If you find a used King for a good price, try it. I never get any smoke spillage unless I rip the door open. I have 16' of 8", but I didn't have any problem when I only had 13'. I still really don't see the point of the 8" pipe when there is so little air going thru it, at least most of the time.
2013-2014 Blaze King Performance Thread(everything BK)
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If you find a used King for a good price, try it. I never get any smoke spillage unless I rip the door open. I have 16' of 8", but I didn't have any problem when I only had 13'. I still really don't see the point of the 8" pipe when there is so little air going thru it, at least most of the time.
When I read the specs I find that the king has a low burn output nearly identical to the small stoves like my princess. What this means is that you can't go wrong with the king so long as you have the chimney to make it work. It won't be too big if the princess would not have been too big. What you get is the potential for higher output and of course the longer burn times and pleasure of working in a large firebox.
BKInsert
Member
I think the 8" may only be needed at full throttle for long time burning, I don't see any other scenarios it may be needed do you?
It may overheat at full throttle with a 6" pipe.
It may overheat at full throttle with a 6" pipe.
Okay, so, the spillage should be at least manageable it seems.
How about on a cold start when you have the door cracked a bit?
Bigger door than a Princess on a flue the same as a Princess could lead to smoke spillage. I think it was RichL who ran a King on a 6" flue, he remove the King due to the spillage issues.
I've also been told if you burn the house down and don't have the appliance hooked up to the recommended flue the insurance company could give you problems.
That's the question. Will a 6" liner work?
Chimney 1 is 18-20' and chimney 2 is about 25'.
Chimney 1 ran the Vigilant, which requires an 8' pipe, with no problems and no smoke spillage.
The 25' chimney may have a chance, I don't think I'd try the 20'. I suspect the issue would come from the cold flue temps on reload since these things burn so low. I could also see an issues with the cat stalling with dialed down low. We've seen posts from both Princess and King users with chimney's at minimum height regarding stalling.
Highbeam, don't you have issues if you dial yours all the way down? Your chimney is close to minimum height if I remember right.
BKInsert
Member
My chimney is 15', I have a 6" liner. I also have many trees around. I never had a cat stall issue, sometimes on reloades I get a little smoke spillage but no big deal. When I open the door I do it slowly.
I can stall the cat if I turn the air down too low. I would think that everybody could do this, no? I've only expereinced this when outside temps are above 50 and easily learned the lowest setting required to keep the cat active. I thought knowing this low setting was part of the operations.
Yes, I have a minimal chimney but it does meet the spec. All vertical 4-5 feet of inside double wall, then 8 feet of class A. No spark screen. In my climate we sit at 35 a lot. Not frozen but cold, dark, and rainy for 9 months. The mud seldom freezes.
I think you would notice an inadequate chimney on reloads when the fuel load is mostly gone except for a couple of partially burnt splits. When you open the door, you'll get spillage.
I think I am going to start searching for used BK stoves. Which ever comes up first with a good price, a Princess or a King, I'm going to jump on to see where I stand. It would be great if the Princess works, because that would mean I could do the Ashford in the living room. I'd prefer the Ashford as far as design goes. But, this is mostly about convenience.
I don't think the Princess wouldn't work, I just think there is a greater chance that the Princess will have shorter than desired burn times for my setup.
I don't think the Princess wouldn't work, I just think there is a greater chance that the Princess will have shorter than desired burn times for my setup.
Question, when I have a full load (seasoned Oak) load with Cat engaged, by pass closed, charred wood and cat not half way up on Active. When I set the Thermostat on upper Normal my Cat will go beyond the last marking of Active. Stove top Temperture is 650* flue is 400* about 2 feet up pipe. Therefore, I have to reduce the Thermostat to middle or less setting to allow Cat to drop below the last marking on Cat Active range. Flue temp drops to 250* and cat will stay in the upper active zone. Stove top will be 450* to 500*. Is this typical? I cannot see how you can run the Thermostat in its upper range without over heating the Cat? My Chimmney is around 22 feet, double walled. Thanks for any input.
Pull your cat probe out and make sure it is properly calibrated. At room temp, the needle should be at the bottom of the active zone. If it is not, loosen the screw at the top and turn the dial. I'm also not sure how accurate the probe is at higher temps, with the exposed coil almost sitting on the stovetop.
New cats can be touchy, too. Mine settled down after a few months.
If you're not doing anything crazy, I wouldn't worry about it. Burn it like you need to.
New cats can be touchy, too. Mine settled down after a few months.
If you're not doing anything crazy, I wouldn't worry about it. Burn it like you need to.
If it's a new stove the cat will run a little hotter for a while, I had trouble keeping mine from pegging out when it was new. The probe doesn't do a great job of reading cat temps since it's also getting the radiation temp from the stove top. I think the probes are only good for telling me when to engage the cat after that I don't pay it much attention. It's also been said to just burn the stove and not worry about the cat temp, if you're in the normal range I say you're good to go. I've never had to burn in the upper end of the normal range though, we had single digits last night and the "n" on normal is where I had it set.
Mine runs the same way till I turn the blower on. Once the blower is on it will drop the cat temp quite a bit.
It's not actually dropping the cat temp, just the cat meter reading. You will notice the same thing happens if you blow on the cat meter.
The cat meter is not to be used as an actual max temp indication, only to tell you when to engage the cat. You'll notice there are no numbers on the dial and that's because it doesn't matter. Just run the stat in the normal range and enjoy the heat.
hack
Member
- Dec 13, 2012
- 74
I'll let you know next week. I purchased a new Princess Ultra last winter and have been wishing I had the King ever since. I'm going to try to run the king on my current 6" class a chimney. If all else fails i will install a 8" chimney.
99% of the time the 6" is overkill for the princess and would be fine for the king. We'll see how bad the other 1% is with the king.
On a side note, when you guys sweep your chimney with the BK, do you remove the bottome stove pipe and let the soot fall into a bag or do you just sweep the soot into the stove?
Well, if the 6" liner doesn't work out for you, then don't tell me! Ignorance IS bliss!
You can let it fall into the stove, but you have to pull the pipe off and clean out behind the cat. The bypass damper hangs out into the flue opening and catches the stuff as it falls, and you will have a pretty big pile in there. I posted a pic somewhere, but I don't remember where, and I can't find it here.
So far I've just swept down into the stove with the bypass open so the large majority of the junk goes into the stove or an accessible part of the cat chamber. It may be different on the princess but I remember seeing jeff's photos and was a little worried about sweepings causing trouble up near the cat. Rather than remove the pipe to suck out any possible debris I verified a consistant glow across the whole face of the cat and also verified that the entire bypass gasket was clear of junk. So long as these things are happening I am not worried if a portion of junk stays up in the chamber.
In any case, you would sweep the chimney into the stove and then remove the sweepings as needed. None of this bag stuff. A shop-vac is your friend.
BKInsert
Member
When I did mine I though about doing that, but I ended up moving the stove forward and pulling the pipe. There is defenitely access from the firebox, but I was afraid that a lot of ashes would block the cat. The only way to clean the ashes behind the cat is by either removing the pipe and coming from behind the cat, or removing the cat. I did not remove the cat so had to remove the pipe. Next time I think I will try to remove the cat, now that I know where to get a new gasket from. ..
So did you find a troublesome accumulation of sweepings up behind the cat that could not be cleaned from the firebox? I'm confused, you say that there is definitely firebox access but then you say that the only way to clean ashes is to remove a cat or pipe.
I have to pull the pipe to sweep my chimney so it's a none issue for me. For those that don't want to pull the pipe I think you can probably make a thin sheet metal deflector of sorts that you can fit up the bypass opening to direct the soot in front of the bypass plate so the soot can't fall behind it and get in front of the cat. It may take a two piece design but I'd think something can be fabricated.
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