2021-2022 BK everything thread

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Not all short stacks resulting in stalling. Every install is different. The dealer will be able to spec if additional draft is needed.
I live @ 10’ above sea level in RI, I can get away with the 15’ minimum at 45 deg. F., not sure that would be the same for higher elevations.
 
Not all short stacks resulting in stalling. Every install is different. The dealer will be able to spec if additional draft is needed.

I'm one of those guys with a princess on a 12' stack. All vertical of course. That met the manual specifications when I installed it back in 2012. They hadn't yet invented the 15' recommendation. It's always hard to tell if it's a recommendation or a requirement.

It works great. No smoke smell in the house and I regularly burn when it is 60 degrees outside as I am a full time wood heater. Still burning daily right now in mid May. It runs very low just fine in crock pot mode. Just don't open the door in the middle of a long burn or you'll likely get some roll out. I don't do that very often though unless it's bitter cold out so it hasn't been a problem.

I have a similar home to @MCC with a single story home and for me 12' is just under the limit before you need those goofy looking roof braces and honestly the ridiculous height of a 7' exposed stack on top of a home that is just 7-8' to the gutters.
 
Still burning, middle of June. Not every day but last night for sure. It was 65 in the house and mid 40s overnight. I am using high settings hoping to burn off any goo and keep everything dry for our 2-3 month summer burn break.
 
We occasionally burn in June, but more because I'm looking for an excuse for "one last fire", than any real need for it.

I just shoveled both of mine out, vacuumed around them, and closed the fireplace doors on each two days ago. Haven't burned in a couple of weeks, I figure I'm done. I'll get around to a proper cleaning and chimney sweeping in the fall, if this year is anything like the last few.
 
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I've been in Texas this week. The only thing burning here is everything! Hotter than hedoubletoothpicks.
 
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Every install is different.
Fully agree. One variable is fuel. @MCC

There is (rabbit hole) a show on I think netflix with a space alien living in Colorado who pretends to be a doctor blah, blah. One of his most used line is "This is some BS" aka "That is some BS," a line I have wanted to use more often than I had been able to to, as a stepfather, until we started watching this show. Now I can say it as a movie quote....

Anyroad, in my first couple years as a wood burner I was burning everything I could get my hands on, birch, spruce, cottonwood, alder, whatever. Once I had all that mixed fuel dry, I noticed it behaved differently in the stove and decided mixed fuel is some BS. So now I burn all spruce, and I kiln it for uniform MC, and this is not BS.

For flue height, I want just enough height (shortest stack possible) to run wide open throttle in the depths of winter without doing metallurgy on the hearth. From there, I want the tallest possible stack to run low and slow in warmer weather. But not so tall I get molten stove metal dripping onto the hearth in cold weather...

You may indeed start with 12 feet of total pipe in Wisconsin. The wind marks in the farmland flying in to Minneapolis from Fairbanks are remarkable. You probably won't melt anything expensive in January 2023 running wide open throttle with fuel at 12%MC. On 12 feet, you will be very limited in your ability to run the stove low and slow in shoulder seasons. You probably will not hit your perfect final flue height from internet posts. None of us really know your local winds, none of us have seen the topography within three miles of your house, we don't know where the nearest tree to your chimney is in relation to your prevailing winds. We don't know how dry your fuel is. We don't know how may different species are in your stacks.

If you are out in the country with high winds, like the trees are asymmetrical near you, stick at 12 feet total and see if you melt anything in January. If your trees look balanced, 15 feet will give you more flexibility to run lower and slower in spring and autumn. I am currently running 16-17 feet of total stack height on an Ashford 30. At -50dF (we don't get much wind in Fairbanks) I can run wide open for weeks at a time without peeling the paint on my stove. Above freezing I run small fuel loads at wide open throttle to put a burst of heat in the house without the stove going out from lack of draft. Above about +40 to +45dF I don't run my wood stove at all, it is just too much trouble.

It took me four seasons and three changes to leave my stack height alone. If you got a lot of wind, start with 12. If your trees are balanced on all sides, 15 is is probably a safe place to start. If you wake up in January because it sounds like there is a locomotive in your living room in the middle of the night, you got too much stack for conditions.
 
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Too bad you couldn't wait until August to post that gem, Poindexter. It'd have been the perfect stream of consciousness rant to end this thread.

And as to the locomotive, some of us run key dampers and manometers, to cancel the height variable.
 
No burning here in June either in spite of us having a Juneuary like we had a decade ago. 48-50 overnight and 58-65 during the day. As Pointdexter mentioned, it's too much hassle. Running the numbers it's also less expensive to let the heat pump cover it. It barely makes a blip in the electric bill with these temps.
 
Hi

The bottom line seems to be you can not get enough heat out of your Princess to heat your house when it is cold.

I had a similar problem, and I found a way to fix that.

I started out with a Lopi Liberty replacing an old Earth Stove a few years ago. It did heat my home, which is over 3,000 sq. ft., is a log home, so no thick insulation, and a lot of big glass on two stories.

However, I simply could not put up with the Lopi. The big firebox is a fib, as the air tubes intrude down into the firebox, and the door is very close to the bottom, so you can not build up much of any coal and ash base. I was refilling it twice per night. I might add, I only have Ponderosa pine to burn, which is quite punky, and very uneven splits due to huge knots.

Anyway, I traded it in for a Blaze King KE40. Vastly better in every which way. Nice deep firebox that I can accumulate coals and ash, and get in over twice as much wood as the Lopi. And the thermostat control is of course absolutely great.

However, there was one issue. It would not heat my house. I could not extract heat fast enough to replace the losses when cold. The main reason was the very wimpy fan on the BK. It puts out about one third the air volume of the Lopi.

So I came up with the solution that now very adequately heats my house. I added some external fans. I have one that sits above the stove and blows directly down onto the top of the stove where the catalytic hot spot is. Then I have two more fans directing the heat generated and taking it up the stairs to the upper floor where our living area is.

The key is removing the heat from the stove. If it does not get removed fast enough, the thermostat will not tell the stove to generate heat fast enough. The thermostat will only tell the stove to open up when it cools off, which it will not do if the stove and the air around it remain very warm. This warm air right around the stove will not get into the rest of the house if it is not moved there by some means, and the wimpy fan on the BK is not up to the job.

Again, the key is to have a strong fan blowing directly on the stove. This forces the stove to generate heat faster, and also distributes the heat to other parts of the house.

I think that experimenting with a fan on your Princess will make you happy.

View attachment 291561
Hello,
Mike here from Central PA. saw you owned both stoves and im torn btwn them. I have a log home, 3500 sq ft. but really just trying to heat our 2000 sq ft living room with 23 ft ceilings. I like the idea of a large firebox in the king but feel the lopi will pump a super hot heat but for shorter amounts of time. I will be burning oak/maple and dont really mind if I burn more wood using the lopi as long as I get a hotter heat.

Can you please tell me which stove when run on high felt warmer? Not really worried about efficiency more so thinking I need to focus more on getting a hot heat out of a stove and so was hoping you could help me out. My heads been spinning for weeks on these two stoves..any thoughts you might have are appreciated.


Thanks, Mike
 
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I'm curious what year Liberty @Montanalocal owned. The new Liberty has some nice firebox improvements. It's larger and deeper. Sealcove got one last winter.
That said, not many stoves have the deep belly of the KE40. That's what gives it that thick bottom profile.
 
I got my Lopi Liberty in August of 2019. The invoice has listed as a description #1105.

It had a very shallow belly, and that was the main reason I traded it for a KE 40
 
I got my Lopi Liberty in August of 2019. The invoice has listed as a description #1105.

It had a very shallow belly, and that was the main reason I traded it for a KE 40
Thanks. They made the firebox change in 2020.
 
Hello,
Mike here from Central PA. saw you owned both stoves and im torn btwn them. I have a log home, 3500 sq ft. but really just trying to heat our 2000 sq ft living room with 23 ft ceilings. I like the idea of a large firebox in the king but feel the lopi will pump a super hot heat but for shorter amounts of time. I will be burning oak/maple and dont really mind if I burn more wood using the lopi as long as I get a hotter heat.

Can you please tell me which stove when run on high felt warmer? Not really worried about efficiency more so thinking I need to focus more on getting a hot heat out of a stove and so was hoping you could help me out. My heads been spinning for weeks on these two stoves..any thoughts you might have are appreciated.


Thanks, Mike
I think that both stoves can pump out a great amount of heat if run on high. Having run both, I would say that the Blaze King is by far the better stove. It has a great automatic temperature control system. The Lopi has a manual setting for how much air to let in, and it is very finicky to set. Just a small fraction of an inch either way will give widely varying results. The BK has an automatic system that is very practical and usefulI. I would never in a million years go back to my Lopi. If you are trying to heat mainly your large living room, the easier to control BK would be your best bet. The Lopi would be more likely to overheat I think.
 
Hello,
Mike here from Central PA. saw you owned both stoves and im torn btwn them. I have a log home, 3500 sq ft. but really just trying to heat our 2000 sq ft living room with 23 ft ceilings. I like the idea of a large firebox in the king but feel the lopi will pump a super hot heat but for shorter amounts of time. I will be burning oak/maple and dont really mind if I burn more wood using the lopi as long as I get a hotter heat.

Can you please tell me which stove when run on high felt warmer? Not really worried about efficiency more so thinking I need to focus more on getting a hot heat out of a stove and so was hoping you could help me out. My heads been spinning for weeks on these two stoves..any thoughts you might have are appreciated.


Thanks, Mike
Hi Mike,
I’m assuming your from Loganton, not Loganto ??
Anyway, I have a camp off of East Winter rd/ Sugarhaven ln…. I’ll be up end of next week, I can tell you all you ever need to know about the BK King… Awesome stove !!
Not sure where you are ??
 
Hi Mike,
I’m assuming your from Loganton, not Loganto ??
Anyway, I have a camp off of Est Winter rd/ Sugarhaven ln…. I’ll be up end of next week, I can tell you all you ever need to know about the BK King… Awesome stove !!
Not sure where you are ??
Hey! yeah Loganton. Your only 15 mins from me. I will shoot you a PM. Would love to chat.
 
We just had our Princess installed this week. Super excited, I’ve wanted a stove for years. We ended up with 14’ stack height with 2 45 offsets to clear a rafter. I’m interested in having a fire to try and cure off some paint smell and honestly to just see it burning. Is there a proper breakin procedure?

Thanks
Dan

25EE6EEC-C80E-4B52-9F99-6A50AC51817B.jpeg F14BA00A-CD74-4368-AEDA-ECDE8933D6BA.jpeg
 
I think the proper procedure is described in the manual?

Edit: indeed, page 29.


Nice install. If you have smoke roll out, you may have to add some chimney height. I believe the manual specifies a minimum of 15', and that is without the 45 deg elbows. Adding elbows adds to the minimum recommended stack height.
 
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I would wait until about 40 degrees for that first fire. My Sirocco drafts very good, but I had a lot of smoke roll out on my first paint cure fire because it was not cold enough outside.
Many of us prefer a summertime break in fire since we can open all the windows to vent any paint fumes from the baking of the new paint on the stove and the pipe. I burn a lot in the 60s outside temps with a 12’ stack on my princess. Close the door to minimize or eliminate smoke rollout from the actual fire.

Another nice thing about a summertime break in fire is if something is found to be defective or need work. Much easier when not during the heating season.
 
Still a while before the burning season is here but planning on some stove maintenance. I haven’t had much look with ceramic cats. My last one lasted only a year and crumbled. Yes my wood is dry. It was actually prob too dry. I suspect I have high draft and burned a lot of very dry pine last year. It was good heat but when the stove was ripping you could see the flames nearly going around the cat shield. My theory is I have high draft and very dry wood causing the flames to damage the cat but who knows. My previous cats only lasted two years but I burn hard 24/7 October - April. I’m planning on a steel cat and a new rope gasket for the door. Will any door rope work or does the princess need a certain diameter of rope? Does the old rope simply pull off and new one glued back on? Any help or videos would be appreciated.
 
Still a while before the burning season is here but planning on some stove maintenance. I haven’t had much look with ceramic cats. My last one lasted only a year and crumbled. Yes my wood is dry. It was actually prob too dry. I suspect I have high draft and burned a lot of very dry pine last year. It was good heat but when the stove was ripping you could see the flames nearly going around the cat shield. My theory is I have high draft and very dry wood causing the flames to damage the cat but who knows. My previous cats only lasted two years but I burn hard 24/7 October - April. I’m planning on a steel cat and a new rope gasket for the door. Will any door rope work or does the princess need a certain diameter of rope? Does the old rope simply pull off and new one glued back on? Any help or videos would be appreciated.
Have you checked your draft with a Manometer ??
Something is definitely amiss with your setup/burning/loading situation..
 
Ditto what @showrguy said. I'm past 40 cords on a ceramic cat, with zero sign of mechanical degradation. Zero.

How many cords did you put thru the stove, before the thing fell apart? If less than 40, I'd say we need to figure out why.

I have a tall pipe, but use a key damper to keep my draft at 0.05" WC on full throttle.
 
I have not checked my draft. My setup is quite basic approximately 23 feet of chimney. High winds may be a factor
 
Ditto what @showrguy said. I'm past 40 cords on a ceramic cat, with zero sign of mechanical degradation. Zero.

How many cords did you put thru the stove, before the thing fell apart? If less than 40, I'd say we need to figure out why.

I have a tall pipe, but use a key damper to keep my draft at 0.05" WC on full throttle.
Mine fell apart after about 6 cords. My two previous cats did not fall apart and lasted 2 years and 10,000 hours. My door seal appears to be tight, I do a lot of hot reloads but the bypass is always in the correct position and I wait a few minutes before engaging and disengaging. I think I had a severe case of flame impingement.
 
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