Yup. The stated 12.5k btu would be perfect for our small highly insulated house for a good portion of the winter.
I guess I'm just trying to ask if the stove will really put out 12.5k btu relatively uniformly for 24 or 30 hours, and if I am reloading at that 24 hour mark am I going to have enough coals to not need to use newspaper/kindling to get it going again.
The current stove often requires newspaper and kindling after only 12 hours, and I'm over it. Kids and busy schedules are at a point now where I think a blaze king is a much better fit for our house.
This depends on your stack height, outdoor ambient temperature, as built air leaks and as built insulation envelope. Besides your likely air door test to show how tight the house was before the mechanical systems went in, you can measure your degree loss per hour.
Working in Farenheit, I typically would heat my home (state of the art when built 1980 build) to 80dF, with the woodstove cold; and then turn off the breaker to the oil fired boiler, and then time how long it took for the house to cool to 70 dF. I found my old house, as built, would lose 1dF per hour when outdoor ambients were about -20dF. In warmer temps the house would lose heat more slowly. From -20dF to about -40dF the house was on the exponential knee. Colder than -40dF, in that house, the insulation fell flat and the real question was could I get enough BTUs out of the oil boiler and the wood stove to keep the pipes from freezing up before such and such a time if the weather didn't break.
For chronic long term operation, the BKs stoves I am familiar with are looking for 30 minutes at full throttle after hot reloads on hot coals, and then turn down to low throttle based on onsite conditions, with one or two intermediate steps between wide open throttle and low throttle not unheard of, especially with fuel above 18%MC. One advantage of 14%MC fuel on my install is I can run a hot reload at full throttle for 30 minutes, and then chop the throttle to low in one step without having to screw around when I am trying to get out the door in the morning.
Once the reload moisture bake out is done, yup, consistent heat output at whatever throttle setting you select. For hours and hours. And hours. These are very boring stoves to run once you learn to trust them.
To me a cold start suggest the combustor in a BK stove is at room temperature, you need kindling and you have to stay involved. A hot reload, the combustor is in the active zone when you are ready to add fuel, never drops out of the active zone during the reload, and you are ready to rip from flag drop. A warm reload is all the conditions in between. I suspect for your second winter you can do a few cold starts in the autumn shoulder season and should have very little problem keeping your combustor in the active zone for months on end, no matches or newspaper required, after your shoulder season ends.
You are asking the right questions
@Nateums . Keep asking, you have sort of 'come home' registering here.
