Solar is your Cat. working?That sounds like a lot of wood for a BlazeKing.What kind of burn times are you getting from one load ?SolarAndWood said:
How much wood do you burn?
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Backwoods Savage said:
3 cords? How many months are you burning 24/7 and how big a firebox does that Fireview have?
between 2or 3 cords, if this mild weather hangs around we may use less. have some decent all night ash pieces set aside for the colder nights. also have some realy dry oak in a seperate pile, i think that 1/2 cord of oak is 3 years old. getting better at organizing wood every year. pete
I burn 24/7 with the same insert and usually burn roughly a wheelbarrow a day or 5+ cords a season 1400 ft house. I have seasoned maple this year vs bought wood last year and the insert burns much better.
Backwoods Savage said:
Your from fenton right? crazy weather here in Michigan this year. I going to run out of kindling soon, got any? Ive been building a fire in both stoves everyday now sense Oct. ILL need 7 cords for both stoves
Rich L said:
I get 24 hr+ burns with the cut offs/misc junk I'm burning now. The # of btus I can get in the firebox depends on how oddball the pieces are. I did a test with 2 yr seasoned straight-grained optimal length locust; the cat was still active and had wood in the firebox after 40 hours. The stove is our only source of heat for a 3000 sq ft house with a lot of glass on a windy ridge. For reference, the previous owners burned 4-5000 gallons of propane a year and couldn't keep the house warm.
SolarAndWood said:
So Solar,are you saying you burned 8 cords before the Blaze King ? That would make sense since now your burn times at 24hrs would say your wood use should be much lower.What say you ?
53flyer said:
That Fireview is the only thing we have for heat so we burn from September through April and sometimes part of May, June, etc.
It has about 2 cu.ft. in the firebox. This stove is much smaller than our old stove but really does so much better and we are staying a lot warmer.
Rich L said:
The 8 cord was with the old stoves. However, I doubt the BK is any more efficient than my old cat stoves so the only difference I think will be the # of times I have to load it. I don't expect the total amount of wood to be much different. If anything, it will be more as we will have longer burn times at a higher rate when we are away from the house or sleeping.
As for the burn times, they are low burn shoulder season burn rates. Lows have been in the 20s and highs near 50 with hit and miss solar gain. Even with the better quality wood, I expect somewhere around 12 hour burns when it is cold. The old stove wouldn't make it through the night and its effective firebox was half the size of the King's and there certainly wasn't the same combustion control.
There are always variables but here's my "basic" formula for everyone who asks how much wood they'll burn. Assume you'll get around 4-8hrs per cuft burned. That means 3-5cuft/day which works out to roughly 3/4 to 1 1/2 cord per month depending on the quality/hardness of the wood and how fast your trying to pull the BTU's out of the wood. Therefore, to burn 24/7 for the given time period, it should take the following amount of wood:
2 months- 1.5 to 3
3 months- 2.25 to 4.5
4 months- 3 to 6
5 months- 3.75 to 7.5
It's a wide margin but the two factors above have a large impact. You can also use 1 cord/month as an estimate.
* Partial burning in the shoulder months can be estimated at half the 24/7burn rate or simply use .5 cord/month. The amount of time devoted to reloading will be proportional to the firebox size and, on average, you'll probably load about 1/3 to 1/2 your firebox capacity ea refill.
2 months- 1.5 to 3
3 months- 2.25 to 4.5
4 months- 3 to 6
5 months- 3.75 to 7.5
It's a wide margin but the two factors above have a large impact. You can also use 1 cord/month as an estimate.
* Partial burning in the shoulder months can be estimated at half the 24/7burn rate or simply use .5 cord/month. The amount of time devoted to reloading will be proportional to the firebox size and, on average, you'll probably load about 1/3 to 1/2 your firebox capacity ea refill.
EJL923 - I have a similar sized house (in CT) with an open floor plan and open to the 2nd floor. Last year was my first yr. and burning 24/7 I went through 5.5 cords. Half of my wood wasn't as seasoned as it should have been so I expect to use less this year. Golf and Wood Nut hit it right for getting longer burns. Temp wise I see 500-700 all the time when secondaries are going good and 350-500 with out secondaries. I really like the heat when it cruses in the 600's. That's with the IR gun shooting the top of the firebox through the air slot (where the fan blows the air out). I would plan on a cord per month and 1/2 cord each month for the shoulder season. I learned my lesson last year and now have 8 to 10 cords c/s/s since last winter/early spring - so even this year some wood is not 100% ready. I hope to hunt and gather another 5 to 10 cords this winter so it will all have over 1 year+ of seasoning before use. Good luck and enjoy!
Rich L said:
Rich L- Given 8 cords of wood:
1) If Solar avg'd 30hr burns (which is hard to even type) he'd only be using 3/4 cord per month because he'd be using 4cuft loads. That equates to 10 months 24/7 and a few shoulder months. Wowsa...
2) If Solar "only" avg'd 20hr burns (half the optimal burn he recorded-and still hard to type btw-) he'd be using 1 1/4 cords per month which equates to burning 5 months 24/7 and a 2-3 shoulder months OR 4 months 24/7 and 4'ish months shoulder .
Solar- I'm guessing #2 is pretty close to the actual situation. Does that sound about right?
Once you get over being a pyro you can let the fire burn down to hot coals. Coals continue to give of good heat for an hour of hours! I have reduced my wood use by not giving in to the temptation to see flame. Also you disrupt burn cycle when you open doors to throw on splits on top of coals. Resist feeding fire and you will be surprised how much fuel you can save and how much heat stove continues to though out good heat
53flyer said:
Because the BK burns so low and is easily adjusted with the tstat, I have been burning 24/7 since October 2nd with only two relatively brief exceptions. The reality is that the effective load is only 3 cu ft as opposed to the 4.3 advertised in the brochure. Meaning, that I can recreate 3 cu ft of my stack in my stove without getting out the band saw and dremel. The effective load of the old stove was about half that, so I expect to get about twice the burn time which should be about 12 hours when it gets cold. We heat exclusively with wood, so the variance is much greater than your #2 suggests. Burning 1/2 a cord per week is easy if it is blowing 30 miles an hour and below 20 highs. That would be 3 loads per day with the new stove and 6 with the old.
I understand your uneasiness in typing those burn times, I didn't believe it either after my previous 2 stoves. It is a pleasure to operate this stove which is a good thing because it makes up for having a monstrosity in the middle of our living space. It is easily twice the size and has none of the visual appeal of the old stove.
SolarAndWood said:
Solar are you hooked up according to spec.,8 " pipe etc.?Last February I was getting 15-17 hrs of good heat and I'm not even hooked up to specs.,no double walled pipe and 8" going into 6".I should do even better since I added more insulation to my drafty house.Probably next year I'll do it right or swap the Mansfield from the basement which is on an 8" pipe to the first floor and put the Blaze in the basement.That way the Mansfield will be on the 6" pipe and the King will be on the 8" pipe. After splitting by hand several cords of wood I'm too tired to consider moving those heavy men around anytime soon.
I thought the BK ads were complete BS or creative marketing too, but after playing with this stove for a while, I wouldn't doubt 40+ hour burns for a minute. I know I've routinely done well over 24 hour burns without stuffing the firebox. This is w/o a doubt the most impressive stove I've ever used. Even with a few splits this thing will burn all day. It's amazingly efficient...53flyer said:
Rich L said:
8" double wall straight up 40" to back to back 45s then straight up another 20' of triple wall.
I burn 12+ cords in my Blaze Kings, I run 2- 24/7. Mind you that all we have for wood is pine and cottonwood. Every once in awhile I stumble onto a town tree elm or ash. We do have an abundant supply of Russian Olive, I call it blood wood.
Man with your hookup you should be burning less wood.When I first started burning this thing I was trying to burn up my junk wood quickly.I just couldn't do it.This stove took so long to burn up a load I had to wait longer than I wanted to refill with the junk wood so it took me much longer to burn up my junk.This season I've been burning junk wood since the beginning of October and I won't get it all burned until the end of the month.Then I can start burning the premo wood.I can't see how you can't save on wood with this stove.SolarAndWood said:
greythorn 3, the answer to your question of burning rounds for all night burn. i have mostly split chunks, very few rounds.this is a new stove and i am uncertain if i can get this one to burn overnite. still not cold here so i will have to wait. keep warm in alaska,i could not imagine being without a stove up theyre. pete
I went through 4.5 cords last year with the Vigilant and 510 gallons of heating oil (that was with the furnace dieing on us for 33 days during the coldest part of the winter). This year I added a second stove (that is finally running properly). My estimate for this year is hard to say for a few reasons.
1. last year was my first year burning.
2. Last year I was burning wood that wasn't as seasoned as it should be.
3. Last year I was burning 24/7 before we even hit November. That hasn't been the case this year (not even close).
4. I was still learning the ins-and-outs of wood stove heating and I wasn't as efficient as I could have been.
5. The second wood stove that was installed is a completely unknown factor in terms of how much it will be used and how much wood it will consume.
I am guessing we will use 5-6 cords of wood this year with the hopes that it will be less and about 400 gallons of heating oil (without the stoves we would be using 1500-1800 gallons to keep the house at 70*).
1. last year was my first year burning.
2. Last year I was burning wood that wasn't as seasoned as it should be.
3. Last year I was burning 24/7 before we even hit November. That hasn't been the case this year (not even close).
4. I was still learning the ins-and-outs of wood stove heating and I wasn't as efficient as I could have been.
5. The second wood stove that was installed is a completely unknown factor in terms of how much it will be used and how much wood it will consume.
I am guessing we will use 5-6 cords of wood this year with the hopes that it will be less and about 400 gallons of heating oil (without the stoves we would be using 1500-1800 gallons to keep the house at 70*).
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