Dissapointed in New Blaze King King

[jatoxico]

I moved from a pre EPA monster to my summit and there's been no disappoint for me.

I'm trying to understand what I'm starting to believe is the reality that some old smoke dragons could flat out blast out more BTU's/hr than the newer stoves. This is not taking into consideration wood usage but just that ability to release more BTU's over a given short period of time. Many have said so but it's not a real popular thing to say around these parts and often discounted.

Now we have you saying it's not so. So is it configuration, convection or perception? May be that in your case you were not running your old Lakewood flat out so your new stove match the output and save wood since extracting more BTU's from the wood and sending less heat up the flue etc etc? But for folks that were maxing out their old smoke dragons, going to an EPA unit whose BTU/hr output is lower the issue shows up.

@Marshy says he's using the same amount of wood as his old unit but getting less heat. Not sure what to make of that. New stove should extract more heat from the same amount of wood but if released over longer period of time his highs are less high and his lows are less low.

Anyone ever see a number for the max BTU/hr output of an old Fisher or similar?

 

[Squisher]

I'd be curious to know some numbers too. But I ran my old Lakewood pretty hard on this basement chimney to heat my whole house same as I run my summit. As I've posted/shown in a number of threads recently. I'm not scared to push my summit to the upper ranges of what's considered it's safe operating zone. The Lakewood by comparison was consuming more wood and not burning overnight. Granted to achieve the overnight burn with the summit, I'm not running it hard. But same as I did with my Lakewood. I push it hard all day and get the house to the point of overwarm and then during the overnight burn it cools off some to a 'normal' temperature. Anywhere from about 75-77 I might warm the upstairs up to during the day/evening and overnight that may drop to 70-72. So I lose about five degrees.

I can only comment on my perception/experience of course but the summit heats as well it seems to me and the burn times are better. As well as thas overnight burn which is nice. I'd have to 'luck out' to burn overnight with the Lakewood. As I've mentioned before too, I still burn the Lakewood in my shop 3-5 days a week.

I definetly pushed the Lakewood pretty hard as my chimney would stay near spotless.

So again I can only comment on my own experience.

 

[Marshy]

I'll probably get roasted over a slow fire for saying it. But I'll say it again. I moved from a pre EPA monster to my summit and there's been no disappoint for me. This is after a lifetime of burning pre EPA stoves and then replacing the one in my existing home with my summit. My wood goes further as I'm losing less heat/smoke out the top of the stack and my house stays as warm if not warmer. Burning through the night no longer requires a ritual of careful planning as it did with the pre EPA monster, it's easy peasy now.

So those that say you can't get the heat out of these newer stoves, I'd say. Try a summit!

Easy to say but I would have to pony up the cash to actually buy one to try it. Not only am I going to lose money on the King but if the Summit doesn't work I'll be throwing more money away. Granted I throw enough money away on other stupid things like snowmobiles but everyone has a practical limit and when it could be on the order of a few to several hundred at one shot its a harder pill to swallow. Just to put things into perspective, $500 is what I spend in wood per year. I cant imagine anyone is going to want to buy a King from me that's been used one season for $500 less than a dealer. I imagine they will want a larger discount. The same could be applies to any other stove.

If you lived an hour or so away we could trade stoves so I could try the summit and maybe you could try the king?

 

[begreen]

$500 off for a 1yr old BK would go pretty quickly in our area. ymmv

 

[trevj]

I'm trying to understand what I'm starting to believe is the reality that some old smoke dragons could flat out blast out more BTU's/hr than the newer stoves. This is not taking into consideration wood usage but just that ability to release more BTU's over a given short period of time. Many have said so but it's not a real popular thing to say around these parts and often discounted.

Now we have you saying it's not so. So is it configuration, convection or perception? May be that in your case you were not running your old Lakewood flat out so your new stove match the output and save wood since extracting more BTU's from the wood and sending less heat up the flue etc etc? But for folks that were maxing out their old smoke dragons, going to an EPA unit whose BTU/hr output is lower the issue shows up.

@Marshy says he's using the same amount of wood as his old unit but getting less heat. Not sure what to make of that. New stove should extract more heat from the same amount of wood but if released over longer period of time his highs are less high and his lows are less low.

Anyone ever see a number for the max BTU/hr output of an old Fisher or similar?

I think that is the key point in a nutshell. Over a longer period of time. I have slept in shelters heated by a candle flame. If the space is small enough, it can work OK. A very large candle can burn for a very long time, but if you go simply by the amount of energy stored in the weight of fuel, you may not get what you thought you would.

I am starting to trust output/capacity numbers about like shop vacuum horsepower ratings. They sorta cross correlate to each other, but maybe not so much relate to real world use. Heat output per hour counts an awful lot more to me than the number of BTU's I can stack up inside for later.

Anyways, I figure I would be better off out of the BK Club, as it stands. Going to be a lot better educated, while I figure out whose Club I wish to join. Aw heck, who am I kidding, I don't want to be in a Club. I just want a heating appliance that works for my needs.

Cheers
Trev

 

[Squisher]

The King won't fit on my chimney. It was a stove I was strongly considering buying when I upgraded. But I'd throw that sucker in my shop in a heartbeat and try it out. I've got a 8" chimney in there.

It certainly is easier to say 'try a summit' than to pony up the cash to do it. Obviously I realize my own experience is just one persons experience. But I can say as a sweep in my area PE is pretty dominant as they are probably over half of all stoves/inserts I clean. Owner satisfaction out of the 40-50 I've seen this winter is very high. I recall one lady that had the exact same setup as me, super insert and summit pedestal freestander. And she was not a fan of the summit, she complained about heat output. But she had terrible wood, green and split into a big uncovered pile that was getting rained on when I was there. So pretty self explanatory there I think.

I actually fired her as a customer. After spending a good deal of extra time with her and explaining wood prep, storage, proper burning, using a thermometer, she called me up six weeks later and accused me of not cleaning her chimney properly. Uh huh. I've done about 150 this winter with no complaints and somehow I cleaned hers improperly because she managed to plug it in six weeks? No, I don't think so. She wanted me to come back and clean it for free, it was the summit she had plugged up too. Class A straight up off the stove. A beautiful setup. It was spotless when I left it.

 

[brenndatomu]

I'm trying to understand what I'm starting to believe is the reality that some old smoke dragons could flat out blast out more BTU's/hr than the newer stoves

That's something that showed up black and white to me when I installed my Drolet Tundra "EPA" furnace, it burns cleaner, and maybe a little longer, and uses less wood...but the raw BTU output is much less than my old Yukon Husky wood/oil furnace. The Husky will blast hot air out the registers for the first 1/2 hour and the house temp comes up 5*...the Tundra on the other hand, blows a warm breeze for the first 2 hours, which raises the house temp 2*...overall I like the Tundra better, but they are VERY different machines for sure. If you want something to say, warm up a cold garage to work in it for a couple hours, the old school fireboxes are the way to go IMO.
Others have reported similar findings when going from an ole smoke dragon furnace to a new EPA model. It reminds me of "the tortoise and the hare" story...except for the tortoise is not winning the race at @trevj s house...

 

[Marshy]

I'm trying to understand what I'm starting to believe is the reality that some old smoke dragons could flat out blast out more BTU's/hr than the newer stoves. This is not taking into consideration wood usage but just that ability to release more BTU's over a given short period of time. Many have said so but it's not a real popular thing to say around these parts and often discounted.

Now we have you saying it's not so. So is it configuration, convection or perception? May be that in your case you were not running your old Lakewood flat out so your new stove match the output and save wood since extracting more BTU's from the wood and sending less heat up the flue etc etc? But for folks that were maxing out their old smoke dragons, going to an EPA unit whose BTU/hr output is lower the issue shows up.

@Marshy says he's using the same amount of wood as his old unit but getting less heat. Not sure what to make of that. New stove should extract more heat from the same amount of wood but if released over longer period of time his highs are less high and his lows are less low.

Anyone ever see a number for the max BTU/hr output of an old Fisher or similar?

I had an old square Shenandoah previously. I also have the manual for it but I think the thermostat was dickered with and was burning hotter than the manufacture ever intended for it to be so number on paper out of the manual will not be an adequate comparison.

I believe the reason I'm on the same pace for wood consumption is because I use to oil in the shoulder season before starting the stove. The amount of oil I used varied significantly from year to year but I always seemed to burn 18-21 face cord per year. This year I started the King and went straight into full heating mode with it on high since the end of October (average length is 20"). By the end of this month I will have burnt 16 face cord since October. I have 2 more face cord down at my wood pile that was never bought up to the house that I intend to burn. Unfortunately it was never covered so the top layer of wood might have to sit inside for a month before I burn it.

Anyways, I don know how efficient/inefficient the old Shenandoah is. Maybe its 40-50% efficient, just assume 45% for the sake of argument. I believe the amount of wood I could fit in it is comparable to the King, maybe advantage to the Shenandoah. For the sake of argument lets assume 90 lbs of wood, the same max load the king can take but the Shenandoah on high burns it in 4 hrs vs the king burns it in 8 hours. Well, if you compare each of the stoves output over an 8 hour cycle you might burn twice the wood in the Shenandoah but you would get more BTU's per hour than the King. It could be on the order of 8 or 9,000 BTU/HR more on average depending on the efficiency assumed.

 

[Marshy]

For those of us that need the extra 8000-9000 BTU/hr heating capability and are not concerned with wood consumption the comparison is quite noticable.

 

[Squisher]

The other thing that is interesting to me for my personal experience is I stepped down quite aways in firebox size. I don't have exact numbers for the Lakewood but it is cavernous compared to the summit. And again 'I've heard' that plenty too about people not getting the heat they want/need out of a newer EPA stove. But I question if they are using thermometers or not? Or maybe they don't run the stove for heat. When I'm looking to crank out the heat I will need to adjust the summit a couple of times during a burn to stay running hot and I get nowhere near any kind of long burn times like when I close it down for a overnight load.

We all can only really speak to our own personal experience. I burned that Lakewood here for four years and now am on my second year with the summit. As I said. I still regularly burn the Lakewood albeit in my shop. i burned a harbercraft for 10 years inmy previous home. A locally built pre EPA airtight. And both homes have interior masonry chimneys, which I believe to be the best for whole home heating. I know Trevj discounted the heat that he received from the chimney with his old stove and I respect his experience. But I believe the 'factor' for me being happy with my new summit is that when I run hot and I send lots of heat up the chimney, a good chunk of it is still heating my home.

 

[Marshy]

I have a spare thimble on the same chimney the King is hooked to, maybe I should run the old Shenandoah along side the King for extra heat!

 

[Squisher]

Or one at a time. To do some tests?

 

[Marshy]

Or one at a time. To do some tests?

Or both at a time...

What an I testing?

 

[Squisher]

Or both at a time...

What an I testing?

Temps of relative and relevant things.

 

[bholler]

I have a spare thimble on the same chimney the King is hooked to, maybe I should run the old Shenandoah along side the King for extra heat!

I hope you are kidding

 

[Attaboy]

My comparison of 2 different types of stoves same house, same conditions, same chimney.

I am only heating about 1500 - 1700 sq. ft. and I am doing it with a 2 cu. ft. firebox provided by my Pacific Energy Spectrum Classic, now renamed Super Classic by PE. This was an outright new home when we moved in back in 1986, no fireplace included in it as I did not want a heat thief in the house, as in our previous homes we opted for a wood stove and our choice at that time was a Elmira wood stove , Elmira was a very well recognised company known for their quality stoves and products, very popular brand in the market place back then ( has since closed ).

We had that stove for 12 - 13 years, would burn 9 -10 x 16'' face cords per heating season, went through the great ice storm of 1998 with that exact Elmira stove, 35 days without electricity or phone as the complete infrastructure in our area was laying on the ground below 3.5 inches of ice.

Abundantly loaded with wood and with the air control fully choked I could only get between 4 - 5 hours of burn time from the Elmira, there were not even any coals left in the morning to restart a new load of wood. In 1999 enters the Pacific Energy, normally burn 7 - 7.5 face cords of 16'' wood, on a couple of exceptionally cold winters did burn 8 - 9 face cords or so, however that is not the norm as our winters are getting warmer, now I load the stove at 22:30 - 23:00 before going to bed and at 7:00 - 8:00 in the morning there are plenty of red coals to restart a new load again.

What I am saying here is for equivalently sized fireboxes, I am getting more heat, longer burn times and am burning up much less cord wood as well.

One caveat to mention here is when the thermometer drops below -22°C or -8°F or so for several days I need to load more often and burn hotter, below that temperature I would be better served with something like a PE Summit to get more heat but with less work from a larger 3 cu. ft. stove.

Not surprised the OP under his situation and arrangement is disappointed and not satisfied.
.

 

[Woody Stover]

I hope you are kidding

Well, he can't dump them both into the same flue, but I thought maybe he has two flues in that chimney?

 

[Marshy]

Well, he can't dump them both into the same flue, but I thought maybe he has two flues in that chimney?

Two thimbles in one chimney flue.
I'd be lying if I didn't saybi thought about it. At least it's not mixing a solid fuel burner with a forced air burner. Been there done that and don't want to go back... but that did work seemingly fine. Im not advocating anyone break code. I'm not seriously going to run both stoves at the same time. Maybe if I took turns the creosote would dry up in the top part of the chimney though.

You get lost! Read the thread and you will know why his name was brought up. I keep them professional and dont call people names. Thats what got the thread closed.

I have read every post. In fact, if I go back I could quote you saying you didn't read the whole thing on two separate occasions. Just saying.

 

[Woody Stover]

Are you a dealer, worried about your income, or are you just a fanboy...Inquiring minds want to know.

Nah, not really.

I have discussed it now with three separate dealers, all who said that the stove is more like to be working as well as it can, than not. None were willing to say outright that the 8 to 7 inch reduction in the chimney pipe was a major issue, in fact, they said essentially the same thing, which was that going one size down should not be an issue. One said he will no longer sell cat stoves as he has had to take too many back due to dissatisfied customers

With some stoves that might be true, but I don't think the BKs are easy breathers by any means, from what I've read in this forum. And with the low flue temp and no liner....
Were all these dealers familiar with the BK line, or just the one that you got it from? And how long has he been handling the line? As far as the guy that won't sell cat stoves anymore, I wonder what brands he sold? I think dry wood is more necessary with cat stoves, so that could be why he has less complaints with the non-cats.
In any event, keep us updated on what happens...we have too much time invested in this thread to not see how it all ends.

 

[Hogwildz]

I smell a thread coming to a close, and someone getting a time out. Who has the popcorn, pass it on over.

 

[jatoxico]

I believe the reason I'm on the same pace for wood consumption is because I use to oil in the shoulder season before starting the stove.

Ok that helps me wrap my head around it better. That and I'm guessing there were times overnight or when you were out that the old dragon ran outta fuel but the new unit keeps on rolling.

Would you say you had bigger swings in temp with the old unit?

 

[Marshy]

Your out on the ledge again Niko. Just jump already!

 

[Marshy]

Ok that helps me wrap my head around it better. That and I'm guessing there were times overnight or when you were out that the old dragon ran outta fuel but the new unit keeps on rolling.

Would you say you had bigger swings in temp with the old unit?

It had a thermostat air damper just like the king. It was on par with the even heating. It would also hold a very deep bed of coals just like the King. Honestly, I though several times of just adding a baffel plate and my own custom secondary tubes to the stove. It only would get 4 hr burn times in the wort of winter. It was practical for a 6 hour burn during normal days down to mid 20's. It would only slip to 4 hr burn times under mid 20's.

 

[pen]

After 25 pages, I don't understand what more one expects to accomplish if it hasn't already happened.

 

[jatoxico]

There's still some good info trickling out. Hope it stays open. As said time to drop the nonsense.