Curious on what the estimated efficiency is. It's a solar wood stove.

[Thesandman87]

I was curious what the efficiency is on this stove. I love the thing but I feel like it's chewing through wood. Was looking at a blaze King princess 32 . Is it well worth the $6,000 to upgrade? I'm kind of weary about a catalytic stove. I hear they can be finicky and the catalytic converters can be expensive to replace.

I'm also looking to upgrade because my indoor air quality monitor will be at pm2.5 of 80 downstairs by the stove and upstairs on the second floor it can be as high as 160 .

I have a really good draft and 6-in stainless steel flu liner running up the chimney. The chimney is centrally located in the house and is brick.the house is from 1910.

 

[Murray01]

I paid $4550 plus shipping and taxes $5200 to my door for my Princess 32. Catalytic converter(OEM) are $430, divide that per year of use, fairly cheap.

One milk crate of wood(about 30 pounds) will fill the firebox and give me about 12 hours of heat, probably 16 hours and still have enough embers to relight with the addition of kindling. That’s at -20C, shoulder season 16 hours of usable heat.

It takes me about 30 minutes to get a reload going and get the thermostat dialed down to where we need/want it for the duration of the burn. I don’t consider the BK finicky to operate just different. I just replaced an older BK with a new one, I didn’t consider any other manufacturer.

I have an old stove in a shop, the same milk crate will give me about 5 hours of heat with a much smaller space to heat.

Other manufacturers offer CAT stoves but I’m not familiar with them so I can’t comment.

Dollar’s listed above are Canadian.

 

[EbS-P]

It’s never worth the money if you don’t pay for wood. How do you get your wood?

 

[Thesandman87]

I paid $4550 plus shipping and taxes $5200 to my door for my Princess 32. Catalytic converter(OEM) are $430, divide that per year of use, fairly cheap.

One milk crate of wood(about 30 pounds) will fill the firebox and give me about 12 hours of heat, probably 16 hours and still have enough embers to relight with the addition of kindling. That’s at -20C, shoulder season 16 hours of usable heat.

It takes me about 30 minutes to get a reload going and get the thermostat dialed down to where we need/want it for the duration of the burn. I don’t consider the BK finicky to operate just different. I just replaced an older BK with a new one, I didn’t consider any other manufacturer.

I have an old stove in a shop, the same milk crate will give me about 5 hours of heat with a much smaller space to heat.

Other manufacturers offer CAT stoves but I’m not familiar with them so I can’t comment.

Dollar’s listed above are Canadian.

Thank you for the Information !

 

[BKVP]

We made older smoke dragon stoves. They were 60%-65% efficient. They were also 70+ gr/h of particulate 2.5 micron.
The new models are just over 15% more efficient and now about 1.0 gr/h of particulate 2.5 micron.

Couple of thoughts:

1) No current EPA stove will put out the face melting heat of your old steel stove. You have to wrap your head around that with cleaner burning and improved efficiency, changes were necessary. This includes the top end Btu performance.

2) It is great that your masonry chimney is on an interior wall. Regardless, the dramatic increase in efficiency of today's EPA stoves means lower stack temperatures. Heat loss up the stack is a contributor to draft. The fact that stoves today are cleaner burning and more efficient translates almost by default the need for a stainless liner. In most instances, an insulated stainless liner is the best preventive issue with draft when using an existing masonry chimney. Measure your flue to see if you can fit an insulated 6" liner (which is actually 8" due to the insulation).

3) The black stove pipe you may have may be single wall. You will likely need to upgrade to the black double wall. And if you have a 90 elbow, you are best to replace it with 2-45's.

Regardless of what brand or model of stove you end up with, I would highly recommend you download the owners manual from the manufacturers website and read it carefully. There may be some unexpected costs associated with a particular installation.

Have a great Holiday Season,
BKVP

 

[Thesandman87]

It’s never worth the money if you don’t pay for wood. How do you get your wood?

I source a fair amount of it myself and if I feel like I need more I'll buy some

 

[Thesandman87]

We made older smoke dragon stoves. They were 60%-65% efficient. They were also 70+ gr/h of particulate 2.5 micron.
The new models are just over 15% more efficient and now about 1.0 gr/h of particulate 2.5 micron.

Couple of thoughts:

1) No current EPA stove will put out the face melting heat of your old steel stove. You have to wrap your head around that with cleaner burning and improved efficiency, changes were necessary. This includes the top end Btu performance.

2) It is great that your masonry chimney is on an interior wall. Regardless, the dramatic increase in efficiency of today's EPA stoves means lower stack temperatures. Heat loss up the stack is a contributor to draft. The fact that stoves today are cleaner burning and more efficient translates almost by default the need for a stainless liner. In most instances, an insulated stainless liner is the best preventive issue with draft when using an existing masonry chimney. Measure your flue to see if you can fit an insulated 6" liner (which is actually 8" due to the insulation).

3) The black stove pipe you may have may be single wall. You will likely need to upgrade to the black double wall. And if you have a 90 elbow, you are best to replace it with 2-45's.

Regardless of what brand or model of stove you end up with, I would highly recommend you download the owners manual from the manufacturers website and read it carefully. There may be some unexpected costs associated with a particular installation.

Have a great Holiday Season,
BKVP

Thank you for that information I really appreciate it!
The stove pipe currently is single wall and I do not like the 90 there either.
If and when we do upgrade the hot water heater is getting relocated so the stove can be closer to the chimney and have less horizontal pipe .

The 6-in chimney liner that is currently in the chimney is single wall.
I never have any issues with draft that chimney drafts very well it even drafts on a warm summer day.

 

[Murray01]

I think part of the reason for double wall stovepipe and insulated chimney liner is to keep the already low temperature flue gases as warm as possible to minimize creosote buildup. Sounds weird but I can hold my hand on the double walled stovepipe without burning myself when the stove is cruising. The previous BK I had was plumbed with single walled stovepipe and it appears that creosote and soot buildup have diminished with the new stove and double walled stovepipe.

 

[kborndale]

Thank you for that information I really appreciate it!
The stove pipe currently is single wall and I do not like the 90 there either.
If and when we do upgrade the hot water heater is getting relocated so the stove can be closer to the chimney and have less horizontal pipe .

The 6-in chimney liner that is currently in the chimney is single wall.
I never have any issues with draft that chimney drafts very well it even drafts on a warm summer day.

There is a big difference in draft with that easy breathing old smoke dragon vs a modern stove. An insulated liner with also cut down on the amount of creosote as modern stoves also have a much lower flue temperature as they put the heat into the house instead of up the chimney.

 

[stoveliker]

It’s never worth the money if you don’t pay for wood.

Unless you value another occupation (grand kids? Wood working? Hunting?..) more than processing firewood...

 

[stoveliker]

Point for all of the above is,. regardless of the stove you get, follow the recommendations of the mfg.
The mfg wants you to be happy with the stove performance because happy customers is what keeps them alive.
They'll describe the best way to get the stove to function.

A new stove is going to be very different from your old one,.and for satisfactory performance, it needs the right flue system (which is the engine of the stove).

Don't skimp on the flue (and then complain about the stove...).

 

[BKVP]

Unless you value another occupation (grand kids? Wood working? Hunting?..) more than processing firewood...

I do all that and farm!

BKVP

 

[BKVP]

Point for all of the above is,. regardless of the stove you get, follow the recommendations of the mfg.
The mfg wants you to be happy with the stove performance because happy customers is what keeps them alive.
They'll describe the best way to get the stove to function.

A new stove is going to be very different from your old one,.and for satisfactory performance, it needs the right flue system (which is the engine of the stove).

Don't skimp on the flue (and then complain about the stove...).

Yeah, what he wrote!

BKVP