Blaze King Princess 32 heating ability?

[dahliaf]

My husband and I are looking to install a wood burning stove into our house, and I have been looking at the Blaze King Princess 32. I’ve spent a long time researching, and I see very happy customers all around with the BK brand and particularly the Princess. However, is this stove large enough to heat our open layout home as a main heat source during the winter? The house currently has oil, but we are looking for a wood burning stove to be our primary heat source year round. We have used traditional non-cat wood stoves in past houses we’ve lived in as our primary source of heat, and are interested in a more efficient burn (no getting up at 5am to stoke). We like the low burn of BK for the shoulder seasons, but want something with the ability to also keep us toasty and comfortable during that long stretch of winter. About the house and our location:

-We live in northern NY (adirondacks) where winter lasts about 5mo give or take, average day temps regularly mid-high 20s and night temps single digits or low teens. Lots of snow
-Our house is a 2 story, 3bdrm cabin with a basement and vaulted ceilings on the first floor. First floor 1350sq ft, Second 450, Basement 876.
-The upstairs is just a single loft bedroom, the other two bedrooms are on the main floor, so the majority of the space is the open layout of the main floor with a hallway leading to the two bedrooms (will attach a picture from top of upstairs stairs for reference of the vaulted ceilings and glass exposure. It’s a popular floor plan for cabins, I’m sure you all will get the gist).

The BK stove would be placed on the first floor in the vaulted ceiling living room/kitchen area. We also planned on getting the double fans add on to help push heat horizontally instead of vertically. My main concern is the open, high ceilings, heat just going up and not properly heating the space evenly. Can the Princess comfortably heat a space like this? We only have experience with heating single story, smaller homes and most reviews I see are in ranch homes or smaller styled cabins. Our friend got the Ashford 20 for his 1500sq ft space and he loves it. We were thinking the size of the Princess 32 would be appropriate, but I’m skeptical! Let me know if you need anymore specifics. Thank you!

 

[Ashful]

Yes, it should be sufficient. It will also have the wide range of burn rates available to back it off on less than blistering cold days, and even mildly cool fall and spring days.

However, do NOT expect it to maintain the long 30+ hour burn times of which you read, while you're pushing it hard in winter. You're putting 750k BTU into that firebox, and while you have great control over the rate at which it's released, it's still only 750k BTU. So, in spring and fall, or sunny days, you can turn it down and enjoy the long burns. On cold winter nights, you'll be turning it up, and loading it at a rate comparable with any other 3 cubic foot stove.

 

[dahliaf]

Yes, it should be sufficient. It will also have the wide range of burn rates available to back it off on less than blistering cold days, and even mildly cool fall and spring days.

However, do NOT expect it to maintain the long 30+ hour burn times of which you read, while you're pushing it hard in winter. You're putting 750k BTU into that firebox, and while you have great control over the rate at which it's released, it's still only 750k BTU. So, in spring and fall, or sunny days, you can turn it down and enjoy the long burns. On cold winter nights, you'll be turning it up, and loading it at a rate comparable with any other 3 cubic foot stove.

Do you think it would at least be able to burn through the night (around 8/9hrs) during colder winter months and maintain a decent heat output? Or would I be waking up pretty chilly without reloading at some point in the night/very early hours? Read on other forums that others in a similar climate are usually reloading 3x a day during winter. I can live with that.

 

[begreen]

It can heat the space but ceiling fans would make a nice difference for distribution. The heat is going to want to rise and pocket near the ceiling otherwise. That will keep the loft cozy, but cooler near the floor. At the least get the stove with the blower to assist convection.

 

[dahliaf]

It can heat the space but ceiling fans would make a nice difference for distribution. The heat is going to want to rise and pocket near the ceiling otherwise. That will keep the loft cozy, but cooler near the floor. At the least get the stove with the blower to assist convection.

Definitely plan on getting blowers, possibly even connecting it to existing vents to help heat bedrooms. There is wiring to install a fan on the high ceiling.

 

[Diabel]

Do not expect to heat the basement with it. Two upper levels yes.

 

[begreen]

Definitely plan on getting blowers, possibly even connecting it to existing vents to help heat bedrooms.

The stove fan (blower) should not be connected to anything but the stove itself.

 

[Ashful]

Do you think it would at least be able to burn through the night (around 8/9hrs) during colder winter months and maintain a decent heat output? Or would I be waking up pretty chilly without reloading at some point in the night/very early hours? Read on other forums that others in a similar climate are usually reloading 3x a day during winter. I can live with that.

Almost surely. The beauty of that stove is that, with the right setup, you should be able to rip thru a full load in ~6 hours, or turn it down to stretch that same load 30+ hours.

I have two Ashford 30's, with similar burn characteristics, but slightly smaller than the Princess. One is in a wing of my house that's near the size of your first and second floors combined, and I actually run it on 24-hour burn cycles all winter. Some mornings, I find it's a few degrees cooler than I'd like, which I let the oil-fired baseboard fill in. If I didn't have the oil to moderate, I'd probably run the thing on two loads per day on the very coldest nights, instead of just one as I presently do. That would probably shape up to be a slightly larger load overnight (eg. 75% full), and a small load (eg. 50% full) for the daytime, but dropping back to just one full load per day burned slow when it's not quite as cold out.

You're in a slightly colder climate than me, so the numbers will likely shift a little, but if you have any concerns I can tell you about the second stove I have installed in a very substantially larger and lossier space.