Ambiance Hipster 20 / Blazeking Princess

[hotmountains]

Looking to get some help deciding between stoves.

We are currently considering getting a BlazeKing Princess 32 or an Ambiance Hipster 20. Local dealer is offering both stoves at nearly identical prices.
We like the style of the Hipster a bit better than the Princess but from doing my research on this forum, it seems like the Princess is the better stove overall.
Major headache with the Princess is the chimney height. We got 8 foot ceilings and a little under 4 ft attic space (which is close to the ridge), where we are planning to place the stove. The Princess requires 17ft of pipe at our elevation from the stove top which sits at 3ft. This means the pipe would need to extend 8 ft beyond the roof.
We fear this will look pretty silly. With the Hipster less chimney is needed and the pipe would only extend 4ft beyond the roof.

What are the opinions on functionality? Our concern is that the hipster might push smoke into the house when opening for reloading. However I wonder if that's really the case if we enable the cat bypass before opening.

How silly does a long chimney like that look on a ranch style home?

 

[begreen]

They are very different stoves. Besides looks, they perform differently too. The Hipster 20 is a much smaller stove and a hybrid. It looks like a 2 cu ft Hearthstone Green Mountain 40 that's been rebranded. The Princess is a pure catalytic stove with greater capacity and much longer burn time potential at low output.

The Princess can work ok on a 15' flue if venting is optimized by being straight-up and with double-wall stove pipe, at sea level. The key issue is the altitude, but this will affect the Ambiance too. If this is the primary concern then an easy breathing non-cat may be a better choice.

 

[Highbeam]

I think the chimney would look bad sticking up 8' above a roofline like some sort of beacon tower. You would need braces too, those bars coming down at an angle.

I have a 2012 model princess on a 12' stack. Back then they only recommended 12' in the manual. My house is like yours with 8' ceilings, 4:12 roof pitch, so the 12' is all I can do without roof braces. The 15' recommendation is just that, a recommendation but if you get smoke rollout then they will blame your supar chimney that didn't meet the recommendation.

I don't think I would want a stove named "hipster". Have you looked at other stoves? Maybe a PE super series? Maybe a Kuma cat stove?

 

[hotmountains]

I think the chimney would look bad sticking up 8' above a roofline like some sort of beacon tower. You would need braces too, those bars coming down at an angle.

I have a 2012 model princess on a 12' stack. Back then they only recommended 12' in the manual. My house is like yours with 8' ceilings, 4:12 roof pitch, so the 12' is all I can do without roof braces. The 15' recommendation is just that, a recommendation but if you get smoke rollout then they will blame your supar chimney that didn't meet the recommendation.

I don't think I would want a stove named "hipster". Have you looked at other stoves? Maybe a PE super series? Maybe a Kuma cat stove?

Thank you this helpful. Hope they didn't change the current version of this stove compared to the 2012 version. Do you have any problems with draft ? What's your elevation for reference? If we could get away with less than 17 ft of flue that would be great.

Figure a brace is needed if we were to go that high.

We looked at other stoves too. Want something modern looking. That's why we liked the hipster. Not a big fan of the name either though.

 

[hotmountains]

They are very different stoves. Besides looks, they perform differently too. The Hipster 20 is a much smaller stove and a hybrid. It looks like a 2 cu ft Hearthstone Green Mountain 40 that's been rebranded. The Princess is a pure catalytic stove with greater capacity and much longer burn time potential at low output.

The Princess can work ok on a 15' flue if venting is optimized by being straight-up and with double-wall stove pipe, at sea level. The key issue is the altitude, but this will affect the Ambiance too. If this is the primary concern then an easy breathing non-cat may be a better choice.

Would be going straight up. we are at 4.5k feet.
Will keep in mind to get a double wall stove pipe to improve draft.

Having the super long burn times would be definitely nice.

Maybe we need to reconsider getting a non-cat stove.
Any recommendations ? Looking for modern style.

 

[stoveliker]

If you determine that you want a BK (why the princess when a Chinook can be had ;-) ), you can always start with a certain chimney length and be prepared to add some more if it doesn't work.
A brace has to be added at 5 ft above the roof penetration (and every additional 5 ft on top of that).

 

[begreen]

As noted, there's a chance that the Princess would work out well. In non-cat, the PE Summit or Neo 2.5 are easy breathers. So is the Osburn Matrix. They will work on a 15' flue system.

How large of an area will be heated? Is this space open to the rest of the house? Any confounding factors like tons of large windows, cathedral ceiling, etc.?

 

[Highbeam]

Thank you this helpful. Hope they didn't change the current version of this stove compared to the 2012 version. Do you have any problems with draft ? What's your elevation for reference? If we could get away with less than 17 ft of flue that would be great.

Figure a brace is needed if we were to go that high.

We looked at other stoves too. Want something modern looking. That's why we liked the hipster. Not a big fan of the name either though.

I, like many other princess owners, can get some smoke rollout when trying to add fuel to a partly full and burning firebox. Maybe that's because of my stack height, maybe it's the nature of the beast. Really not a problem though because it only takes a second to throw in a few more splits. No smoke rollout for cold starts and of course nothing with the door closed.

I'm at about 700 feet ASL.

 

[John Galt]

I, like many other princess owners, can get some smoke rollout when trying to add fuel to a partly full and burning firebox. Maybe that's because of my stack height, maybe it's the nature of the beast. Really not a problem though because it only takes a second to throw in a few more splits. No smoke rollout for cold starts and of course nothing with the door closed.

I'm at about 700 feet ASL.

I do think it's your height. My Princess never smokes and will suck the hair off the dog when the damper is open, but it's a 35' stack.

 

[John Galt]

I don't think I would want a stove named "hipster".

😆