2014-2015 Blaze King Performance thread (Everything BK)#2

[Dieselhead]

Alright.

This thread is about wrapping up for the season by the looks of it, couple shutdown questions for the seasoned vets.

Keep bypass open or closed?

Keep thermostat full open or closed?

On the King/princess models does anyone have any tips how to get the fallen creosote chunks out from inbetween the double wall on the insides of the stove? Particularly the left and right side?

I scraped from the sides and around the top what I could, there's still a lot in there. With the air inlet tubes you can only get to so much.

 

[blueguy]

Keep bypass open or closed?

I leave mine open to keep the gasket from being having that weight on it all year round.

Keep thermostat full open or closed?

I leave mine closed the whole way.

 

[begreen]

I would consider keeping the thermostat at least partially open especially if one has humid summers. The thought being to avoid sticking due to surface rust or metal oxidation.

 

[Rossco]

"Forgive me fella BK'er but I have sinned. This is my first Hearth Confession"

Last few days the temps have cooled off at night. I brought some dry wood up from storage and have ran the BK over night to keep the chill off. 18-24hr burns no problem.

Summer shutdown, Well. Clean the ash out, clean the glass, close by pass and Thermo off. I will go down into the basement regular and open / close the bypass Etc.

So my Thermo knob is a little tight, best method the free it up?

 

[rdust]

Re: ashpan

After the talk of people using the ash pan I figured I'd give it another shot cleaning out the ash the other day. After requiring 4 full ash pans to empty all the ash from the stove I decided it's still not for me. I had ash escaping out the door and also had it coming out between the pedestal base and ash pan front. There isn't a good way to tell when the pan is full, it overfilled a bit on one load which made a mess when I pulled the pan out. Thankfully the ash was stone cold so I didn't have to fish hot coals out of pedestal.

 

[Dieselhead]

Once it starts backing up into the hole I stick my 90 degree poker down the hole to level out what's in the pan. Seems to be a good indicator as to when it's full. Then I'll pull it out without any falling out into the stove base. Very little dust rises up out of the stove when I use the pan, and a lot less dust then using the normal shovel/bucket routine.

 

[Highbeam]

Re: ashpan

After the talk of people using the ash pan I figured I'd give it another shot cleaning out the ash the other day. After requiring 4 full ash pans to empty all the ash from the stove I decided it's still not for me. I had ash escaping out the door and also had it coming out between the pedestal base and ash pan front. There isn't a good way to tell when the pan is full, it overfilled a bit on one load which made a mess when I pulled the pan out. Thankfully the ash was stone cold so I didn't have to fish hot coals out of pedestal.

I like it when there's only an inch or two to clean out.

 

[rdust]

I like it when there's only an inch or two to clean out.

I was almost up to the top of the bricks, I usually don't clean the stove out during the shoulder seasons since I don't need the capacity. It's amazing how much the belly of the stove can hold. I'd imagine I'd have better luck with only an inch or two to clean out.

 

[jeff_t]

Alright.

This thread is about wrapping up for the season by the looks of it, couple shutdown questions for the seasoned vets.

Keep bypass open or closed?

Keep thermostat full open or closed?

On the King/princess models does anyone have any tips how to get the fallen creosote chunks out from inbetween the double wall on the insides of the stove? Particularly the left and right side?

I scraped from the sides and around the top what I could, there's still a lot in there. With the air inlet tubes you can only get to so much.

If you don't have a screen on the cap, I say leave the bypass open. I had a couple of birds come down the pipe, and was worried about one pecking at the back of the cat trying to get out. Didn't have any damage, but I guess it could be possible. I'd rather see it in the stove than die in the pipe. I've since added a screen. I still leave it open, but if you have trouble with a stinky downdraft you could close it.

Never thought about the thermostat.

I have a piece of heavy steel banding that is flexible enough to bend but stuff enough to dig stuff out from behind the shields. Some may tell you to just burn it out with a hot fire, but it doesn't work. Personally, I don't worry that much about it. If it was a problem with corrosion or something, I imagine BK would do something about the design.

Re: ashpan

After the talk of people using the ash pan I figured I'd give it another shot cleaning out the ash the other day. After requiring 4 full ash pans to empty all the ash from the stove I decided it's still not for me. I had ash escaping out the door and also had it coming out between the pedestal base and ash pan front. There isn't a good way to tell when the pan is full, it overfilled a bit on one load which made a mess when I pulled the pan out. Thankfully the ash was stone cold so I didn't have to fish hot coals out of pedestal.

I filled my 17 gallon trash/ash can almost 3/4 the other day. Can't imagine how many ash pans that would fill.

 

[BKVP]

If you don't have a screen on the cap, I say leave the bypass open. I had a couple of birds come down the pipe, and was worried about one pecking at the back of the cat trying to get out. Didn't have any damage, but I guess it could be possible. I'd rather see it in the stove than die in the pipe. I've since added a screen. I still leave it open, but if you have trouble with a stinky downdraft you could close it.

Never thought about the thermostat.

I have a piece of heavy steel banding that is flexible enough to bend but stuff enough to dig stuff out from behind the shields. Some may tell you to just burn it out with a hot fire, but it doesn't work. Personally, I don't worry that much about it. If it was a problem with corrosion or something, I imagine BK would do something about the design.



I filled my 17 gallon trash/ash can almost 3/4 the other day. Can't imagine how many ash pans that would fill.

I might suggest going to a welding supply store. I found a really great brush with a flexible (heavy) wire handle. It looks a bit like a baby bottle brush. Creosote can eat through metal over time. We wanted to make the interior baffles removable, safety test lab squashed that idea...lest a user fail to replace them, clearances would be really different.

 

[Highbeam]

I might suggest going to a welding supply store. I found a really great brush with a flexible (heavy) wire handle. It looks a bit like a baby bottle brush. Creosote can eat through metal over time. We wanted to make the interior baffles removable, safety test lab squashed that idea...lest a user fail to replace them, clearances would be really different.

What if they failed to replace the firebrick?

I've had good luck with a thin metal strap like you see on palletized goods. You know that black strap about 3/4" wide. It's mostly big sheets of creo that fall back there so you just need to scoot them to one end where your vacuum hose is sucking.

A lot of junk hides up above the air tubes too.

 

[Gakdudes]

An update on my blazeking king install. Well it turns out that no one wanted to certify my old chimney, even though it had just passed a little over a year ago. So off to the store and ordered a icc excel 8" chimney. I got an awesome deal on both stove and chimney, if anyone in the Kootenay's is looking to upgrade pm me and I can definitely help you keep the costs down. Decided to do the install myself, to save about 600 dollars. 15 ft of insulated chimney through house and 4 ft of double wall stovepipe to hook up to it. The excel stuff is pretty easy to install, although the directions could have been a little better in some spots. Eventually you will figure it out as everything kind of has only one way that it installs.

So after passing with all new stove and chimney we lit it up. First fire was just a couple blocks to smoke out the chimney and try to cure the paint. At 12 o'clock I loaded it pretty full, 5 big chunks and 3 smaller pieces of pine. Mc around 12 to 16. Seasoned about 9 months or so. I was going to do a test to see how long I could get out of this load. So I ran it up to 450 stove top temp and then turned it down to the 350 mark. It was cruising nicely u til my visiting mother decided to crank it ip because it was not 85 degrees in the house. So I came down and found it running at 625 degrees... seen as it had been running like this for an hour or so I figured my test was shot. So much for a 20 hr burn.

I figured heck we got this to heat the place so let's heat the place. I left it running at over 600 for most of the day, around 7 hours. At about 11 I turned it down for the night somewhere between 200 - 300 degrees. In the morning I got up and went to go see if I could relight it with what coals were left. I opened the door and after 20 hrs of burning there were 2 large ashy logs left inside. So I grabbed the poker expecting them to crumble. They were still solid! So I turned up the stove to take off the morning chill. We will see how long it go's for. I never believed Id get this performance especially out of pine. Completely impressed.

 

[Ashful]

A little card came with the Ashford 30's, telling me what temps to run for the first few fires to break in the stove and cure the paint. However, I see no mention of where these temps are to be measured.

I've read 2/3 of the manual so far (up thru reloading), and have seen no mention of a break-in procedure in the manual.

Advice? Probably ready to light first fire tonight / tomorrow, if the evening temps stay low.

 

[begreen]

I would lift off the convection top and measure directly on the stove top maybe 6-8" off center?

 

[blueguy]

I measure my stove top temps about 3-4" off the right edge of the stove top. I find it gives me a pretty accurate temp of the overall stove without any interference from the cat temps.

 

[webby3650]

Those temps given are from the paint manufacturer aren't they? It's a steel stove so there's really no "break in" fires to do, only paint curing. So that would be an average temperature reading, not critical.

 

[begreen]

It's not a bad idea with any wood stove to drive moisture out the firebrick first with one or two small kindling fires. After that, agreed. Steel stoves don't need the break-in fires that a cast or stone stove would need. Get it over 500F to bake in the paint and run an exhaust fan in a nearby window if this is indoors.

 

[Rossco]

So then.

Best method to fix a 'Stiff Knob' ??

 

[Gakdudes]

Ended up getting 24 hrs out of a load a pine. That was with running it pretty hot for a little under half of that time. I wonder if the new chimney affects the burn time. It's hard to believe the performance f this stove compared to the napoleon 1400 we used last winter. We would get 2 to 3 hours running hot on that stove and maybe 8 hours on low.

 

[Ashful]

Cool, thanks, guys.

Was surprised to see cat damper handle is a removable tool! I suspect most just leave them installed, or do they get too hot? Mine just slips on/off, no detent, set screw, or retainer to keep it in place.

 

[Rossco]

Cool, thanks, guys.

Was surprised to see cat damper handle is a removable tool! I suspect most just leave them installed, or do they get too hot? Mine just slips on/off, no detent, set screw, or retainer to keep it in place.

Comes off for transportation. Leave it on. The wood Doesn't get hot. Wellit doesn't get hot like the door handle

 

[BKVP]

Hey dudes...rolling through Merill, WI today found a Princess Ultra burn model (1 season) at a showwroom for $1462.50. If interested let me know.

Chris

 

[jeff_t]

Hey dudes...rolling through Merill, WI today found a Princess Ultra burn model (1 season) at a showwroom for $1462.50. If interested let me know.

Chris

Hmmmm.

 

[HighTon]

First,I apologize of the orientation of the photo. I suck with personal computers, even though I'm an engineer. It looks as if my door is leaking? There is a strong flame coming in from the lower right corner.

I hadn't burned for several weeks and we have a cold snap right now. In preparation for the coming storm, I cleaned my chimney and stove and checked the door via the dollar bill test. It was a little loose, so I tightened it. Did I screw something up? I'm worried about my cat now.

This is a new stove that I have been burning since October.

 

[Rossco]

Did you shut the stove down? If so did the flame disappear?

I don't do the $ bill test, simply push the door and release, if you hear a clink then it's loose.