Unable to keep the fire running full - Princess32

[Dieselhead]

I have a 25’ flue on my king with a manometer inline. I can WAY overdraft when running the stove hard. Almost triple recommended spec. Damper brings it back to reality. Also when you have a good coal bed and want to turn up the air to burn them down it holds the heat back in the stove. You can physically hear the stove get hotter when the damper is engaged. I’m actually doing it right now, nice blue flames and the stove is pinging and dinging. Damper open. -0.15wc, damper closed -0.08wc. Less flow up the flue is more heat radiated to the firebox.

 

[stoveliker]

One other thing you can check is whether the cat works.
Seeing the cat gauge go down when you turn down the air from full throttle can happen. But if you turn the air down more, generally the cat gauge should go up, because more smoke is produced that the cat eats and combusts.

You saying it goes to the no go edge is odd (to me).

Is your cat a dud?
Only ever burned cordwood? What fire starter do you use? No nails?

 

[Murray01]

Maybe your stove is running as it was designed to.

Have you tried running your other heat source and the stove simultaneously? I find when coming into our place, in winter with a cold stove it takes about 3 hours to warm the place up running electric heat and our Princess 32. Once the inside temperature is in the +23C range, electric heat is shutdown, it still takes 2-3 days of running our stove aggressively to get to a point where we can run it at 50% throttle or less. You have cold air all around the house trying to get in while you have a little wood stove in the middle trying to repel all that cold air.

I just started burning Birch and what seems to work for me is the biggest splits on the bottom then I pile Jack Pine on top of the Birch, by the time I reload the Birch coals are long gone.

My opinion on BK stoves is they are excellent at keeping a room at a set temperature, to get to that set temperature can be an exercise in patience.

 

[m37charlie]

I want to clarify that what I call, mainly in my own mind “clinkers” are actually large birch coals. Which my King is several inches deep in, because I filled it with birch at 11pm and set the thermostat at ~2.1. I will use my spruce till bedtime tonight and the “clinkers” will disappear.
As far as”overdraft at subzero temperatures”, running at full blast for hours, the measured temperature at the top of the 3’ single wall temperature section in the picture is around 300F. Without a damper.