2022-2023 BK everything thread

[Dieselhead]

I have been a exclusive hardwood burner for the last 7 seasons but with a glut of well seasoned pine and fir from some storm damaged trees a few years back the splits have found their way into the stove this year. There is a slight learning curve I have found with burning softwoods but once that is out of the way it proves to be a pretty decent fuel for the price.

 

[BKVP]

The inside of my fireboxes look like a mess. I never worried about it, the chimney is clean.

So, BKVP, what's the actual concern if it's thick and chunky? Is it corrosive?

I've never cleaned anything inside my stoves, I only pull the combustor to vacuum that clean, sweep the pipe thru the bypass damper, vacuum any debris out of the bypass damper area, slide the cat back in with a new gasket, and put it back into service. Seven years now, no problems yet.

Yes, creosote is very acid and can over time eat away at metals. Dry is much better than wet stuff!

 

[Highbeam]

The inside of my fireboxes look like a mess. I never worried about it, the chimney is clean.

So, BKVP, what's the actual concern if it's thick and chunky? Is it corrosive?

I've never cleaned anything inside my stoves, I only pull the combustor to vacuum that clean, sweep the pipe thru the bypass damper, vacuum any debris out of the bypass damper area, slide the cat back in with a new gasket, and put it back into service. Seven years now, no problems yet.

Weird. I too have not thin flakey but THICK flakey deposits in the firebox that comes off in sheets. Think cheap beef jerky. Maybe 1/8" on a side and black. I definitely don't get wet gooey tar anymore. Keeping the burn rate up a bit above silly low helps with the wet kind.

 

[Ashful]

Yeah, nothing gooey here, just flaking paper-thick sheets of black stuff coming off the steel walls above the brick, and hard thicker crazed glaze on the angle iron brick retainers. No signs of corrosion, yet.

Hell, I have 7 years on these stoves, and no noticeable sign of wear or corrosion, so I won't be surprised if they outlive my time in this house. As much as I love them, no stove is a family heirloom, my kids will have access to BK's even better than these, if they choose to do burn wood in their own homes. So, I don't see myself improving my yearly maintenance routine beyond what it is now.

I suspect that overfire kills more stoves more quickly, than any lack of scraping a firebox clean at the end of a season. I'd bet @bholler or @BKVP could confirm that.

 

[bholler]

Yeah, nothing gooey here, just flaking paper-thick sheets of black stuff coming off the steel walls above the brick, and hard thicker crazed glaze on the angle iron brick retainers. No signs of corrosion, yet.

Hell, I have 7 years on these stoves, and no noticeable sign of wear or corrosion, so I won't be surprised if they outlive my time in this house. As much as I love them, no stove is a family heirloom, my kids will have access to BK's even better than these, if they choose to do burn wood in their own homes. So, I don't see myself improving my yearly maintenance routine beyond what it is now.

I suspect that overfire kills more stoves more quickly, than any lack of scraping a firebox clean at the end of a season. I'd bet @bholler or @BKVP could confirm that.

Over fire of humid basements. Or of course just crappy stoves.

 

[stoveliker]

Basement stoves can be kept (on the inside, at least) fine in humid basements by taking the pipe off, capping the flue collar, stuffing the air inlet closed (so the stove is sealed from the basement) and adding a cup of damprid.

Also cap the chimney side of course.

 

[JAB]

I am about to pick up a BK Ashford 30.2 in the next few weeks but won't use it until next Spring in my mtn cabin. Is there a online store that sells BK dual fan kits and OAK for the Ashford 30.2 or do I have to go through my dealer? I see places to buy the combustor mentioned in an earlier post but haven't found a site with fans and OAK. I would prefer to buy from somewhere that will ship directly to me. I guess I could get my dealer to do this for me. But I can buy stuff for my VC Encore online and get it much faster than going through my dealer and VC directly...so hoping I can do the same with the BK?

 

[JAB]

I see OAK for the King and Princess online, but nothing for the Ashford. Might be easiest to just go through my dealer for Ashford parts.

 

[JAB]

OK. Upon further searches I see Begreen posted a link to stove & grill parts for less which has the OAK for BK and other Ashford 30.2 parts. It looks like the BK OAK fits any unit? I am not sure we need the OAK, but the wife thinks we will so probably will just install it. Nice to see I can get that easily online along with other spare parts. I will only have about an 8' total duct run with 2 or 3 elbows depending on how I run it so it seems a 3" duct would suffice.

 

[DonTee]

I checked and swept my chimney yesterday. It was very clean. Just a few light flakes fell out. So it does seem like I can burn lower than 250 flue temp on my long, low burns.

Yes the inside of my firebox is messy. I chip the pieces off the side and back occasionally. Just lightly rubbing with the poker, nothing too violent.

I notice my flue temp will fall off slightly over a long burn. If it’s 275 when I go to bed, it will be 225 when I wake up in the morning. So I’ve been bumping the temp control up to keep it above 250. But maybe I don’t have to do that.

I’ll try letting it get down to 200 and maintaining that, and see how the chimney looks. Although we’re running out of shoulder season soon, and I’ll be burning hotter fires.

 

[Nealm66]

I think a lot depends on the wood type. At least that’s what I deduced in my old pre epa stove. It was some sort of air tight stove, can’t remember what brand but it would have pretty long burn times for a non cat stove and I would have to clean the chimney out more often with certain types of wood. Yellow fir ( old growth Doug fir) was the worst but it would burn hotter and longer than second growth Doug fir ( red fir).

 

[DonTee]

The Vermont Castings stove I ran last year produced terrible creosote. And I’m burning the same wood as I was last year (type and time seasoned).

I did slightly reduce my horizontal run this year. I’m sure that helps also.

I had a Timberline smoke dragon stove before the VC. It burned pretty clean as long as I kept it hot enough. Better than the VC stove

I haven’t really found anything I don’t like about my BK stove. Even the price isn’t bad after the tax credit

 

[kennyp2339]

I checked and swept my chimney yesterday. It was very clean. Just a few light flakes fell out. So it does seem like I can burn lower than 250 flue temp on my long, low burns.

Yes the inside of my firebox is messy. I chip the pieces off the side and back occasionally. Just lightly rubbing with the poker, nothing too violent.

I notice my flue temp will fall off slightly over a long burn. If it’s 275 when I go to bed, it will be 225 when I wake up in the morning. So I’ve been bumping the temp control up to keep it above 250. But maybe I don’t have to do that.

I’ll try letting it get down to 200 and maintaining that, and see how the chimney looks. Although we’re running out of shoulder season soon, and I’ll be burning hotter fires.

My cap has the metal mesh around it for sparks / birds, I just keep an eye on the cap, if it starts looking chunky I know to go up there and inspect the chimney pipe w/ a flashlight.
I cleaned everything before the burn season started, the cap gets a quick wire brush, the crude (and not much of it) flakes right off.
The cap method kills 2 birds with one stove, I can judge whether I'm burning to low, if my wood is dry and if my cat is working well, I've had a failing cat in the past and the first giveaway was a dirty cap.
Now its normal to have to do a mid-season cap cleaning, but that should be after 10-12 weeks of burning 24/7, if your cap is gummed up after 3-4 weeks of burning then you need to make adjustments to your burning behavior

 

[Judge80]

This is my problem too, lots of hot reloads. I typically get two years out of a ceramic cat but my last one crumbled after a year. Flame impingement or thermal shock may have been factors. New steel cat now, I’ll let you know in a year how it compares.

I’m new this season to wood burners. What classifies a “hot reload”?

 

[kennyp2339]

I’m new this season to wood burners. What classifies a “hot reload”?

Fire going in the fire box, opening by-pass adding more wood or topping off the firebox, close door and close by-pass

 

[stoveliker]

Or, still having coals in the firebox (and for a BK I'd add that the cat is still in the active range), and then the steps noted above.
I.e. "fire" (as in flames) is not needed.

 

[Ashful]

Or, still having coals in the firebox (and for a BK I'd add that the cat is still in the active range), and then the steps noted above.
I.e. "fire" (as in flames) is not needed.

It's funny we all have slightly different definitions. I'm like kenny, a "hot" reload for me is on something substantially more exciting than coals. Sort of like, "if it's hot enough you need to don gloves before loading to keep the hair on the back of your hand", that's a hot reload to me.

Everything else, including daily reloads on low active region cat, are just "regular" reloads for me.

 

[stoveliker]

I see. Any *RE*-load is hot. Otherwise it's a cold start. Makes sense (too).

Is it hot or not... (or was that only a 90's thing and I'm showing my age...)

 

[Ashful]

I guess that, like our debates over definitions of burn time lead to the BK group using "active cat" to define burn time, we could come up with standard terms for reloads:

1. Cold start, obvious.
2. Reload = loading onto coals, sufficient for relight without a match
3. Hot reload = reloading on active flame

 

[BKVP]

Raking my NOALS! Hot donuts anyone?

 

[Poindexter]

I think of cold starts, warm reloads where the combustor is not in the active range, and hot reloads as where the combustor never drops out of the active range. Some hot reloads are hotter than others for sure.

 

[BKVP]

I think of cold starts, warm reloads where the combustor is not in the active range, and hot reloads as where the combustor never drops out of the active range. Some hot reloads are hotter than others for sure.

ADEC's entire first hour filter pull is premised upon the belief that wood stoves users in FNSB have daily cold starts.

 

[Crummy]

ADEC's entire first hour filter pull is premised upon the belief that wood stoves users in FNSB have daily cold starts.

Since I fired the stove up first of September I don't think I've had more than a half a dozen cold starts. Friend of mine got a regency this fall and he has two cold starts a day. Very glad I was able to score a BK, he tried but none were available.

 

[Nealm66]

I’d say I do about 6 cold starts in a season and only because we get some crazy warm spells sometimes. I don’t even have kindling pile. I just chop a few smaller pieces of the firewood. I hate building fires but the princess has no mercy when it warms up

 

[Crummy]

I’d say I do about 6 cold starts in a season and only because we get some crazy warm spells sometimes. I don’t even have kindling pile. I just chop a few smaller pieces of the firewood. I hate building fires but the princess has no mercy when it warms up

Oh how nice a warm spell would be. We have cold starts because the bottom drops out of it and adec decides we need to freeze for a day or two 🙄