First burn with BK boxer

[reaperman1]

My chimney guy finally got me hooked up today. A bit late but I wasn’t in a hurry, thankfully the weather cooperated for this time of year in Minnesota. I wasn’t going to lite ’er up tonight because it’s only supposed to get down to 30. But I decided why not, I didn’t hook up my Auber probe yet. I thought I’d just go small for my maiden voyage. I started the fire with five 2” oak rounds and splits and added another split just because. Followed the directions and burned on high for half hour, then dialed it back to about medium. The cat immediately started glowing, mostly the right side at first, then the whole cat after a while. After about 15 minutes I turned it to almost the lowest setting and the flame disappeared. The cat thermometer was almost to the end of the white and fell back to about 3/4. It’s been there for an hour now and I’m perplexed. The wood doesn’t look like it’s burning but the cat is glowing and the stoves giving heat, it doesn’t seem logical. I keep thinking the fires gone out, there’s only a little glowing on the bottom of the stove. I don’t know how long it can sustain. I’m not running the fan, there’s no need to since it’s not cold out. I’ll admit with only a small load of wood the stove isn’t throwing a ton of heat but that’s what I wanted for my first burn. Just for kicks I put a magnetic thermometer on the dual wall chimney pipe about 15” up, it’s been reading a steady 200. I know that means nothing but I have it and there’s nowhere on the stove to put it. When I do run the fan it blows good
heat, it also drops the cat thermometer a bit. It’s 11 pm, I guess I’ll see how things look throughout the night when I wake up to go to the little boys room.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Your cat is doing it's thing! Low steady heat!

 

[reaperman1]

Well, I woke up around 3:30 am and checked the fire. It was mostly coals so I turned the thermostat to high so they could just burn down. I was up at 6:30 and there were still a few coals and some clinkers that hadn't burned. So I gathered them together and started another small fire to get better used to how the stove operates. Overall, I was surprised with the small amount of wood I initially used that there was still a few coals left after 9 hours. I think before starting the fire my house was 70, I think it peaked around 74 and was 70 again when I woke up. The outside temp only got down to 25 so it really wasn't cold out.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes this is what the BK can do. Smolder wood, and those half burnt gases are further combusted in the cat, providing heat.

If you want to see how much is glowing, just dial up the thermostat and possibly switch off the lights in the room.

When you run at higher settings you'll have nice flames.

Experiment with different settings to get used to how it behaves. And welcome to the club.