Blaze King vs Avalon Olympic - Which is a better stove?

[ddemmith]

I currently have an Avalon Olympic free standing stove installed in the house and am not really happy with it for 2 reasons. First the burn times are not long enough to last the night even stacked full with good hard wood....gets old getting up at night having to load. Second, the heat output is not what I would hope for even with a blower. I base alot of this experience from an old Lopi 'Smoke' dragon that I have also burned a lot of wood through.

The question is I have an old Blaze King classic with the goofy orange ceramic inserts in the door sitting in the garage. Would it be worth it to swap out the Avalon for the BK? Will this pump out more heat and have longer burn times? How much more wood can I expect to burn through with the BK?

Any advice would be helpful with this decision as we are getting really close to burning season in Michigan.

Thanks guys.
Dave

 

[daleeper]

I'm assuming that your Avalon Olympic is a later model epa listed non-cat stove, the specs show it to have a 3.1 cu. ft. firebox. Does the Blaze King have a cat in it, or is it pre-epa? (I am going to assume that the Blaze King is old enough that it has no cat)

What size house are you trying to heat, and how tight is it? Are you burning seasoned wood? If your wood is not dry, you are loosing heat drying it in your stove. It appears that you either need a bigger stove or your having trouble with the Avalon. If you give us a little more information, there are people here that can help with that.

I don't think you will find anyone here real excited about swapping out an epa stove for a non-epa stove, in fact it will be against code and will void your homeowners insurance in many areas. If you burned that old Lopi in the same house, I would think the Blaze King would burn about the same amount of wood as it did. I would want at least twice as much wood available to burn through the Blaze King as you did the Avalon Olympic.

Better yet, sell both the Blaze King and the Avalon Olympic and buy a bigger stove that is epa listed, such as a newer Blaze King, Buck, or other large stove.

Give us some information on what you are trying to heat, that will help us help you.

 

[Patapsco Mike]

Need to have a sense of stove ages to really help you. I just sold my 5 year old Avalon Olympic to get a brand new Blaze King Princess in part to reduce the amount of heat generated. A better way of saying it is that I got the Princess to have more control over heat output. The Olympic was way too much stove for the 2,000 or so square feet I was heating except for when it was brutally cold outside, which is only a few weeks of the year here in MD.

But- my Olympic would do 8 hour burns no problem, and 9 or 10 hours if everything was just perfect. As in still a very, very hot fire you can just throw more big logs on after 8 hours. If you aren't getting overnight burns in an Olympic something is wrong with your stove or your setup.

 

[ddemmith]

The BK is an old Pre EPA model with no seondary burn capability. The Olympic is roughly 5 years old, no CAT.

The house ~1800Sq/Ft with a cathederal ceiling, ~ 22ft insulated chimeny pipe. Pipe goes from 6" to 8" roughly 5' above. Home is probably poorly insulated with lots of windows.

Hope this helps clarify.

 

[North of 60]

The BK is an old Pre EPA model with no seondary burn capability. The Olympic is roughly 5 years old, no CAT.

The house ~1800Sq/Ft with a cathederal ceiling, ~ 22ft insulated chimeny pipe. Pipe goes from 6" to 8" roughly 5' above. Home is probably poorly insulated with lots of windows.

Hope this helps clarify.

Ya need to clarify how seasoned that fire wood is. It can make or break a stove. That Olympic should be putting out some heat.
Cheers.

 

[daleeper]

The specs would indicate the Olympic should be enough stove for your house. Mike's experience shows that the Olympic is capable of heating that square footage, without accounting for house and weather differences. You have mentioned that you have filled the box with good hardwood, but is it seasoned? Last year was the first year I have really had seasoned wood for a long time, and it makes a real difference in the way a stove burns, even in an old smoke dragon, they say on this board that it makes that much more difference in an epa stove.

To answer your original question about taking out the Olympic and installing the old Blaze King, I would not do that myself. I would try my best to make that Olympic work, as it should be more efficient. I would spend my energy making sure that I was feeding the stove good seasoned wood, and make sure the stove is burning properly. Make sure the secondary air passages are not blocked, get them cleaned out. Then I would attack the insulation situation, and seal those windows up.

 

[daleeper]

Got to love the marketing done by all these stove mfg. On the Avalon Olympic, the sales brochure lists overnight burns of up to 12 hours, and in the owner's manual the stove can have overnight burns of up to 8 hours. That's the kind of deviation I thought we only allowed weathermen.

 

[ddemmith]

Wood is nice seasoned Ash and oak. Lots of ash trees in the area have been hit by the ash borer.

 

[Patapsco Mike]

There is a vast difference between an old non-cat BK and a fairly new Olympic. You are crazy if you switch. The Olympic is going to put out FAR more heat than the BK and for much longer and with a cleaner burn. It's a lose/lose if you switch. I will repeat what I said- if you can't get 8 hours of high heat output with a modern, EPA Olympic something is very wrong with either your wood, your stove itself, your flue system, or how you are operating the stove.

 

[rdust]

Wood is nice seasoned Ash and oak. Lots of ash trees in the area have been hit by the ash borer.

How long has the oak and ash been split and stacked?

 

[stockcarver]

Sounds like you are getting good advise. I've owned both non cat and later model cat blazekings, NO comparison.
Trading out the two stoves you have would offer only 2 advantages, a slightly larger firebox and the thermostatic air intake (unless the Avalon has a thermostat). Niether of which is likely to solve your problem, which sounds like it is poor insulation and a high ceiling.
A new blazeking would help stretch your wood a bit, but without decent insulation, I doubt there is anything made that will make a comfortable living space when it gets really cold out.
I once lived in a 35 foot uninsulated trailor (unless you count the panelling) in Leadville Colorado. It had plastic film replacing half of the windows. I tried to heat it with a Monarch convection woodheater in the middle of the trailor. It got so cold that water would freeze 15 feet from the woodstove when the stove was going. It wasn't the stoves fault, it was putting out plenty of heat, but no way to keep it contained.

I think you would accomplish more investing in good windows and some kind of upgrade on the ceiling insulation. A good cieling fan or two might help. I know that takes money, which can be tight, but with the energy credit (which can be used for doors, windows and other stuff) you might be able to fix the place up for less than you think, and save a load of wood at the same time.