly as much money from parts as say Englander with the very expensive baffle boards and gaskets or the pellet stove line.

The cat for my princess is 186$ shipped. That amount of money is easily recovered by the wood savings in part of just one year of burning.

I burn my Englander nc30 hard to heat my workshop and I strip as much heat as I feel possible from a long single wall flue pipe but when I go outside I see that huge plume of clear exhaust and how much energy is puking right up the stack in order to be “clean” enough for epa. It’s an effective technology but wasteful.

My home is also from 1963 and when we’re in single digit temperatures I have to turn the princess to 50%. My reloads are then more often than every 24 hours but it is important to note that I never need high output. Long burn times mean you can keep your house warm so you don’t need to run these things hard to catch up. Keeping the house warm is also possible with a noncat if you are there to load it several times per day. The whole recovering thing is why people think they need so much stove power.

Good points. $97 per year in consumables to keep the heat in the house would be a small price to pay. I'm on my third $75 vermiculite baffle in three years. They are fragile, and even though we don't touch them, they crack in half, I'm guessing from too rapid temp change. So far, all covered under warranty, but that's over now. This was an unexpected expense that is a definite minus in the tube stove column.

 

[Highbeam]

Good points. $97 per year in consumables to keep the heat in the house would be a small price to pay. I'm on my third $75 vermiculite baffle in three years. They are fragile, and even though we don't touch them, they crack in half, I'm guessing from too rapid temp change. So far, all covered under warranty, but that's over now. This was an unexpected expense that is a definite minus in the tube stove column.

Whoa! I’m very careful not to damage the baffle in my nc30 but I load it to the roof! The price to replace the baffle boards is way more than 75$ now since the recent increase from Englander. If I were you I would really try to fix the cause. You should be able to get many years from the boards.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Whoa! I’m very careful not to damage the baffle in my nc30 but I load it to the roof! The price to replace the baffle boards is way more than 75$ now since the recent increase from Englander. If I were you I would really try to fix the cause. You should be able to get many years from the boards.

I wish I knew what was causing it. Perhaps it gets wet when the stove isn't running because a stiff horizontal/diagonal rain, followed up quick heat up of the stove. I lost a pizza stone in my grill like that last fall. CRACK! But, I don't want to pollute the pristine BK-only nature of this thread...

 

[Woody Stover]

It wasnt a cat stove, it was one of those downdraft stoves

Yeah, I think they are pretty finicky..different animal than the cat stove, for sure.

Of all the stoves I’ve had, the Dutchwest was the least impressive stove. They are pretty durable, I’ll say that. I got a good deal on it and was able to make a little money fortunately.

Not exactly a "superstar" of the cat world, but a workable stove at a decent price. Probably a ton of them out there..I think a lot of shops sold them at some point.

12 hour reloads when it’s cold but those noncats only last 3 hours when they are being run hard.

LOL. Switch locations with the Princess and 30NC and report back how it performs when pushed as hard to raise temps a big workshop space.

Ya, pretty sure he's not getting 12 hrs. with the air wide open, heheh.

I don't want to pollute the pristine BK-only nature of this thread...

, good one! These threads have circumnavigated the planet more times than a Google mapping satellite. That's a reason I read them..they get a lot of traffic and anything is likely to come up.

 

[Mark8]

Even if you have to replace the cat every two years, no big deal. I spend more than that on beer and stupid stuff.

I was just on the BK website under FAQ, and they said their cats can last up to ten years, is that not true.