Blaze King Uphoria

[begreen]

The picture gets even murkier when one considers the number of hybrids now on the market and the variations of design and catalyst protection.

 

[bholler]

I find issue with the claim that 45% of fires in woodstoves occur during non winter months.... Really?

 

[stoveliker]

The picture gets even murkier when one considers the number of hybrids now on the market and the variations of design and catalyst protection.

Though they do say things about flame shielding.

Bottomline: good to wait for the real study, as if that's worth its weight in a scientific way, it should describe all boundary conditions, caveats, etc.

 

[BKVP]

The OMNI report mentions only the age of the stoves removed from the houses (who provided them?) and not the hours on the catalyst. An 8 yr old stove only used on nights and weekends could still be under 12,000 cat hours. A cat stove in southern OR is going to see a lot less hours than the same model in AK so the age of the cat is less relevant information than the hours of use.

Great questions, thanks. Mfg's provided OMNI names of owners. EPA 3rd party design study platform, including requirements of combustors. Minimum 3 cords per year, never removed, never cleaned. These were well used combustors. So the combustors that were 9 years old, had a minimum of 27 cords. Could have been much more of course. But they were not hand picked.

 

[BKVP]

Also the "non-catalytic" wood stoves are all lumped together in an average that is contrasted with the catalytic woodstoves.
That suggests to me (given the absence of an explicit noting of the non-catalytic ones being modern tube stoves), that this average for the non-catalytic ones might be relatively high due to the inclusion of old (smoke dragon) stoves, rendering the relative advantage for catalytic stoves artificially high here as compared to when catalytic stoves would be compared to solely modern tube stoves.

Nice thinking on the secondary combustion models but OMNI exercised due diligence on that observation, also made by EPA. Their data set included data from units currently certified (to the then requirements and the only tested method) of baffle and tube stoves.

The same was done as a baseline for all, the current catalytic models.

But your point about catalytic numbers for those used in the study is fair...but there were VASTLY fewer catalytic stoves at the time. So, today, post 2015 NSPS, comparative data most likely would be different.

 

[BKVP]

I find issue with the claim that 45% of fires in woodstoves occur during non winter months.... Really?

So remember the Wood Stove Users Survey done in 2020? It showed that less wood but more frequent fires and cold starts began in Sept-Oct. More wood, fewer cold starts, Oct-March. But your point is well made...and that is defining "winter".

 

[BKVP]

Though they do say things about flame shielding.

Bottomline: good to wait for the real study, as if that's worth its weight in a scientific way, it should describe all boundary conditions, caveats, etc.

It was thorough, comprehensive and conducted within a controlled environment. To be truthful, we were nervous through the process because we were excluded.

 

[bholler]

So remember the Wood Stove Users Survey done in 2020? It showed that less wood but more frequent fires and cold starts began in Sept-Oct. More wood, fewer cold starts, Oct-March. But your point is well made...and that is defining "winter".

To me it's much less about the definition of winter and more to do with how they are calling fires. If they are talking about cold starts that may be true but still doubtful.

 

[Nealm66]

It’s definitely interesting to hear about the cat life and the level of expectancy on this forum vs the average joe ( me ). I can see highbeams point about getting top performance out of every ounce of wood but I’m also wondering if it’s still getting 12-24 burns and keeping the house warm I’ll probably just keep a spare on hand and see how long it lasts. I also wonder since I don’t run mine on smolder mode too often, kinda more in the middle if that might extend cat life a bit. But, I hate to admit how many times I’ve forgot to open the bypass or induced some high quality user error so it could be a wash ha ha

 

[Ashful]

To me it's much less about the definition of winter and more to do with how they are calling fires. If they are talking about cold starts that may be true but still doubtful.

"Winter" is defined as December 21 - March 20, in every calendar I've ever examined for the dates, and I am surprised the number of fires held outside this window is as low as 45%. I would put more than half of my usage outside this narrow window, as my need for heat is generally from sometime in October to sometime in May. But as folks always say on this forum, we are hardly the average wood burners.

Then again, we may be the majority wood consumers?

 

[Old Log House]

Fact: Blaze King, since 2012, has offered a 10 Year, 100% no-fault warranty against thermal degradation and delamination on all our combustors.

Yep, I had filed this away with our purchase package with owner manual, receipt etc……I was sure I had read 10yr somewhere thanks for reminding me. Line item 1 is tad ticklish, lol. In the event the dealer is no longer in service is there an alternate process? I certainly can’t explain the “passage of time” But I can offer that things change with the passage of time ………..

 

[Old Log House]

I find issue with the claim that 45% of fires in woodstoves occur during non winter months.... Really?

Winter can obviously have a broad meaning to most of us who burn for primary heat and here in PA I’ve seen a couple years where my heating demand was as strong or stronger from 10/1-11/30 compared to mild Dec/Jan. As someone who was a month ago running a large non-cat stove and every year at this time I was burned out, lol, no pun intended, and I would not burn the big box Schrader because it was just too much work to try and regulate and burn slowly….so we would kick on our electric baseboard..aka…$$$$ munchers…..fast forward to now our little Princess seems to be in her glory as she nibbles away at a load providing a low comfortable heat through chilly nights and mild days…….I almost will miss burning in a month……ALMOST……come on summer…..

 

[Old Log House]

I certainly can’t explain the “passage of time” But I can offer that things change with the passage of time ………..

Wood burns Hot….Lol….SAAAYYY WHAT??

 

[Nealm66]

Well, eventually the excitement wears off and the princess gets pretty boring. Maybe some variations once in a while during extremes and definitely some window opening events during the shoulder season. Maybe a glance once in a while to see if you can see the glow. I think getting the mark on my swoosh was the beginning of the end to the excitement. But I sure like it being boring

 

[stoveliker]

but you noted earlier that you run mostly around 3 pm on the swoosh I believe?
Go lower; so an open window is not needed. Try to see what the very lowest is that you can go without stalling the cat. Go for record long burn times. (I got 32-35 hrs recently ).

Many things you can do with a boring system ;-)

 

[Ashful]

Many things you can do with a boring system ;-)

Like deciding before loading on Monday night, how warm you need the house to be on Wednesday morning.

Stuffing any BK full of wood in shoulder season is a bit of a gamble, depending on the accuracy of your weather forecast.

 

[begreen]

Stuffing any BK full of wood in shoulder season is a bit of a gamble, depending on the accuracy of your weather forecast.

That's true for this time of year for all stoves. It may be 40º in the morning when you get up, but could be sunny and 65º by noon. This morning here it was 44º, but I knew it was going to warm up to around 60º. I let electrons heat the house via the heat pump instead of burning wood.

 

[stoveliker]

That's true for this time of year for all stoves. It may be 40º in the morning when you get up, but could be sunny and 65º by noon. This morning here it was 44º, but I knew it was going to warm up to around 60º. I let electrons heat the house via the heat pump instead of burning wood.

I'm sorry, but "noon" is far, far better predictable than "next day noon".

 

[begreen]

I'm sorry, but "noon" is far, far better predictable than "next day noon".

Only if the forecast is reasonably correct. We're in a rainshadow area and often the forecast for Seattle will be rainy and cold while we get sun. Our house is such that the sun during this time of the year floods in the windows and warms it up quickly. We are often 10º warmer than Highbeam is, even though he is only about 30 miles away. Big mountains and Puget Sound make for some interesting microclimates and local weather conditions. A full load of softwood in the T6 is 12 hrs so that is what needs planning for during shoulder season.

 

[stoveliker]

Only if the forecast is reasonably correct. We're in a rainshadow area so often, the forecast for Seattle will be rainy and cold and we get sun. Our house is such that the sun during this time of the year floods in the windows and warms it up quickly. We are often 10º warmer than Highbeam is, even though he is only about 30 miles away. Big mountains and Puget Sound make for some interesting microclimates and local weather conditions.

Fine. I should have said "on average".
I responded to your "all stoves", pointing out that remark was not entirely correct. I fact, on average (i.e. barring a few places such as, apparently, where you live), in this country the forecast in the morning is pretty good predicting noon weather.

Edit: you (reflexively?) often responds to statements about BKs with "so do other stoves".
Often you are right. This time, there was a misunderstanding based on me thinking in the longer timeframes relevant to BKs in low-output times. The OP did not mention Monday --> Wednesday.
I apologize if I was prickly - that's the fanboy in me. I do believe I keep that fairly well in check with regards to the benefits of other stoves, though with the timeframe mentioned just above, this fanboy was correct in this case.

 

[begreen]

Point is that many of us have miscalculated the load size for the day at one point or another due to changing weather or an incorrect forecast. Shoulder season weather can be fickle.

 

[Highbeam]

Yes, I’ve been through a handful of cats, not as many as bkvp but I certainly don’t pull them early. I wait until catastrophic failure with tar dripping onto my roof. Way way beyond polluting, inefficient, and wasteful. I log the life and have noticed a very strong pattern. Still, I wait until each cat dies fully but I use my learned experience to predict failure and have a fresh cat on standby well in advance because I use wood for 100% of my heat.

I can suggest when you should be looking for a dead cat and maybe even help troubleshoot using cat life but each application is different and you should still wait for cat death unless you knowingly change on a schedule just out of convenience.

It’s really no big deal or great expense to swap cats. I always regret waiting so long. Maybe this current cat will be the one that unexpectedly makes it 15000. I’ll be just that much happier with the BK.

 

[Highbeam]

You just reminded me that I'm overdue to rotate my tires.

Of everyone I watch on this forum, it seems @Highbeam is very consistently replacing his combustors before 3 years. He'd be the high (or low?) water mark, on that subject, with very long burn seasons at the lowest burn rates. My question above about hours and not cords comes from a prior conversation with him, as he's surely burning more hours than me, but I'm also surely burning way more cords than him. Our un-scientific conclusion was that the cat is "working harder" at his lower burn rates, possibly also influenced by him burning mostly softwoods and me burning only hardwoods, and that possibly my higher burn rates leave less grams of unconsumed fuel going into the cat per cord burned. It sounded like a good theory, with some anecdotal evidence, however many variables we left unchecked.

In any case, if he's not already watching this thread, it will pop up in his notifications now.

Bottom line, you own a cat stove. This comes with several advantages, and one disadvantage: you will need to replace the combustor someday. Blaze King is giving you a free ride for 10 years, or one free combustor, depending on how quickly you ruin them. After that, figure on an amortization of $50 - $60 per year in combustor cost, to offset the several thousands of dollars worth of conventional liquid or electron fuel you've saved in he process of ruining said combustor. If I get 30 cords out of one combustor, and a cord contains roughly the same BTU's as 180 gallons of oil, I've saved $21,600 in the course of ruining a $200 combustor. I'm okay with that. Heck, if oil stays anywhere near it's present $4.69 local average, we could bump that savings to $25k per combustor, but I do expect it will come back down into the $3.60 range before my next replacement.

Here’s a big part of what’s happening I think… when a cat dies, it loses the bottom end first. If you only run your stove at medium or higher then you likely could make it much longer than me because your cat is still good enough at higher burn rates. If my stove can’t run on lower output then I have a problem. I bought this stove for long and low burns and it does that very well until the cat dies at 10-12k in my experience.

 

[Nealm66]

I've found that my house really stores the heat so when I oops and fill it during a surprise warming event, I can open windows and doors and cool it off but doesn’t take very long after I close them and it goes back to being uncomfortable really quick. It’s a toss up though as I’m lazy and always short on time and don’t like building fires from a cold stove. Just easier to run my other heat source but I’m stubborn as well ha ha

 

[lsucet]

I run my stoves 99.9% of the time on low. Meaning that I am most of the time on 24 hrs schedule easy. To me is a blessing to comeback home and not have to worry about load the stoves at that time cause the house is cold.
The stoves are the last thing in the list in my daily life.
I comeback from work, go in through a door, change my shoes and out through the bad door to take care eleven horses and other stuff in my daily life regardless how cold or not the weather is or is going to be.

I load them full most of the time. If the outside temperature goes up and the house is too warm, it is okay, we are not there during the day. That helps to not worry in heats up the house first when comeback from work till I finish my others homeworks. And it is real simple. Grab the poker, stir the coals from under the ash, load the stove, ( most of the time the cat still into the active zone ), burn on high for 15- 20 or 30 minutes, dial it to my settings and repeat the same process 24hrs later or more. It is rare the times I do partial loads. Maybe on weekends? or when I want to clean ashes?