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

[Jeepman401]

This is my first year with a BK King stove, I have heated my small house for 15 years with a very old Sears circulator wood/coal stove. I can't say enough good about this stove, even heat, long "burns", no smoke smell in the house and not having to fiddle with it constantly like the old stove. Who would have thought you need a flashlight to check your "fire." lol
At anyrate I wonder why some on here will only load a couple of splits at a time? While I would do this with the old stove to try and keep it from cooking me out while its in the 20's or 30's that just not the case with the BK. I pack that sucker up and turn down the stat to where the house stay 70 or 74 and let it go...I've had burns from 10 to 34 hours from day one...just amazing! The old circulator was at best maybe 10 hours on a warm day...slow smokey fire, most time I had to run home from work on my break and reload. This stove I load, go to work for 8 hours come home look inside go upstairs and relax.
I've loaded it up and come home after 8 hours and can still see bark on pieces of wood all over inside the firebox...its the only stove I've seen that doen't burn the wood. Guessing I will use at least a 3rd less wood, maybe half as much with the BK.
I don't open the door unless I am loading or raking some coals to the front, which I have found I have to do sometimes, but this stove is awsome! Best money ever spent!

 

[blueguy]

Certainly not, no reason to ever load a BK e/w!

I'm trying some E-W loads just to see how it works with our 0*F lows at night. I get fantastic heat coming off the entire stove top at lower stat settings in the early hours of the burn, but tons of coals in the mornings at the end of the burn.

I'm going to keep playing with it and see what the magic combination is

 

[Parallax]

It's been a while since I've posted here. Was having trouble with wet wood, smoke in the house and not enough draft.

Since then, the dealer has increased the height of the stack by 4 feet. Did a really nice job. It was kind of a big deal because they had to fabricate supports to brace the now 26 foot stack against high wind, arising as it does flagpole-like from the first story section of the home, several feet behind the second story. Also, getting it up was really challenging. There's no room for a scaffold or cherry picker so two men had to stand on the roof and lift a very high section in place together and get it secured. They managed somehow and I now have nice draft. So that problem is solved. Can't say enough about our dealer. If anyone is buying a stove the fourth-corner region of Washington, there are several choices but this is the one to use.

The wood smoke problem suddenly vanished around 10 days ago. The dealer postulated that wherever the leak was, it had sealed up with soot. Not content to just let it ride, today we added a collar to the double-walled chimney pipe because we suspected the leak was because there was preciously little overlap where the joints met up. Won't know for sure for a few days, but I think there's a good chance this problem is solved too. My wife thought she smelled smoke again when she came home from work, but I think it was just the chemical smell of paint curing on the new collar. However, her nose is far better than mine and she insists there was wood smoke. At least we're debating it. Up until about ten days ago, the wood smoke smell was unmistakable.

The wet wood problem has not gone away. Just needs more time to season. I had bought a load of artificial logs, seconds, from a manufacturer up in northern Washington. That stuff has all but run out and I'm on the wait list to get more. So we're back to burning not-fully-seasoned fir, at least for now, with mixed results. Tonight, the cat crashed on a load that had been burning nicely. Just closing the door, even with the t-stat full open, can cause a crash. I'm wondering if the cold-air intake may be obstructed. If I add in a few pieces of the remaining pressed logs, that seems to help keep the burn going. But it's very much touch and go. Here I am, up at 4 a.m., nursing a fire along. That's frustrating!

Last issue, the fan had been rumbling on and off since the stove was new. Today, when the dealer was out, he inspected it and found the plastic fan blades had partially melted, most likely causing the unbalanced blade to rumble. I'm wondering what's up with that. Would seem a design problem as Blaze King has to know the fan is likely to get hot, particularly when not running, with the stove running full out. BKVP had counseled me to run the stove full out for an hour or more so I know it's designed to take the heat. The fan kit is apparently not.

It's under warranty so they'll get a replacement. Hopefully the design flaw has been corrected by now. If Blaze King going to use plastic for the blades, it needs to be heat resistant enough to do the job. Perhaps the problem was with a bad supplier.

Alas, it's a great stove and yet we continue to struggle. Every time we figure out one problem, another seems to pop up. None of it's the stove's fault (though the same cannot be said of the fan kit). But the installation, the wood, the fan -- it's all been a pain. There are times I begin to question the decision to go the wood burning route. But if we can overcome the remaining problems, all of this frustration will seem but a blip, a middle-of-the-night tantrum best forgotten.

 

[Quentin2]

This is my first year with a BK King stove, I have heated my small house for 15 years with a very old Sears circulator wood/coal stove. I can't say enough good about this stove, even heat, long "burns", no smoke smell in the house and not having to fiddle with it constantly like the old stove. Who would have thought you need a flashlight to check your "fire." lol
At anyrate I wonder why some on here will only load a couple of splits at a time? While I would do this with the old stove to try and keep it from cooking me out while its in the 20's or 30's that just not the case with the BK. I pack that sucker up and turn down the stat to where the house stay 70 or 74 and let it go...I've had burns from 10 to 34 hours from day one...just amazing! The old circulator was at best maybe 10 hours on a warm day...slow smokey fire, most time I had to run home from work on my break and reload. This stove I load, go to work for 8 hours come home look inside go upstairs and relax.
I've loaded it up and come home after 8 hours and can still see bark on pieces of wood all over inside the firebox...its the only stove I've seen that doen't burn the wood. Guessing I will use at least a 3rd less wood, maybe half as much with the BK.
I don't open the door unless I am loading or raking some coals to the front, which I have found I have to do sometimes, but this stove is awsome! Best money ever spent!

Congrats on the new stove jeepman! You say your heating a small house, curious, how small a house you heating with the king? That was my experience as well 12-24 hours of whole home heat from day one. Pretty amazing for sure! You got pics?

 

[Usernamemustbeunique]

Just picked up my new blaze king sirocco 20. I am heating a 1200 sqft trailer. I will be replacing my old Osburn belcher wood stove. I figure I will use 1/2 the fire wood. Would like to install it now but I currently only have 9 feet of chimney. Would this be adaquate? What kind of burn times can I expect on average from this little beauty.

 

[begreen]

On 9ft of chimney it's no wonder the Osburn was belching. It wants about 15ft and a diet of dry wood. The Sirocco 20 will want a minimum of 12 ft of chimney and again, fully seasoned wood.

 

[bobdog2o02]

Just picked up my new blaze king sirocco 20. I am heating a 1200 sqft trailer. I will be replacing my old Osburn belcher wood stove. I figure I will use 1/2 the fire wood. Would like to install it now but I currently only have 9 feet of chimney. Would this be adaquate? What kind of burn times can I expect on average from this little beauty.

Sweet username

 

[Usernamemustbeunique]

On 9ft of chimney it's no wonder the Osburn was belching. It wants about 15ft and a diet of dry wood. The Sirocco 20 will want a minimum of 12 ft of chimney and again, fully seasoned wood.

It was original to the place I bought. It works well enough but yeah more draft would eliminate a bit of the smoke back and probably help it burn on windy and warm days. Back when it was installed the instructions called for 12' from the hearth, which it has.

Anyway. I am three feet and 2 and 10 with the existing flue. Not sure what my WC is or how to measure it. The reason I am asking if I can run the blaze king, knowing what they recommend, is the chimney length must not matter much once the bypass is closed because it is so efficient...at least for the short term I might get away with it till I can track down a 36" section of the older twist one SS chimney sections....any leads on that would be appreciated.

 

[Poindexter]

The reason I am asking if I can run the blaze king, knowing what they recommend, is the chimney length must not matter much once the bypass is closed because it is so efficient...at least for the short term I might get away with it till I can track down a 36" section of the older twist one SS chimney sections....any leads on that would be appreciated.

I have 13-14' of total stack on my Ashford 30. It's 13 feet, xx inches total. I can run it above freezing but it's kinda fussy ~ I need to get the flue good and hot with the door cracked before I engage the cat, if I turn the tstat down far enough for a longer slower cooler burn the stove will go out.

Below freezing mine drafts noticeably better, below about -20df mine drafts really really fine.

The BK 20 firebox is not the same as the BK 30 firebox, YMMV and etc...

 

[Poindexter]

Finally turned the Tstat down from 3/3 for the first time since Saturday afternoon.

When I got home this afternoon the house was 1dF above the set point on my oil furnace and 10dF below my wife's defined comfort zone, I had plenty of coals in the ash bed with the stove pretty well burnt out and the cat was stone cold, about ten hours after I lat filled this morning.

I sifted out a bucket full of ashes and ran a load of twisted sappy spruce with some poplar and two bio-logs mixed in, at full throttle, burnt it down to just coals in 2 hours 37 minutes. I just reloaded with pretty straight birch that packs pretty tight and turned the stat down to 2/3 with the cat engaged just in the last couple minutes.

-38df out there just now, I have a hunch I'll be turning the Tstat back up to 3/3 before I go to bed.

 

[rdust]

The reason I am asking if I can run the blaze king, knowing what they recommend, is the chimney length must not matter much once the bypass is closed because it is so efficient...at least for the short term I might get away with it till I can track down a 36" section of the older twist one SS chimney sections....any leads on that would be appreciated.

Length matters more once you close the bypass. The stove is efficient so it doesn't dump a lot of heat into the flue to keep it drafting well. Cat stoves are typically more picky than non cat stoves when it comes to flue height. For me 15' would be the minimum and even at that we have heard of issues due to flue performance.

 

[BKVP]

Length matters more once you close the bypass. The stove is efficient so it doesn't dump a lot of heat into the flue to keep it drafting well. Cat stoves are typically more picky than non cat stoves when it comes to flue height. For me 15' would be the minimum and even at that we have heard of issues due to flue performance.

Yup...

 

[Jeepman401]

Congrats on the new stove jeepman! You say your heating a small house, curious, how small a house you heating with the king? That was my experience as well 12-24 hours of whole home heat from day one. Pretty amazing for sure! You got pics?

About 1000 square feet I suppose....its a small 2 bedroom witha basement and craw space under one North bedroom. Old construction, half the house is set on big rocks.

I have a furnace but choice to heat with wood, it just got easy with the BK.

The old stove, ugly yes but for $150 and a pick-up load of wood 15 years ago, it has paid for its many times over...and I added a water coil to heat my water heater for the last 5 years also during the winter.



I even redid the chimney cap and extended it one more section this fall. Its in the middle of the house so once its warm it stays warm. At least they did that right when they built the house.




The BK with the small 6 inch flue, yes I know, but it worked and now its changed so everything is good.


Time to open up the hole and place the thimble.


The new 8" pipe and much happier BK and owner!


And if you're into it...alittle wood porn...I'm set for many years now...15 maybe, when I get it all home using the BK. Last time I got a big amount like this was after a tornado hit by town, enough for 6 years, that was nice.

 

[begreen]

Anyway. I am three feet and 2 and 10 with the existing flue. Not sure what my WC is or how to measure it. The reason I am asking if I can run the blaze king, knowing what they recommend, is the chimney length must not matter much once the bypass is closed because it is so efficient...at least for the short term I might get away with it till I can track down a 36" section of the older twist one SS chimney sections....any leads on that would be appreciated.

You'll not only need to meet or exceed the minimum chimney height, but the connecting stove pipe should be double-wall also. You want to keep the flue gases as hot as possible to maintain draft.

 

[Quentin2]

Jeepman, that's cool that your stove is working good with a less than ideal rise out of the stove. I definitely appreciate a little wood porn. Check out the wood shed or the gear section on this site if you haven't found it yet.

I was struggling a little bit to keep my upstairs above 70 with this cold snap I'm in. 10 below to 10 above average. This was burning strictly cottonwood however, the downstairs would still be 80 but it just wouldn't travel as much. I switched it up my last couple loads with some spruce, white I think, huge difference I can now roast my upstairs out 75 right now. A lot of people won't burn cottonwood but it's what was on my property. It has worked admirably on anything above 20.

Here's a pic of how my chimney is framed in through the middle of my house. The entry you see is a split entry. Never posted this before but my layout with stove on first floor works surprisingly well allowing heat to rise with blowers on king running a lot.

 

[Highbeam]

Jeepman, that's cool that your stove is working good with a less than ideal rise out of the stove. I definitely appreciate a little wood porn. Check out the wood shed or the gear section on this site if you haven't found it yet.

I was struggling a little bit to keep my upstairs above 70 with this cold snap I'm in. 10 below to 10 above average. This was burning strictly cottonwood however, the downstairs would still be 80 but it just wouldn't travel as much. I switched it up my last couple loads with some spruce, white I think, huge difference I can now roast my upstairs out 75 right now. A lot of people won't burn cottonwood but it's what was on my property. It has worked admirably on anything above 20.

Here's a pic of how my chimney is framed in through the middle of my house. The entry you see is a split entry. Never posted this before but my layout with stove on first floor works surprisingly well allowing heat to rise with blowers on king running a lot.
View attachment 151912

Nice house, I'm a fan of semi gloss interior paint too.

 

[Quentin2]

Nice house, I'm a fan of semi gloss interior paint too.

Thanks, the wife handles all the house painting. She waits till I'm out of town for work then I come home to accent walls everywhere. She knows I'll try and veto her color choices if I'm home. I'll give her credit, she has gotten much better over the years of cutting in transitions and keeping the lines nice on trim and such.

I'm sure it would be a pain in the ass but initially I was gonna look into putting a gas fireplace insert in to that flat section of the chimney for aesthetic purposes. The raised "picture kind". Knowing I would have to add another chimney and meet clearances sounded like more trouble than it's worth. Plus it's always warm right there at the top of stairs.

 

[Rossco]

Well.

Only doing overnight burns lately. The semi-heat wave is still here. All the snow has melted.

Very unusual weather, 35F out. Good thing is Iam only using 1/2 the regular wood load and not burning any gas.

 

[Calentarse]

It's been a while since I've posted here. Was having trouble with wet wood, smoke in the house and not enough draft.

Since then, the dealer has increased the height of the stack by 4 feet. Did a really nice job. It was kind of a big deal because they had to fabricate supports to brace the now 26 foot stack against high wind, arising as it does flagpole-like from the first story section of the home, several feet behind the second story. Also, getting it up was really challenging. There's no room for a scaffold or cherry picker so two men had to stand on the roof and lift a very high section in place together and get it secured. They managed somehow and I now have nice draft. So that problem is solved. Can't say enough about our dealer. If anyone is buying a stove the fourth-corner region of Washington, there are several choices but this is the one to use.

The wood smoke problem suddenly vanished around 10 days ago. The dealer postulated that wherever the leak was, it had sealed up with soot. Not content to just let it ride, today we added a collar to the double-walled chimney pipe because we suspected the leak was because there was preciously little overlap where the joints met up. Won't know for sure for a few days, but I think there's a good chance this problem is solved too. My wife thought she smelled smoke again when she came home from work, but I think it was just the chemical smell of paint curing on the new collar. However, her nose is far better than mine and she insists there was wood smoke. At least we're debating it. Up until about ten days ago, the wood smoke smell was unmistakable.

The wet wood problem has not gone away. Just needs more time to season. I had bought a load of artificial logs, seconds, from a manufacturer up in northern Washington. That stuff has all but run out and I'm on the wait list to get more. So we're back to burning not-fully-seasoned fir, at least for now, with mixed results. Tonight, the cat crashed on a load that had been burning nicely. Just closing the door, even with the t-stat full open, can cause a crash. I'm wondering if the cold-air intake may be obstructed. If I add in a few pieces of the remaining pressed logs, that seems to help keep the burn going. But it's very much touch and go. Here I am, up at 4 a.m., nursing a fire along. That's frustrating!

Last issue, the fan had been rumbling on and off since the stove was new. Today, when the dealer was out, he inspected it and found the plastic fan blades had partially melted, most likely causing the unbalanced blade to rumble. I'm wondering what's up with that. Would seem a design problem as Blaze King has to know the fan is likely to get hot, particularly when not running, with the stove running full out. BKVP had counseled me to run the stove full out for an hour or more so I know it's designed to take the heat. The fan kit is apparently not.

It's under warranty so they'll get a replacement. Hopefully the design flaw has been corrected by now. If Blaze King going to use plastic for the blades, it needs to be heat resistant enough to do the job. Perhaps the problem was with a bad supplier.

Alas, it's a great stove and yet we continue to struggle. Every time we figure out one problem, another seems to pop up. None of it's the stove's fault (though the same cannot be said of the fan kit). But the installation, the wood, the fan -- it's all been a pain. There are times I begin to question the decision to go the wood burning route. But if we can overcome the remaining problems, all of this frustration will seem but a blip, a middle-of-the-night tantrum best forgotten.

Beautiful stove Parallax, and I understand your smoke smell frustrations. I hope my problems can be solved by putting in double-wall pipe (installed stove to preexisting single wall when I bought it). I also live in a mild winter climate and justified the BK because of the necessity for the low operating temps. It has them, I just pay the price because the low draft results in a horrible smell in the house. Hopefully double wall and perhaps a little height added to my chimney will fix the issue because these stoves are simply awesome otherwise! Don't give up!

 

[Poindexter]

Trying a new challenge. I let my A30 burn out some time Wed night / Thurs AM while the over night low hit -39dF. Didn't re-engage the cat until 6PM Friday night. 1200sqft, 2x6 construction, -25F and dropping.

I am running sappy spruce at 12%MC. Cat probe is about 75% from inactive towards overfired.

The challenge is too see when my wife takes off her long bloomers and changes into a short skirt. I am thinking about 0100 to 0200 Sat AM. House has been maintained at 62dF via the oil burning furnace.

When the chips are down the Ashford 30 can gobble up some dry wood at 3/3 without discoloring the enamel. Having been to -40dF with this stove a couple nights in a row the single most serious drawback I can name to the Ashford 30 is the purchase price; same as my Nikon, my GTO, my hunting rifle, my sidearm for bear country, my binoculars and my hunting boat.

Couple more degree it will be time for wifey in a short sleeved shirt, I gotta go.

 

[kennyp2339]

Man I'm glad to see so many people happy with there stoves, I'm no different, I have to give it to the members up in Alaska, so many different variables to take into account for day to day life, I'm sure you would not trade it for anything else but its sure different than down here in the lower 48.

 

[rdust]

What style cat is in the new BK stoves you guys are getting, ceramic or steel?

Reading the condar site it says after 12000 hours the efficiency will drop off. I'm on my 4th season and figure mine had around that many hours after it's 3rd season.(physically it looks fine) It still lights off fine but noticing the stove isn't producing the heat that it used to after it's dialed down and settled in.(600+ stove top still happens with a fresh load) For example the stove has active flames in it more than it used to when I dial it down to my standard setting(about the n on normal). My guess is the stove isn't getting the heat it needs from just the cat to close the t-stat at that setting. It will eventually go lights out but then comes back to life when the stove cools some and the t-stat opens a little.

 

[blueguy]

The cat that came with my Sirocco is steel.

 

[Parallax]

Beautiful stove Parallax, and I understand your smoke smell frustrations. I hope my problems can be solved by putting in double-wall pipe (installed stove to preexisting single wall when I bought it). I also live in a mild winter climate and justified the BK because of the necessity for the low operating temps. It has them, I just pay the price because the low draft results in a horrible smell in the house. Hopefully double wall and perhaps a little height added to my chimney will fix the issue because these stoves are simply awesome otherwise! Don't give up!

Thanks Calentarse. Of late, I've become concerned about the smoke exposure we've had. To my wife and I, sure, but most of all to our infant son. Hopefully we haven't hurt him. But then we'll never know.

 

[drz1050]

the small amount of smoke exposure you had is nothing to be concerned about. Your eyes weren't burning, and you could still see across the room, correct?

For the cats: I believe all the 30 fireboxes (Sirocco/ Ashford) are coming with steel ones, the Princess and King have ceramic.