2018-19 Blaze King Performance Thread Part 1 (Everything BK)

[bholler]

Well my princess cranks right up there, as a matter of fact we were discussing princess and ashford comparisons yesterday. one thing Im having an issue with is, the princess i can load wood when it time to, close the bypass and the cat temp climbs as high the 2 o'clock position even when the air control is turned down low, not on the hole, but lets just say a low setting. I assume that's a good thing and the way the stove is supposed to work. The ashford sorta does the same thing, but never goes much above the 12 o'clock may 1 position. same wood, same length of chimney approximately. the only difference is the princess is straight up and the ashford is two 90's before straight up, so maybe less draft? No air leakes, have checked that

Ok yes mine does that as well. But the surface temps of the stove are considerably lower everywhere but over the cat than they were with my regency with the same chimney same pipe and same wood. There is allot more to heatoutput than cat temps.

 

[lsucet]

Well, we all no Englander stoves are not too controllable like high dollar stoves as for what many here said. But when we talk about heat, they can heat for sure. I dont see any different on heat between both running hot except that i can tell to the BK, " I want just this much heat " controlling the dial. Maybe @bholler is used to all that heat from non cat cause that is the nature of the beast. They run hot all the time.

 

[kennyp2339]

I am sorry but i am really disappointed in the heat output on high from the princess. From what i have seen so far i am very sceptical that it will have the btis i need on cold windy nights. It is fantastic on low but that is only part of what is needed.

Yea know what you mean, I wasn't to impressed with it either, I then added the convection deck and blower and the thing ozes the heat out perfectly.

 

[kf6hap]

Can any other stove beat a BK low fire burn time using the same quantity of wood?

If no, then the BK stoves have the best operational turn down ratio.

 

[bholler]

Well, we all no Englander stoves are not too controllable like high dollar stoves as for what many here said. But when we talk about heat, they can heat for sure. I dont see any different on heat between both running hot except that i can tell to the BK, " I want just this much heat " controlling the dial. Maybe @bholler is used to all that heat from non cat cause that is the nature of the beast. They run hot all the time.

Yes but that non cat heated my house fine with 1/3 the insulation it has now in the attic. All the control in the world doesnt mean a thing if there arent enough btus.

 

[bholler]

Can any other stove beat a BK low fire burn time using the same quantity of wood?

If no, then the BK stoves have the best operational turn down ratio.

No one is arguing that. They are by far the best in that respect

 

[bholler]

Yea know what you mean, I wasn't to impressed with it either, I then added the convection deck and blower and the thing ozes the heat out perfectly.

The one lent to me has blowers

 

[lsucet]

Yes but that non cat heated my house fine with 1/3 the insulation it has now in the attic. All the control in the world doesnt mean a thing if there arent enough btus.

I know if it doesn't work for you is okay. I understand. But where those btu are going then? Up the chimney? Wet wood? oh no now i am in trouble.

 

[tarzan]

I am sorry but i am really disappointed in the heat output on high from the princess. From what i have seen so far i am very sceptical that it will have the btis i need on cold windy nights. It is fantastic on low but that is only part of what is needed.

How many hours were you getting from a load in your old stove on a cold, windy night?

 

[bholler]

How many hours were you getting from a load in your old stove on a cold, windy night?

6 at most. But the house was warm.

 

[bholler]

I know if it doesn't work for you is okay. I understand. But where those btu are going then? Up the chimney? Wet wood? oh no now i am in trouble.

They are released over a longer period of time. Meaning less btus per hour. Its pretty simple.

 

[tarzan]

6 at most. But the house was warm.

Yeah, you might not be very happy then when it gets truly cold.

Hopefully the insulation helps but your btu needs are pretty demanding for any large stove.

 

[bholler]

Yeah, you might not be very happy then when it gets truly cold.

Hopefully the insulation helps but your btu needs are pretty demanding for any large stove.

I still have oil backup it will be fine. But thankyou for acknowledging that i may know what i am doing.

 

[ratsrepus]

Let's try to stay on-topic, although occasional rants are part of the scene...as long as we don't get into flame wars, that's OK.


just re familiarizing myself with the rules

 

[bholler]

Let's try to stay on-topic, although occasional rants are part of the scene...as long as we don't get into flame wars, that's OK.


just re familiarizing myself with the rules

My rules are be nice to people and dont chase away people who really need help by making fun of their situation. If you dont like that i am sorry.

 

[jetsam]

I can tell that it's getting cold because there's 2 new pages on this thread every time I look at my phone.

bholler, that BK isn't much different than a tube stove when you turn it up all the way. You can have a ~4 hour burn on a full load of oak if you want to crank it up that far. It's not putting out heat like a gigantic cast iron Fischer or whatever, but then I've had bonfires that weren't heat like a gigantic cast iron Fischer, and the smoke dragon would have eaten a lot more wood to make that same heat.

If you were blowing through 3cf of wood in 6 hours to keep your house warm before, you can certainly keep doing that with the Princess. In fact, when you burn that high, you get secondaries as well as a glowy red cat. It's purty!

Not gonna say the BK is super efficient at those output levels though, most of the heat is coming from the fire instead of the cat when you really crank it up.

Do a little brain shift though.... you never need to burn on high to heat up the house in a hurry when the stove is always burning on a super efficient low, and it never gets to low coals because you can just top it off every 12h. Like my wife said last winter, "I see you putting wood in, but it's always just 70 in here!"

...and for the record, you know way more about wood burning than I ever will, but I think you're approaching this stove from a long experience with other stoves instead of approaching it like it is something different.

Just like a chainsaw- It is a different machine if you run it in the sweet spot!

 

[bholler]

I can tell that it's getting cold because there's 2 new pages on this thread every time I look at my phone.

bholler, that BK isn't much different than a tube stove when you turn it up all the way. You can have a ~4 hour burn on a full load of oak if you want to crank it up that far. It's not putting out heat like a gigantic cast iron Fischer or whatever, but then I've had bonfires that weren't heat like a gigantic cast iron Fischer, and the smoke dragon would have eaten a lot more wood to make that same heat.

If you were blowing through 3cf of wood in 6 hours to keep your house warm before, you can certainly keep doing that with the Princess. In fact, when you burn that high, you get secondaries as well as a glowy red cat. It's purty!

Not gonna say the BK is super efficient at those output levels though, most of the heat is coming from the fire instead of the cat when you really crank it up.

Do a little brain shift though.... you never need to burn on high to heat up the house in a hurry when the stove is always burning on a super efficient low, and it never gets to low coals because you can just top it off every 12h. Like my wife said last winter, "I see you putting wood in, but it's always just 70 in here!"

...and for the record, you know way more about wood burning than I ever will, but I think you're approaching this stove from a long experience with other stoves instead of approaching it like it is something different.

Just like a chainsaw- It is a different machine if you run it in the sweet spot!

I am sorry but the thermometers in my house and my ir thermometer taking readings of the 2 stoves dont really care how i approach the stove. It simply does not put out the same heat the regency did. Yes it is nice even heat and i like that. Yes 75% of the time I am sure it will be enough heat. And once i am done with the house i am sure it would be all the time. But at this point the one day that was in the 30s and high winds i burnt through a load in 8 hours to keep the house at 70. When it drops to teens or lower i dont know that it will keep up on its own.

 

[bholler]

I can tell that it's getting cold because there's 2 new pages on this thread every time I look at my phone.

bholler, that BK isn't much different than a tube stove when you turn it up all the way. You can have a ~4 hour burn on a full load of oak if you want to crank it up that far. It's not putting out heat like a gigantic cast iron Fischer or whatever, but then I've had bonfires that weren't heat like a gigantic cast iron Fischer, and the smoke dragon would have eaten a lot more wood to make that same heat.

If you were blowing through 3cf of wood in 6 hours to keep your house warm before, you can certainly keep doing that with the Princess. In fact, when you burn that high, you get secondaries as well as a glowy red cat. It's purty!

Not gonna say the BK is super efficient at those output levels though, most of the heat is coming from the fire instead of the cat when you really crank it up.

Do a little brain shift though.... you never need to burn on high to heat up the house in a hurry when the stove is always burning on a super efficient low, and it never gets to low coals because you can just top it off every 12h. Like my wife said last winter, "I see you putting wood in, but it's always just 70 in here!"

...and for the record, you know way more about wood burning than I ever will, but I think you're approaching this stove from a long experience with other stoves instead of approaching it like it is something different.

Just like a chainsaw- It is a different machine if you run it in the sweet spot!

And no matter how much you think it is something different it is just a stove.

 

[bholler]

With that 8 hour burn it was already turned up pretty high i doubt i could burn through a load of oak in 4 hours unless i let the bypass open which wouldnt make much heat.

 

[pjohnson]

Boy all this talk about Blaze King not putting out the heats got me concerned to buy one. Wish I could just put an old Fisher in and be done with it

 

[bholler]

Boy all this talk about Blaze King not putting out the heats got me concerned to buy one. Wish I could just put an old Fisher in and be done with it

They put out decent heat and that heat is nice and even. It just is not as much as some other stoves. It all depends on your needs.

 

[bholler]

I dont want it to come across as me bashing bk stoves. I really like how it heats. I just think my current btu load is to high.

 

[Woody Stover]

The EPA test results are interesting but aren't necessarily reflective of the real world. Outside of BK there aren't really stoves that can crack 20hrs (Woodstock gets here). There might be stoves that can go lower, but it doesn't seem like they can stay there for a load without stalling.
Woodstock seems to have the high end covered with their secondary burn, at some point the cat just won't be able to handle the flow velocity or feed-rate of a high burn without either overheating and suffering a short lifespan, or just allowing particulates to blast thru too quick to be consumed.

The EPA tests may not exactly reflect real-world operation but the range of outputs is based on four different burn rates from low to high. The fuel loads are structured so the numbers should be good for general comparison, considering the number of different stoves tested..they can't all be fluke or outlier tests I wouldn't think.
Yes, the Woodstock AS appears to go lower as well as higher, except for the BK 30.2 but for some reason the numbers for the 30.2 don't display correctly in the chart..peak output can't be 2711 so I don't know if we can trust that low number of 1553.
Agreed, jury is still out on how the cats in the hybrids will hold up but the PH has been in the field several years and I haven't seen anything yet to indicate that their life will be shortened (I haven't followed it closely though.) Anyway, I don't try to go real long before I replace a cat..usually swap when they start to drop off noticeably in performance after several years.
Even a straight cat stove will let some particulates by if you open up the air too far, as has been reported by owners of all different brands.

My calculated heat loss on my house comes out to about 40kbtu/hr, and the BK handles 95% of the heating season on low, I only step up above low when I've got some recovery to do if I let the fire go out for a couple hours, or if we want to enjoy some flames in the evening.

I have no backup heat fuel use to calculate my heat loss on. All I can say is that down to about upper 40s day/upper 30s night I can easily get by on one load at night of mid-output wood (River Birch, Black Cherry) in my little Keystone, and the room temp doesn't swing more than two or three degrees. I don't see a need to burn lower than the 8500 it is rated at.

That being said, I'd love to try out a Woodstock eventually, I like their quirkiness, double glass, and nicer fireview.

OK, keep us posted. Maybe you'll be converted and we can start our own little Woodstock cult.

Didn’t forget but disregarded the trolling. See, those epa output ratings are not dependable information. Any manufacturer could put whatever they want.

The numbers are the result of tests at EPA-accredited labs, the manufacturers don't come up with the numbers. The tests have to be run within specified parameters.
I don't troll, unless you call poking a little fun a couple of "elves" trolling. Go ahead, poke some fun at me, I don't mind. I don't want to argue with you, as a troll would, I just offer an alternative to the stuff you sometimes throw out there, like "The rest of the stove world is way behind with developing a stove offering such a wide range of outputs." Well, I disagree.
That said, I at the same time commend you and Ashful for being frank in discussing some of the stuff that's less than stellar about your stoves. I hope I do the same when talking about my stoves.

See, now this is the kind of good-natured ribbing I'm talkin' about!

@Woody Stover Well glad to see your back, missed you like a hemorrhoid

Yeah, I wanna be a "pain in your butt" to keep you from falling asleep and your stove taking off on you...oh yeah, that's right, you have the thermostat to save you.

ignorance really *is* bliss.

I'm also not a big fan of using asterisks instead of italics.

So no one likes woody stover? seems like a nice guy to me.

Hahahaha, good one!

For sure we have @Woody Stover back. Hey woody, did you move the bed closes to the stove for this winter already?

Haven't moved the bed into position yet, but I did break out the down comforter.

I do like him, but i like more his obsession with ash grate.

Well, if I was as muscly as you, I could lift those huge buckets of ashes. But I'm not that manly so I have to just pull the ash pan every few days and hope I don't strain myself.
I was out your way several weeks back but didn't have time to get in touch about stopping by to check out your stoves. Wasn't cold enough anyway.

Yeah, but it seems he may have developed a habit of hitting the sauce considerably earlier than usual.

Well, it wasn't that early but when I watched the 6:00 PM local news/weather a while ago, and saw that the freezing rain was starting, I knew I wasn't going anywhere, and broke out the liquid heat.

I am sorry but i am really disappointed in the heat output on high from the princess. From what i have seen so far i am very sceptical that it will have the btis i need on cold windy nights. It is fantastic on low but that is only part of what is needed.

Thanks for taking the "heat" off me!

No fancy machinist measuring tools though! The NC30 manufacturer claimed 0.250" and I measured with a real tape measure 3/16" so maybe it's a nominal thing like a 2x4 stick of lumber isn't really 2" thick.

Anything I've measured with a micrometer has been what they claimed, like 1/4" on the Buck 91..

Wish I could just put an old Fisher in and be done with it

Bah, "unlike."

oh no now i am in trouble.

You live in NM, you don't need much heat... "don't sweat it."

 

[bholler]

The EPA tests may not exactly reflect real-world operation but the range of outputs is based on four different burn rates from low to high. The fuel loads are structured so the numbers should be good for general comparison, considering the number of different stoves tested..they can't all be fluke or outlier tests I wouldn't think.
Yes, the Woodstock AS appears to go lower as well as higher, except for the BK 30.2 but for some reason the numbers for the 30.2 don't display correctly in the chart..peak output can't be 2711 so I don't know if we can trust that low number of 1553.
Agreed, jury is still out on how the cats in the hybrids will hold up but the PH has been in the field several years and I haven't seen anything yet to indicate that their life will be shortened (I haven't followed it closely though.) Anyway, I don't try to go real long before I replace a cat..usually swap when they start to drop off noticeably in performance after several years.
Even a straight cat stove will let some particulates by if you open up the air too far, as has been reported by owners of all different brands.
I have no backup heat fuel use to calculate my heat loss on. All I can say is that down to about upper 40s day/upper 30s night I can easily get by on one load at night of mid-output wood (River Birch, Black Cherry) in my little Keystone, and the room temp doesn't swing more than two or three degrees. I don't see a need to burn lower than the 8500 it is rated at.
OK, keep us posted. Maybe you'll be converted and we can start our own little Woodstock cult.
The numbers are the result of tests at EPA-accredited labs, the manufacturers don't come up with the numbers. The tests have to be run within specified parameters.
I don't troll, unless you call poking a little fun a couple of "elves" trolling. Go ahead, poke some fun at me, I don't mind. I don't want to argue with you, as a troll would, I just offer an alternative to the stuff you sometimes throw out there, like "The rest of the stove world is way behind with developing a stove offering such a wide range of outputs." Well, I disagree.
That said, I at the same time commend you and Ashful for being frank in discussing some of the stuff that's less than stellar about your stoves. I hope I do the same when talking about my stoves.

See, now this is the kind of good-natured ribbing I'm talkin' about!
Yeah, I wanna be a "pain in your butt" to keep you from falling asleep and your stove taking off on you...oh yeah, that's right, you have the thermostat to save you.

I'm also not a big fan of using asterisks instead of italics.
Hahahaha, good one!

Haven't moved the bed into position yet, but I did break out the down comforter.
Well, if I was as muscly as you, I could lift those huge buckets of ashes. But I'm not that manly so I have to just pull the ash pan every few days and hope I don't strain myself.
I was out your way several weeks back but didn't have time to get in touch about stopping by to check out your stoves. Wasn't cold enough anyway.
View attachment 233356 View attachment 233357 View attachment 233358 View attachment 233359
Well, it wasn't that early but when I watched the 6:00 PM local news/weather a while ago, and saw that the freezing rain was starting, I knew I wasn't going anywhere, and broke out the liquid heat.
View attachment 233362

Thanks for taking the heat off me!
Anything I've measured with a micrometer has been what they claimed, like 1/4" on the Buck 91..
Bah, "unlike."
You live in NM, "don't sweat it."

My intention was not to take the heat off you. I am relaying my experiences burning a bk. You seem to just be trying to pick fights for no reason.

 

[lsucet]

Here the main house is from the late/early 50s if I remember correctly. Is a prefab. Early 70s my wife's grand parents bought it used moved and installed it here. From there, they did additions and when they did used better insulation on those additions added over the years, it is far from modern times. Many parts are not even insulated. 80% of the part of the house facing North is the main house that has like newspaper for insulation in the walls.
On the last 2 years I have been doing some remodeling but still far, far, far from be perfect and never will. It is what it is.
The whole point is that I have no issues keeping the house to a decent temperature with one of the BK when I did the switch. The house still on a bad shape and leaky as hell at that time. I really don't know what to say. @bholler for long time without burn on one, you have that negativity that a BK will not heat your place. Possibly you just have that in your mind. Everything is possible, but anyway it has been said so many times here, what work for some, don't work for others.