BK King40 overkill for N. Texas?

[SterlingSL]

BK finally has a real distributor in our area. So once again, procrastination has paid off! I live just south of the Oklahoma border in North Texas (Sherman/Denison area). I spoke with the retailer this morning and when I told him I wanted the King I detected hesitation. He said the King is really huge, both physical size and heat output plus requires an expensive larger size flue. Our house is 2700s.f.. Layout is single-story open plan except the bedrooms and master bath which are located through doors on each side of the main area (living/kitchen/dining). Our biggest issue is the living room has a huge vaulted ceiling that traps heat. Running our crummy heat pump last winter, we were basically freezing cold and most of the heat was trapped up in the roof bubble. The BK is going to be sitting in this high roof room. We do have ceiling fans up there to circulate. Would the King40 be overkill for this area? Will the Princess or some other model be more than adequate? This will be our sole source of heat as I hate running the heat pump. Any more info needed?

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Those high ceilings do eat up a lot of heat, but the ceiling fans will help. The BK enthusiasts like to say that the size of the stove isn’t so much about heat output as it is about how much fuel you can get into the fuel tank. A King won’t really run hotter than a Princess or Sirocco (except that there is more surface area to radiate), but it will run longer.

I live south of you and looked really long and hard about doing an alcove with a Sirocco 30 box. I would have done it if I could have, but we had trouble getting a good mason to do an alcove for us, and the work was beyond our DIY abilities. I thought the 30 box would have given us really good burn times for our needs. We could get a fire going in the late afternoon when the sun started dropping, maintain it all night, and rekindle in the morning with a hot fire depending on the weather. How’s the solar heat gain in your house in the afternoon?

At least down here it’s not unusual for me to want to let the fire go out for a little while every couple of days. A king is so large that it might be harder to manage that.

I’d personally not want to pay extra for an 8 inch pipe or have the larger fuel tank. I think a Princess would suit just fine unless you prefer the aesthetics of one of the 30 boxes (Ashford, Sirocco, Chinook). I thought the 20 boxes in the same line would have sufficient burn times for Texas (at least my part—I’m north west of San Antonio), but I do like having plenty of space to load my wood, especially since we burn a lot of really gnarly live oak.

 

[stoveliker]

That (fuel tank) is true, but the King can put out considerably (20% or so) more heat per hour than a 30 firebox like the princess.

Indeed it appears to me that it may be better to see how you can better use (experience) the heat produced rather than producing more (that goes up). Can you add ceiling fans?

 

[SterlingSL]

Those high ceilings do eat up a lot of heat, but the ceiling fans will help. The BK enthusiasts like to say that the size of the stove isn’t so much about heat output as it is about how much fuel you can get into the fuel tank. A King won’t really run hotter than a Princess or Sirocco (except that there is more surface area to radiate), but it will run longer.

I live south of you and looked really long and hard about doing an alcove with a Sirocco 30 box. I would have done it if I could have, but we had trouble getting a good mason to do an alcove for us, and the work was beyond our DIY abilities. I thought the 30 box would have given us really good burn times for our needs. We could get a fire going in the late afternoon when the sun started dropping, maintain it all night, and rekindle in the morning with a hot fire depending on the weather. How’s the solar heat gain in your house in the afternoon?

At least down here it’s not unusual for me to want to let the fire go out for a little while every couple of days. A king is so large that it might be harder to manage that.

I’d personally not want to pay extra for an 8 inch pipe or have the larger fuel tank. I think a Princess would suit just fine unless you prefer the aesthetics of one of the 30 boxes (Ashford, Sirocco, Chinook). I thought the 20 boxes in the same line would have sufficient burn times for Texas (at least my part—I’m north west of San Antonio), but I do like having plenty of space to load my wood, especially since we burn a lot of really gnarly live oak.

Thanks for the info. How cold did it get down there where you are during this last snowmageddon we had in February? Our house has crappy aluminum single-pane windows. It got down to 42 INSIDE our house for about a week straight. We hit -4 as the low but it stayed between 0-20 for a long week or so. Busted pipes all over N. Texas. Three of my neighbors busted pipes in their house, two had frozen/busted well-heads when the power went out and no one could get propane or fuel generators. Total disaster. Pottsboro where I live closest too was without city water for well over a week. I was busy busting holes in my pond so the cattle/horses would have something to drink.

 

[SterlingSL]

That (fuel tank) is true, but the King can put out considerably (20% or so) more heat per hour than a 30 firebox like the princess.

Indeed it appears to me that it may be better to see how you can better use (experience) the heat produced rather than producing more (that goes up). Can you add ceiling fans?

We do have ceiling fans. I replaced the rinky-dink fans with some huge 'big-ass' brand barn type fans. They move some air.

 

[Nealm66]

I was wanting to install a king but was advised to go with the princess and really glad I did. Those really cold spells just don’t last that long around here and once my house gets warmed up, even opening doors and windows for a while cools it off temporarily but heats right back up as soon as I close. I feel like I can run my smaller princess longer into the spring weather than I would have been able to run the king. There’s some amazing folks on here that definitely help determine your best route

 

[Highbeam]

I don't think I've ever read about somebody putting in a king and wishing they had gotten a smaller stove. Truth is, the king has a very low low output setting so it can run almost as cool as a princess but has more top end if you need it. I think everybody needs high output every once in a while.

I've seen kings in little mobile homes. It's not too much heat for your home.

If I had 2700 SF plus the double tall ceiling which easily puts you over 3000 equivalent SF then I would get a king in there.

Yes, it has a silly 8" flue. They couldn't get the stove to work on a 6" so we're stuck with that. Sure, it's physically bigger but that's a feature. It's much easier to load and start a fire in a huge firebox and the dang thing has like a 9" deep belly below the loading door for ash.

 

[showrguy]

I run a King in the house, and a few years ago I put a Princess in the garage (1800 sq. ft)…
If I had it to do all over, I would put a King in the garage as well…. Just because of the size of the fuel tank..
my .02 cents

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Thanks for the info. How cold did it get down there where you are during this last snowmageddon we had in February? Our house has crappy aluminum single-pane windows. It got down to 42 INSIDE our house for about a week straight. We hit -4 as the low but it stayed between 0-20 for a long week or so. Busted pipes all over N. Texas. Three of my neighbors busted pipes in their house, two had frozen/busted well-heads when the power went out and no one could get propane or fuel generators. Total disaster. Pottsboro where I live closest too was without city water for well over a week. I was busy busting holes in my pond so the cattle/horses would have something to drink.

We got down to 6 degrees, nothing negative here, but we were in the 20’s for highs for about a week. We actually kept our power except for a few brief outages because our lines run to a fire station down the hill from us, but we tried to conserve as much as possible. Everyone else we know in Texas (aside from immediate neighbors) either lost power or water or both. It was horrible, and no one could move to help anybody out because the roads were just ice.

We turned our thermostats (gas heat) down to 60 and closed off areas of the house that we normally use (kids’ bedrooms, my husband’s office) but that we could afford to close. My husband worked in our bedroom which got heat up the stairs from our woodstove, and my kids slept in the family room where the stove is. Those outlying areas did get down to the forties despite being next to the heated area of the house. The cold was just so intense and so prolonged.

I’m surprised that more people aren’t telling you to consider the Princess since that’s the most popular size stove in Alaska, but it does make a difference that you have a lot of cubic footage (a more accurate measurement than square footage) and poor windows. Personally I’d still really consider the cost savings on a 6-inch pipe and put that money toward improving your insulation and air sealing (or inserts for your windows). That will help immensely with heat retention and will save you on the air conditioning bills during the LONG Texas summers.

Our house layout makes it so that we cannot heat our entire house completely with our stove even if we roasted ourselves out of the large open area where it’s located. The air just won’t move to certain rooms like our kids’ bedrooms or my husband’s office. Our woodstove reduces our use of our gas furnaces (one almost never runs) a significant amount, but it doesn’t eliminate it. It’s so much nicer having the wood heat than when we were without it. We are much warmer now because the heat is down low instead of just blowing out of vents on the ceiling and staying up there.

 

[kennyp2339]

Dont think you would have a problem with a king or a princess, I own a princess in my modest 1500sq ft ranch, stove is in the basement and I'm able to heat the whole house until near zero, then I'll cycle the baseboard water heat to help take the burden off the stove. Either or for, if you get to warm lower the T-stat and turn off the blower & ceiling fans.

 

[stoveliker]

Kenny makes a fantastic point: you won't get too hot - you have trouble getting the heat down. So just don't fight that if you end up too warm...

 

[Poindexter]

I think @DuaeGuttae makes a good point about choosing a princess and using the cost savings to upgrade your insulation envelope.

FWIW the 30 sized BK box is a pretty big stove as woodstoves go. 30 box at max out put plus my electric usage, about 500 kwh per month, is about what the princess could do at full tilt, and the king can go even higher, but all three of these can run low and slow.

Upgrading your envelope will save money on the summertime AC bills too.

 

[SterlingSL]

So the difference between the two stoves turns out to be $900. That won't buy much in house insulating upgrades. We're probably going with the King if they can get it.....or it's going to be another miserable winter.

 

[EbS-P]

So the difference between the two stoves turns out to be $900. That won't buy much in house insulating upgrades. We're probably going with the King if they can get it.....or it's going to be another miserable winter.

Is that just the stove price or pipe and stove?

 

[stoveliker]

The King needs an 8" flue which is quite a bit more expensive than a 6" one.

 

[Humberwho]

The King needs an 8" flue which is quite a bit more expensive than a 6" one.

Sold Blaze King for years back in the last century. The stoves now appear very similar in size and spec to the ones we had back then. From what you are saying with your sq footage we would of put in a King all day long. The models back then were solid , not glass doors. (there was a glass door option but it sooted up right away so we didn't recommend it) had the catalyst as optional at first then when the E.P.A. regulations kicked in around 1989 or so they went all catalytic. The catalysts only lasted a few years, but I see that BK has a 10 year warranty on them now, ( prorated?) so that's good. They had a model called the royal heir it was porcelain and troublesome but the king princess and baby were just heavy duty workhorse stoves with that incredibly long burn time on the king and princess.

 

[Highbeam]

Sold Blaze King for years back in the last century. The stoves now appear very similar in size and spec to the ones we had back then. From what you are saying with your sq footage we would of put in a King all day long. The models back then were solid , not glass doors. (there was a glass door option but it sooted up right away so we didn't recommend it) had the catalyst as optional at first then when the E.P.A. regulations kicked in around 1989 or so they went all catalytic. The catalysts only lasted a few years, but I see that BK has a 10 year warranty on them now, ( prorated?) so that's good. They had a model called the royal heir it was porcelain and troublesome but the king princess and baby were just heavy duty workhorse stoves with that incredibly long burn time on the king and princess.

The cats still only last about 3 years which is about 12000 hours of burn time for full time heaters in my climate. Nothing has changed with that over the decades. The warranty is just for the first replacement. Heck, if you never burn the stove that cat will last forever!

 

[Humberwho]

The other thing about the cats at the time was not to burn any wood that had metal embedded in it such as fence boards or whatnot that still had nails as it was suppose to make the cat deteriorate faster.

 

[stoveliker]

The other thing about the cats at the time was not to burn any wood that had metal embedded in it such as fence boards or whatnot that still had nails as it was suppose to make the cat deteriorate faster.

That still is the case.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

So the difference between the two stoves turns out to be $900. That won't buy much in house insulating upgrades. We're probably going with the King if they can get it.....or it's going to be another miserable winter.

I sure hope it won’t be another winter like the last one, though we have been dutifully putting firewood in the back room of our barn which acts like a kiln in the Texas summer. We used every drop of cut firewood we had last February. Thankfully we had more that was dry enough already that just needed to be cut to length. We’ve had to take a break on processing for the summer heat, but we have a good supply that we took care of in the late winter and spring to be ready for another year.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

The cats still only last about 3 years which is about 12000 hours of burn time for full time heaters in my climate. Nothing has changed with that over the decades. The warranty is just for the first replacement. Heck, if you never burn the stove that cat will last forever!

12,000 hours is a lot more years of cat life in a Texas climate. At least where I live it’s closer to nine months of air conditioning.

 

[SterlingSL]

Is that just the stove price or pipe and stove?

Everything: stove, pipe, install, TTL, and a free window lick

 

[SterlingSL]

The dealer I ordered this from is a brand new retailer for BlazeKing. He told me my new order is about 8-10 weeks out and I told him I shouldn't have sat on my arse and ordered 10 weeks ago but it's kind of hard to order a beast of a stove when it's 100 degrees outside. So then he told me that I would not have been able to order a BlazeKing from them because they literally just got their account finalized the week I called. So I asked him what made him seek out BlazeKing? He said, remember when you came in last winter looking for a stove and was going on about BlazeKing? I looked into them and decided we would like to sell them.

BlazeKing - you can thank me for a another retailer in Aubrey Texas: Red Hot Fireshop! Now lets get that stove here before the cold or my wife will kill me.

P.s. he's already sold a second BlazeKing besides the one I ordered!

 

[BKVP]

The dealer I ordered this from is a brand new retailer for BlazeKing. He told me my new order is about 8-10 weeks out and I told him I shouldn't have sat on my arse and ordered 10 weeks ago but it's kind of hard to order a beast of a stove when it's 100 degrees outside. So then he told me that I would not have been able to order a BlazeKing from them because they literally just got their account finalized the week I called. So I asked him what made him seek out BlazeKing? He said, remember when you came in last winter looking for a stove and was going on about BlazeKing? I looked into them and decided we would like to sell them.

BlazeKing - you can thank me for a another retailer in Aubrey Texas: Red Hot Fireshop! Now lets get that stove here before the cold or my wife will kill me.

P.s. he's already sold a second BlazeKing besides the one I ordered!

Well, I hired a rep for Texas! Actually he covers multiple states. I flew down to the Lone Star state and we were very successful at recruiting many new dealers in the state.

Thank you for your help...if my rep quits, maybe you can take over. Also, I learned a new term.."Barndominium". In the past 3 months we have sold more King's in TX than all other models combined! For those that doubt the claim "everything is bigger in Texas", it's true.

The 10 year combustor warranty is not prorated. It's a no small type deal...we will replace your original combustor if it fails within the first 10 years...period. Now, there are some folks that are highly tuned into their stoves performance. Combustors do decrease in efficacy over time. They do not fail in 3 years. They will slightly diminish in performance over time. 90% of our customers get vastly more than 3 years...much more like 7+.

Personally, I was able to get more than 7 years with 3-4 cordsper year. Did I loose some efficiency over that duration, yes. Did it fail to perform the same in the 7th year as it did in year one, yes...but not significantly. I can fairly state the decrease was not noticeable year to year. But after I changed it out, there was a noticeable difference....but for 8 seasons, it was fine...and still clean burning.

This site will offer tremendous input and support, but it is not representative of the entire world of wood burners. Those here have valuable, measured data and their comments are welcome and should be considered.

 

[SterlingSL]

Well, I can't wait to see my King installed. I'm a pyromaniac and have a magnesium cone sitting in my back yard out of a huge rock crusher from my brother-in-laws rock mine. That thing can make some amazing fires seen by my neighbors who are over a mile away. Now all I lack is making that fire in my living room