2014-2015 Blaze King Performance thread (Everything BK)

[Poindexter]

+1 on fire alarms. I had my Ashford installed in May. I could smell chemical burning the first two burns, my wife smelled chemical still on the third. For the fourth, with the wife not home I filled it up with spruce (all I had dry at the time) ran it on three with the cat engaged till it was 80% gone, then filled it again and ran that on three all the way down to out.

All of those with the windows open in summer. Everything was golden until the time in late September I filled it to the rim with birch and let it rip. I couldn't smell anything, my wife couldn't smell anything, but the smoke alarms sure did. I suspect next time I get it hotter than it ever has been before it might happen again.

EDIT: Somebody on here had the presence of mind to run his new Ashford 30 in the driveway with 8 feet of pipe on it before he ever brought it in the house. Brilliant idea. Props to you whoever you are.

 

[BrotherBart]

Some people here don't just do that with Blaze Kings.

 

[Rossco]

Some people here don't just do that with Blaze Kings.

View attachment 141826

Ah so that explains 'Global Warming'

 

[Poindexter]

I had a strong hunch aansorge was correct last night based on my observed stack temps, but was pleasantly surprised when I postponed a different chore to brush my chimney tonight.

A few items:

One, I measured my stack again while I had it open. My stack is 12' 6" total, from the top of the stove collar to the rain cap above the roof. Straight shot, no elbows, less than a foot over the minimum height of 3' above roof height within 10 horizontal feet of where the stack pierces the roof.

Two, I do run my Ashford 30 for at least an hour with the thermostat at 3 twice daily when it is running constantly.

Three, I don't turn my thermostat down in tiny increments every ten minutes or so. Once it has been running on three for an hour or so I chop it to 2 (if I am home), and then chop it again 10-15 minutes later to 1.5 or 1.0 ish depending on how I feel. When my wife gets up on weekdays she just turns it from 3 straight down to 1 and gets on with her morning.

Four, I last cleaned the flue in late August when the forecast called for our first hard frost. I have run my Ashford 30 probably 42 of the last 49 days.

Five,I have burnt somewhere between two or three face cords of 16" splits. I know I have carried one cord into the rack in the garage and the rack is still half full tonight. But I talked to my son who came home from college for a weekend in September and sure enough he filled the garage rack from "about half full" to full. This explains why my wife burnt less wood than I had expected while I was away at moose camp.

Six, when I make a stack of green wood with no criss-crossed pieces 16 inches thick, 24 feet long and 56 inches high I know once it is seasoned it will be one cord, 16 inches x 24 feet x 48 inches. At my house that is one cord, about 95 cf of wood, a forester's cord. 2.5 face cords of that is 79 cubic feet of seasoned wood.

I am gonna call it 85cf of seasoned birch and spruce since I last brushed the chimney, one engineers cord. I got about two tablespoons of brown powder out of the stack with a very few shiny black specks in it.

 

[Highbeam]

A face cord, a foresters cord, an engineers cord, a bananna cord but not one real cord in the bunch.

 

[becasunshine]

I have to say, the smell wasn't that bad. I followed the owner's manual instructions for the first fire to the letter, running the stove on "high" for the specified amount of time. I had gotten through the get it lighted part, let the initial light load of wood catch completely with every piece burning and a good beginning to a bed of embers in the bottom of the stove part, load it up full part, and had it burning on high until the thermometer reached high noon in the active range. Then I engaged the cat. AND THEN MY SMOKE ALARMS LOST THEIR MINDS.

So, the stove was nice and hot by that point, and my first response to the smoke alarms was to attempt to draw the smoke out of the house and replace the volume of air. I'm pretty sure I did that with all the windows open and every fan at my disposal on "exhaust." Maybe I blasted all of that smell right out of the house.

When I finally closed the house back up, I didn't notice a chemical smell, and I didn't notice one this morning or today either. The stove was still radiating a good amount of warmth as of this evening. I did not fire it up tonight- there is no need.

I am amazed and pleased with the amount of heat this stove puts out, and with the efficiency with which it burns. There were a few chunks of embers in the box late this evening- still burning- but most of the wood was completely incinerated to a fine white ash. There isn't much of anything at all left in the fire box.

It was really fun watching the combustion gases re-ignite and burn off last night. That was amazing.

 

[Rossco]

Never had a smoke alarm go off during break in. Never had the bad smell effect upstairs either. Maybe I got lucky.

What I do know Is I had smoke coming off the stove right between the flue and cat probe. I also had to break in 3 pieces of stove pipe.

Maybe I got lucky!

 

[becasunshine]

Never had a smoke alarm go off during break in. Never had the bad smell effect upstairs either. Maybe I got lucky.

What I do know Is I had smoke coming off the stove right between the flue and cat probe. I also had to break in 3 pieces of stove pipe.

Maybe I got lucky!

Rossco, I saw smoke coming off of the stove at the cat probe as well! I looked for smoke coming out of somewhere because the smoke alarms were crazy over it. There was a little smoke, barely visible, coming out from around the cat probe. It subsided after a bit.

 

[Rossco]

Rossco, I saw smoke coming off of the stove at the cat probe as well! I looked for smoke coming out of somewhere because the smoke alarms were crazy over it. There was a little smoke, barely visible, coming out from around the cat probe. It subsided after a bit.

Yeah. The more I read the more am 'Maybe my alarms are defective' but I managed to get them talking durning a negative reload the other day. I have a sprinkler install in the basement so am confident of a total extinguish Scenario if required.

When I broke the stove in we had a minor storm, maybe I had positive pressure in the bowels of the house, all windows open, basement door open.

I still smell the stove now and then, great, it's pushing the heat & smell upstairs.

 

[Ricky8443]

Starting to get comfortable with the re-loading, setting of t-stat, and walking away from the stove. Nerves were shot for the first few days but now I'm getting addicted to the warm and cozy house. And the smell is gone (best part). A far cry from the cold drafty winter we endured last year in our house.

I've been getting about 9 hour burn times on low with seasoned maple wood that is inefficiently and loosely placed into the firebox (haven't packed it yet). Question: Can I expect 20 hours burn time if packed with oak and on low for princess insert? Any color is appreciated, thanks.

 

[craigbaill]

Hmmmm good info on the break in . Im doing mine Wednesday night if the inspectors approve.
EVERY window door and window will be open and fans on!

 

[Highbeam]

Question: Can I expect 20 hours burn time if packed with oak and on low for princess insert?

Blaze king rates this insert to run on low for 27 hours. There ratings have been spot on for the other models.

I didn't think the break in smoke was bad at all. Maybe the paint on single wall pipe but the stove was not a problem.

 

[becasunshine]

Yeah. The more I read the more am 'Maybe my alarms are defective' but I managed to get them talking durning a negative reload the other day. I have a sprinkler install in the basement so am confident of a total extinguish Scenario if required.

When I broke the stove in we had a minor storm, maybe I had positive pressure in the bowels of the house, all windows open, basement door open.

I still smell the stove now and then, great, it's pushing the heat & smell upstairs.

Rossco, we didn't have this house built, but the husband of the couple who had this house built is a retired builder himself. The contractor who built the house is local and noted for solid quality work and ATTENTION TO DETAIL. Between the two of them there is a lot of meat and potatoes in this house. Not so much bling- the house is pretty, no problem, the materials are very nice and the finishes are nice, but we aren't loaded up with granite countertops, multi jet walk in showers, soaring two story rooms and entries, trey ceilings, etc. What we do have are good windows, a well thought out HVAC plant, lots of lights in the right places, energy efficient windows and doors, maintenance free exterior finishes, a 40 year roof, AND GOOD FIRE ALARMS. They are hardwired into the house and to each other. You set one of them off, they ALL go off, and they go off until you satisfy each one of them that the threat has been mitigated. We have to be careful about COOKING even though there isn't a fire alarm in the kitchen proper.

I probably could have solved my own issue if I'd simply disconnected the fire alarm that happens to be almost directly over the stove. I'm sure I'd replaced the entire volume of air in the house in short order. I believe the system was reacting to that one alarm right over the stove, and that alarm was reacting to the burn off.

I had a lot of moving parts at that moment and I persisted in trying to get the house aired out- solve the big problem- over addressing that one fire alarm. I've reinstalled all of the fire alarms except for the one right over the stove. I may experiment with putting that one back up tonight when I relight the stove, to see if it can be done without all heck breaking loose.

 

[tarzan]

got to say our break in fire experience with the Princess stove was similar to highbeams. My wife said "there's that new stove smell" Then a couple minutes later she commented that the smell was not that bad and about gone.

We were expecting a lot worse do to our first fire experience in our old stove. It was pretty awful and you could still get a whiff of it up to a month later if running it hot.

 

[Ricky8443]

My break-in burns smelled bad for two days, of which a flashlight created an obvious beam of light throughout my house from the smoke. Very unpleasant and I had a pounding headache the next day. But completely gone after 3 burns.

 

[Parallax]

I wold definitely put the smoke alarms back in place after the burn off is done. That includes the one over the stove. Make sure you have carbon monoxide detectors too. The stove should not be venting smoke into the house. Even an occasional puff of smoke isn't good for anyone and enough to set off a smoke alarm would be a huge problem.

Nice looking stove. Really looks nice on that pad against that yellow wall. This is the first time I've found a Princess attractive. It really works in that spot.

 

[becasunshine]

I wold definitely put the smoke alarms back in place after the burn off is done. That includes the one over the stove. Make sure you have carbon monoxide detectors too. The stove should not be venting smoke into the house. Even an occasional puff of smoke isn't good for anyone and enough to set off a smoke alarm would be a huge problem.

Nice looking stove. Really looks nice on that pad against that yellow wall. This is the first time I've found a Princess attractive. It really works in that spot.

Thank you! We are more pleased with the way it looks than we thought we'd be. We realize that the older school BK models don't have the bling that the newer stoves have. We considered an Ashford but went with the Princess; we got more stove for less money. "Right sizing" our pellet stove in town taught me that to a certain point, I'd rather have the capacity and not need it than want the capacity and not have it. We had to do quite a lot of work sealing up our ~1420 sq. ft. 50 year old bungalow in town so that our pellet stove, which is rated for 2000 sq. ft., could keep up. (We have brick and block construction with plaster lathe walls and no wall insulation. We can't blow wall insulation into the walls efficiently because of the way that the brick exterior is anchored to the block, and because of the way that the lathe for the plaster is anchored to the block on the interior side. Therefore we insulated the attic and had a big old time with caulk and spray foam, sealing stuff up.)

We even considered a BK King for this location (we get wind off of the water in the winter that will freeze your soul) but that did seem like too much stove. This house is new construction, well-built, well-insulated and pretty tight. That being said, we added UL listed outlet and switch insulators behind all the face plates here- and then, AND THEN- I happened to be standing in a room at the back of the house on one of those very windy, very cold winter days. I thought I felt air movement but I couldn't figure out from where. The windows are good and we'd insulated the outlets and switches. ??? I put my hand in front of an outlet on an exterior wall. The wind was pushing in and through the prong slots. So now we have child proof protective caps in all of the outlets that aren't in use full time. It's amazing that we can actually notice a difference.

Bottom line, I think the Princess has enough capacity. The King would have probably run us out of here.

I also added a couple of pictures taken down by the water last winter. Like everyone, we had one heck of a winter here. We were always planning to put a wood stove here before we retired, but we figured that we had some time. Last winter we were here one very cold weekend, and we knew we'd be back the next weekend for a local event. We set the programmable thermostat to bring the heat up before we arrived on Friday night. We arrived around 8pm Friday night, expecting a nice toasty warm house. Instead we found that the interior of the house was 33'F with all of the furniture, walls and floors ice cold. The HVAC system had frozen up earlier in the week- the drain from the condenser on the gas furnace had frozen solid where it exits the crawl space. If we'd not come back on that weekend we might have lost pipes.

With help from the builder (he lives right across the street) we diagnosed the problem and got the drain unfrozen. We got the furnace running but it took a full 24 hours to bring the house up to 65'F. (It didn't help that it was still way below freezing outside, with snow on the ground and wind off the water.) So, our plans to install a wood stove were moved up to that spring.

All of the smoke alarms here are re-installed and have been since the night of the first burn. If it gets cool enough to light the stove tonight, I'll try it with the smoke alarm nearest to it installed as well. I'd prefer it to be installed. We also have a plug in CO detector with a battery back up in the hallway, ahead of the bedrooms.

Here's a picture showing more context with the stove's position in the house. I'm standing in the living room with the camera. The 45' elbows at the top of the stack are the only bends in the path. The installers had to zag around an attic/roof truss. It is sure comfortable in the living areas of the house with the stove running. The rooms on this end of the house are all open to each other with the exception of the laundry room, which has a standard doorway off of the kitchen. We leave that door opened all the time. I didn't notice a problem with the laundry room being cooler the other night. The bedrooms, which are down the hallway you see beside the stove, stay a few degrees cooler. We prefer that anyway.

 

[Parallax]

Really nice. For your home, either the Princess or Ashford (with or without the enamel) would have looked great. You've got such a nice, simple but traditional looking place, it would have been hard to go wrong. That Virginia coast line is pretty.

Did you say you went with the Princess because it has more heating capacity than the Ashford? I thought they were pretty comparable.

 

[Highbeam]

Here's a picture showing more context with the stove's position in the house.

So it looks like the wall behind the stove has the HVAC returns. Did they put in a high/low return switchable for heating or cooling?

 

[becasunshine]

So it looks like the wall behind the stove has the HVAC returns. Did they put in a high/low return switchable for heating or cooling?

Yes. We took a used filter and covered both sides of it to make a blank for the return that is not being used. We also have two returns in our bedroom, and we made a blank for one of those returns as well. We could use the upper return to distribute heat around the house, theoretically, but our experience with trying to move pellet stove heat in that manner in town was less than satisfactory. There's a reason why a furnace heats air up to a gazillion degrees before forcing it through duct work. The ambient air arising from a pellet stove or even from a wood stove probably won't have enough btu's to survive the trip through duct work in the unheated portions of the structure.

That being said, I did use the HVAC fan on the "circulate" timer the other night just to move the air around the house a little bit. I turned it off before bedtime because I didn't want cooler air moving around in the bedroom overnight.

 

[Dieselhead]

Pancakes

 

[BrotherBart]

Pancakes

 

[becasunshine]

Really nice. For your home, either the Princess or Ashford (with or without the enamel) would have looked great. You've got such a nice, simple but traditional looking place, it would have been hard to go wrong. That Virginia coast line is pretty.

Did you say you went with the Princess because it has more heating capacity than the Ashford? I thought they were pretty comparable.

I think that the Princess and the Ashford 30 are pretty comparable. I'd have to go look at the specs. BRB.

Yes, the Princess has a slightly higher capacity than the Ashford 30- it heats a larger square footage, it puts out more btu's, has a slightly larger firebox, and has a higher efficiency than the Ashford 30. The Ashford 30 beats the Princess in terms of EPA particle emissions standards, so if you are in a place where thermal inversion layers are common and localized particulate air pollution are closely monitored, an Ashford could potentially help you in that area. If you are trying to proactively meet the upcoming EPA standards (even though we hear that the EPA doesn't plan to make those standards retroactive) then the Ashford works for you as well. We are in the opposite situation in terms of thermal inversion. It can't get much flatter than flat sea level, and the wind in the winter is remarkable. Stagnant air is not a problem here.

I do think the Ashford is a prettier stove. I especially like the enamel finish. It is gorgeous and it would look nice in our setting in either brown or blue. Heck, for that matter, I loved the Ashford in satin black. I did seriously consider it.

The satin black Ashford 30 would have been about $575 more than the Princess Parlor. The brown or blue enamel Ashford would have been $1214 more than we paid for the Princess Parlor. We talked about it seriously- we really, really liked the Ashford design. Installation costs would be the same, and we don't buy wood stoves every year. We wanted to be happy with our purchase. In the end, I could not justify paying more money for less stove, particularly when I know the heating challenges here. I would have kicked myself mightily if we'd paid the extra installation costs to have this (especially accommodating) stove shop come over the mountain and through the woods way out to rural coastal Virginia to install a Blaze King, because we really wanted a Blaze King, but when all was said and done I went with style over function and we didn't have *quite enough stove.* The guys who own the stove shop felt like the Ashford 30 would be plenty of stove for our application, but per above, our pellet stove experience schooled me about having a little more capacity than you think you'll need.

Thank you for the compliments about the house. It is truly a dream come true for us. I grew up with family who had simple rustic cabins on this river. I spent many happy times in this area. My husband and I met at that time in my life, and he grew to love this place as well. Time moves on, circumstances change, and we lost our connection to this river for many years. In the meantime, real estate prices escalated rapidly, especially anywhere near the water, and we couldn't see a way that we'd ever get back here.

We downsized in 2006 when our kids moved out to a small empty nest bungalow in town. The bungalow was a fixer upper and we got it at a very good price, considering how hot the real estate market was still running at the time.

As real estate prices plummeted after the bubble burst, we decided to try to find the place to which we hoped to retire while real estate was on sale. It took a while; we had to decide what we wanted and most importantly where it should be. We considered various small towns up and down the eastern seaboard. We were camping at a nearby state park, sitting on the porch of the visitors center looking out over a wild flower meadow and the river, when I looked at my husband and said, "What's the matter with us? Why are we looking so far away? Why not here? We love this place!" We started looking up and down both sides of this river. It took us a little over a year to find this place. It has what we need, what we want, and because the builder got stuck with the house when the bubble burst, the price was within our modest budget. We aren't water front but we have a nice view. The neighborhood has a little beach, a pier and a boat ramp.

We furnished this house almost entirely from Craigslist, thrift stores and consignment shops. What few things we couldn't find second hand (or wanted to purchase new- bed sheets, towels, etc.) we found at big box discount stores. Believe it or not, the two plaid chairs you see in the picture came from two different second hand sources- one from Craigslist and one from a consignment store. They are the exact same fabric- a wing chair and a skirted side chair. I couldn't believe it.

Anyway, thank you for the compliments!

 

[Highbeam]

The Ashford 30 beats the Princess in terms of EPA particle emissions standards, so if you are in a place where thermal inversion layers are common and localized particulate air pollution are closely monitored, an Ashford could potentially help you in that area.

I live in a place such as this where the thermal inversions occasionaly trigger burn bans. The emissions of my EPA stove have nothing to do with it, lowering them further won't prevent the bans or allow me to burn legally during them. It's like two sports cars and one can do 115 and the other 120, both are very fast and all beat the guy on the moped doing 25 (aka the fireplace).

 

[becasunshine]

I live in a place such as this where the thermal inversions occasionaly trigger burn bans. The emissions of my EPA stove have nothing to do with it, lowering them further won't prevent the bans or allow me to burn legally during them. It's like two sports cars and one can do 115 and the other 120, both are very fast and all beat the guy on the moped doing 25 (aka the fireplace).

Yeah, true that, Highbeam. My logic there was flawed. The Ashford's lower emission standards won't help you in terms of being able to burn your stove or avoid burn bans until *everybody* in your area has wood burning devices that lower the entire atmospheric particulate load. I guess it helps Blaze King to have an attractive option that meets/exceeds the proposed EPA emissions standards out on the market proactively.

If we lived in an area where this was likely to be an issue, we would have more strongly considered the Ashford 30 in order to do our part to meet the upcoming emissions standards. We would have done our part to allow everyone to continue to heat with alternative and renewable resources. Where we are right now, the difference in emissions between the Ashford 30 and the Princess isn't likely to impact anything, but the additional heating capacity of the Princess is likely to help us.

As I type this winds are coming off the water at around 20 mph.