Critiques of Blaze King Stoves...Exist ?

[DUMF]

With all the enthusiasm about the line of Blaze Kings, almost all positive except for some very minor complaints such as the ash pan, how about some critical user reviews.
What about the stoves don't you like ?
Why ? We're deciding on a cat stove. Woodstock's Hybrid Progress is at the top of the list now. Customer service and quality are mandatory. Blaze Kings are not common in northern New England, cost more than Woodstock, and dealers are far off.
So, some critical reviews from users in snow country with at least a winter under their belt ?

 

[jetsam]

Mine was super expensive, the fans seem like they're not going to last very many years, it gets sulky if the wood is too wet, my sticker isn't numbered, and the stove does not generate ice cream when it runs (though mine is making tea at this very moment, so that's partial redemption).

I'm all out of complaints at this point, though. It's been a fantastic stove so far.

If you want a stove for the coldest part of the cold season, consider both.... If you want a stove that can also efficiently keep it 75 inside when it's 50-60 outside, you're probably going to want the BK.

Their customer service is pretty hard to knock since they have an inside man on this very forum, who dives into issues and gets them fixed, and sometimes sends people fancy dog beds.

 

[JA600L]

The Progress Hybrid is a good stove to compare to Blaze King. The fact that it is Soapstone means that it will also effectively keep your house 75 when it is 50-60 out.

You really can't go wrong here. In the looks department the Progress wins hands down. The thermostat on the Blaze King is nice. The really nice thing about a hybrid is that if the cat were to fail the secondaries would take over and it would function like a normal tube stove. A blaze king would be worthless at that point.

I'm not sure which Blaze King you are comparing it to, but the Progress is rated to 73,131 btu on high output. Keep that in mind if your heating a large sqft house. With the secondaries and cat it is a heat monster.

 

[Hogwildz]

At 50-60 degrees outside, there ain't no stove going to be running here.

 

[kennyp2339]

I would love to see a BK hybrid that has a big front glass, front high andirons, side loading door, built in top convection deck with a slide out cook plate.

 

[webby3650]

I would love to see a BK hybrid that has a big front glass, front high andirons, side loading door, built in top convection deck with a slide out cook plate.

They actually had a hybrid back in the early 80's for a short time.

 

[webby3650]

In the deep deep winters of the north, don't count on the soapstone being much assistance to you. It's known for its "soft"heat, you won't be needing much soft heat I'd guess.
I also do see you needing much low and slow that the BK excels in. Tough choice!

 

[Woody Stover]

With all the enthusiasm about the line of Blaze Kings, almost all positive except for some very minor complaints such as the ash pan, how about some critical user reviews. ...We're deciding on a cat stove. Woodstock's Hybrid Progress is at the top of the list now. Customer service and quality are mandatory.

Lots of fanboy hype surrounds the BKs but if you take the trouble to read here in depth, you'll see a lot of problems with quality and examples of poor engineering, which I'm not inclined to go into now. You also have to wonder what justifies the price they charge for a welded plate-steel stove with comparatively thin steel...the thermostat? The long burn in mild weather isn't of great importance to me since even in my leaky, poorly-insulated house, a 12-18 hr. low burn in my little Keystone will provide enough heat for a couple days more or less. No, mine isn't a "critical user review" since I've never had a BK, or even seen one. This is just a "critical review" based on what I've read.
Now, I haven't yet seen the Woodstock hybrids either but based on my experience with their straight cat stoves, I assume the component quality and the engineering of their new stoves is just as good. You don't see many in-depth threads on the Woodstocks any longer on this particular forum, unfortunately, as some former members have moved on; Would be nice if all the fanboys were still in one place. Once in a while, a problem with a new model would surface, like the smoke smell from the PH. The company seems to come through pretty quickly with solutions.
I think we all want good "customer service and quality"...I don't think Woodstock will disappoint you, should you decide to go that way.

 

[bfitz3]

In the deep deep winters of the north, don't count on the soapstone being much assistance to you. It's known for its "soft"heat, you won't be needing much soft heat I'd guess.
I also do see you needing much low and slow that the BK excels in. Tough choice!

As someone from "the north" I have to disagree. 20-30 below with heavy wind... The PH worked like a champ to keep the house (1800 sq ft) warm and toasty. This year, shoulder season required a small poplar fire once a day. It's now in the 30s and I'm doing either a medium sized burn with poplar and beech once a day, or two smaller hot fires. Either way, it requires minimal attention from me and keeps the house comfortable.

I had two small issues with the stove when I bought it. Called the company and the problems were resolved instantly without question. It'd be hard to beat their one year satisfaction guarantee too.

From what I've personally experienced or read here, it seems like it's hard to go wrong with either company.

 

[electrathon]

At 50-60 degrees outside, there ain't no stove going to be running here.

Do you turn on your furnace when it is 50 degrees outside? Or let your house cool to that temp? I would build a fire to keep the house comfortable, can not imagine watching a movie with the house at 50 degrees.

 

[Highbeam]

I would be thrilled to have a stove of either brand on my hearth. They are both excellent and comparing the two always leads to splitting hairs which is fun but highly subjective.

You specifically asked about bad bk things. These are few but no stove is perfect. Let's be honest.

The glass gasket bolts are under the door gasket. This is a silly design.
They are very expensive.
The cat can not be removed without replacing a gasket.
The internal, welded in, bypass gasket retainers can melt. This is the stoves main weakness imo.
The forced dealer interaction for stove and parts purchasing is unpleasant and adds great cost for the middle man's expenses.
The forced local dealer interaction means you have to pay whatever your local dealer charges.
They require an abnormally tall chimney.


Any stove can heat a normal home to 75 in warm outside temps. It's super easy. I owned a soapstone stove and did NOT find the stone to be of any value besides good looks. The real magic is the cat and low burn rates.

 

[Blazing]

I agree with everything said above! Also add that having to replace my bypass gasket on my insert is not gonna be a fun job.

 

[jetsam]

Compared to steel, soapstone has a low thermal conductivity and a high thermal capacity. That makes a soapstone-clad stove a good pick for shoulder season and a not such a good pick for cold weather. (Same would be true for a BK if you covered it in soapstone.)

That's not to say that a soapstone stove can't be an effective heater, but that same stove would transfer more BTUs out into your house if you took a hammer to it and got all that soapstone off of there!

There are reasons to go with soapstone (child safety, personal preference for gentle heat). I personally would not consider a soapstone stove unless it had a plain steel stove top with a convection deck and fan, so I had some way to blast it when I wanted to.

Also, I agree with Highbeam about the dealer thing- would far prefer to deal directly with a company than fight with their local distributor.

I'm on the fence about agreeing with him about the cat gasket- I can't say that it's not annoying to have an expendable part in the way of cleaning an air channel, but it also seems like it's more of an airtight design than might be possible without the gasket, especially as the end user is free to put slightly different sized cats in there.

The meltable bypass gasket retainers are supposed to be a last ditch safety feature, not a design flaw- I haven't had my stove apart enough to see what kind of damage they are supposed to prevent by failing, so don't have an opinion on that yet (other than to say that my wife has burned a couple full loads with the bypass open, and my gasket is still up there!).

 

[Poindexter]

In no particular order,

There is nothing princess size and ashford pretty in the lineup.

Runs best with wood at 12-16% mc. i think the performance gains are worth it, others may not.

Im done. low and slow in the shoulders, check. low emission locomotive in cold weather, check.

 

[bcrtops]

I agree with everything said above! Also add that having to replace my bypass gasket on my insert is not gonna be a fun job.

I don't own one & probably never will. (Would like to try a cat stove, just too old to change them out)
I look at the design (& the pics of the cutout one on the BK thread) & I visualize some maintenance nightmares.

Do you have to take the stovepipe apart to clean it every year?
Isn't that damper box a trap for chimney crumbs?
Why would you put a gasket in such a horrible place to reach/get to?

As I have stated before -- I like simplicity.
Accessibility through the front door to everything is a good design feature.
The more gaskets (&/or cemented joints), the more problems you'll have.

Some of these manufacturers have some beautiful & well-functioning stoves (at least, when new), but from a simple design view can be a system of parts (too many) & moving parts that obviously will make them a maintenance nightmare.

It would be nice to see a cat-stove that was actually easy to maintain -- without tools, from the front & with chimney/stovepipe cleaning ease!

 

[tarzan]

Highbeam done a good job above summing up the bad about Blaze Kings.

I own one (Princess) as does Highbeam and others who have replied. You'll get some missguided info from folks who are firmly entrenched in the "never BK" camp lol but I can guarantee you the majority of actual BK owners here would not hesitate to recommend or buy BK again.

 

[Ashful]

Lots of fanboy hype surrounds the BKs but if you take the trouble to read here in depth, you'll see a lot of problems with quality and examples of poor engineering, which I'm not inclined to go into now.

Why sling mud, if you can't provide details?

I've never had a BK, or even seen one.

Exactly. I wouldn't have believed how fantastic the BK would perform, for all the talk in the world, if I hadn't bought two and tried them in my house. Simply put, I'm amazed. I'm one of those numbers geeks (engineer), so I do track my wood and oil usage, and plot them against heating degree days and calendar time.

What folks without a BK often miss is the value of being able to set it for any heat output you desire. I can stuff the box full of wood, and set the dial to release that potential energy over any interval from 5 hours to 35 hours, at a whim. BK is the only stove with anywhere near this range. The Progress Hybrid is a great heater by all accounts, but with a max burn time of only one third to one half that of a similar-sized BK, it has a much more limited useful range.

At 50-60 degrees outside, there ain't no stove going to be running here.

If you had a BK, this wouldn't be a problem. I routinely run one or both of my stoves at 55F outside, when I need "just a little" heat. Just turn them down to 36-hour burn mode.

 

[Ashful]

There is nothing princess size and ashford pretty in the lineup.

Umm... what about the Ashford 30? It's 96.4% the size of the Princess.

Or, are you demanding something that's 100.00% ± 0.01% the size of the Princess?

 

[webby3650]

I don't own one & probably never will. (Would like to try a cat stove, just too old to change them out)
I look at the design (& the pics of the cutout one on the BK thread) & I visualize some maintenance nightmares.

Do you have to take the stovepipe apart to clean it every year?
Isn't that damper box a trap for chimney crumbs?
Why would you put a gasket in such a horrible place to reach/get to?

As I have stated before -- I like simplicity.
Accessibility through the front door to everything is a good design feature.
The more gaskets (&/or cemented joints), the more problems you'll have.

Some of these manufacturers have some beautiful & well-functioning stoves (at least, when new), but from a simple design view can be a system of parts (too many) & moving parts that obviously will make them a maintenance nightmare.

It would be nice to see a cat-stove that was actually easy to maintain -- without tools, from the front & with chimney/stovepipe cleaning ease!

There are no maintenance nightmares with a BK, it's quit the opposite.

 

[webby3650]

Lots of fanboy hype surrounds the BKs but if you take the trouble to read here in depth, you'll see a lot of problems with quality and examples of poor engineering, which I'm not inclined to go into now. You also have to wonder what justifies the price they charge for a welded plate-steel stove with comparatively thin steel...the thermostat? The long burn in mild weather isn't of great importance to me since even in my leaky, poorly-insulated house, a 12-18 hr. low burn in my little Keystone will provide enough heat for a couple days more or less. No, mine isn't a "critical user review" since I've never had a BK, or even seen one. This is just a "critical review" based on what I've read.
Now, I haven't yet seen the Woodstock hybrids either but based on my experience with their straight cat stoves, I assume the component quality and the engineering of their new stoves is just as good. You don't see many in-depth threads on the Woodstocks any longer on this particular forum, unfortunately, as some former members have moved on; Would be nice if all the fanboys were still in one place. Once in a while, a problem with a new model would surface, like the smoke smell from the PH. The company seems to come through pretty quickly with solutions.
I think we all want good "customer service and quality"...I don't think Woodstock will disappoint you, should you decide to go that way.

You and I are clearly on a different site then! Poor quality? Poor engineering? You sir are mistaken..
What is the opposite of a fanboy? Someone who's down on a stove that they've never even had their hands on.

 

[Ashful]

What is the opposite of a fanboy? Someone who's down on a stove that they've never even had their hands on.

You know Woody has been slumming the BK threads for some time, now. Nothing new. He thrives on stirring the pot.

 

[Gotrek]

Because simply he wants one.

 

[Poindexter]

Umm... what about the Ashford 30? It's 96.4% the size of the Princess.

Or, are you demanding something that's 100.00% ± 0.01% the size of the Princess?

The princess is enough bigger than my ashford 30 to replace all the btus i get out of the ashford - and has enough extra capacity to also generate all the electricity my house uses if it could convert btus to kwh with 100% efficiency.

 

[Squisher]

How do you guys all Service your BK's. Pull the pipe? Or adjustable section to slide up? And bag it? Or if you clean topdown do you just clean down into the stove and then pull the pipe to cleanout the bypass area? Or bag it and clean down too?

I don't see a ton of BK's around here. Surprisingly to me, but when I do see them I'm yet to meet a owner who disliked theirs.

 

[tarzan]

I clean top down with the bypass open. I can then reach up with my hand and get everything that doesn't make it into the belly of the stove.