2014-2015 Blaze King Performance thread (Everything BK)

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What is the best way to run your BK King during a cold snap... Wife and kids hover near the stove want to put out the best heat. Got some well seasoned oak and birch I am going to use for the next couple days. Is it ok to run the stove on 2.5 and 3 if heat is needed I do have the fans going around medium. Just don't want to damage anything, getting about 500-650 with the t stat in the normal zone and near the end of normal zone.
 
You can run it wide open throttle, 3/3 for weeks at a time if you need too. Ask me how i know ;-)

I did post up a load regime last night, post 1252 just under a dozen posts ago, maybe on the previous page now. One big spit on one side, a load of smalls on the other.

In general, if you got lots of small pieces in there, like 15-20 splits you are going to have a lot of surface area burning at once and a lot of heat, in exchange for a short burn.

With two big splits in there side by side and only burning in the valley between the two big pieces, small surface area lit, less heat out of the stove, but still enough to jiggle the tstat to keep the cat active,a nd a really long burn. Like that first fall evening when it is cloudy and sprinkling and "cold" for the first time all summer and you want a bowl of beef with barley soup and the first fire of the season in the stove

What I pictured last night is either the best of both worlds, or the worst of both options, depending on your chimney height and how thick your insulation is and how cold it is where you are and all the rest....
 
Rather than try and bump up the stove top temp, kick the fans on. They make a huge difference in output. With a cat stove, the stove top temp is heavily influenced by the cat right there under the top. When you crank up the stat, the firebox also heats up for a bigger heated surface even if the stt doesn't change much.
The blower was the key Rdust and Highbeam, thanks.
Ran 450 ST with blower up half way, plenty of heat :) it was 5F last night.
Now i have a new issue :( not with the stove. My Manufactured home is in a park until it gets moved to it's basement on my lake lot, in the spring. No furnace = no heat below the floor to keep the pipes from freezing :( had to shut down the stove until i get something figured out. Any ideas ? I have heat tape on the main feed pipe. NP there. It's the plastic stuff buried in the floor insulation. This suck :0
 
I gave the chimney and princess a good clean out yesterday morning, temps by me were in the mid 40's, I was really surprised by how little amount of creosote I had, I also had a different type, with my old stove I had like an ashy globby (but dry type) and this stove is was like a 150 grit black sand paper. Really weird stuff, but anyway also learned that when you clean the chimney with this stove you need to remove the stove pipe and vacuum the inside by the by-pass and cat, (its a good thing I actually pulled the smoke pipe and looked) some of the creosote was laying on the by-pass gasket and some of it piled up in front of the cat, if I left it there I probably would have had problems with a poor by-pass seal and a poor cat performance.
 
Really weird stuff, but anyway also learned that when you clean the chimney with this stove you need to remove the stove pipe and vacuum the inside by the by-pass and cat, (its a good thing I actually pulled the smoke pipe and looked) some of the creosote was laying on the by-pass gasket and some of it piled up in front of the cat, if I left it there I probably would have had problems with a poor by-pass seal and a poor cat performance.

I actually get junk falling down from above all the time and landing on that bypass gasket. Every time it is cold enough I run my fingers along that entire gasket and sweep away all of the junk that has fallen. My flue is all vertical so that might contribute. If I do a good cleanout (not the annual sweep) on a cold stove I will even feed the shopvac hose up into the cat chamber and vacuum all of that junk out of there. I still can't get to the back of the cat though without lifting the flue of the stove.
 
Fed Ex just sent an email stating that the blaze king princess blower was delivered today.
 
Cold front coming through. Looks like I will be ignoring burn times and running the stove on "whatever it takes to keep the kids warm" setting for a few days.;)
 
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I just checked, on 2 I have a stt of 670 degrees today. It is windy out and 30 degrees, helping the draft along I'm sure. Just turned it down to 1 3/4.
Sounds about right, 1 3/4 i'm @ 550/575 F
I fixed my pipe freeze issue, i just turn the water on every 2 hours :) running the furnace was too much for me to take,lol... first cold snap, i wana let er rip...
 
Cold front coming through. Looks like I will be ignoring burn times and running the stove on "whatever it takes to keep the kids warm" setting for a few days.;)

Hell yeah. I got a 3 month old in the house.

1) Never be too warm
2) Never be too rich
3) Never be too well armed.
 
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Locking. Opened another thread , BK #2.
 
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