2015-2016 Blaze King Performance thread (Everything BK)

[kennyp2339]

Nonsense, overnight burns are fairly easy with a 3 cu ft stove.

I came home from work yesterday and that Sunday night "quick overnight burn" was still burning...

 

[tarzan]

I have trouble with "quick" overnight burns. My stove really likes to be about 3/4 full at light off to perform what I consider normal. As I've said before, this stove is not built for quick, shoulder season fires. At least not in my experience.

 

[Dieselhead]

I have trouble with "quick" overnight burns. My stove really likes to be about 3/4 full at light off to perform what I consider normal. As I've said before, this stove is not built for quick, shoulder season fires. At least not in my experience.

Same here. I have a tall flue and I think it hurts draft this time of year much like it rips smoke up the pipe when it's very cold. I about give up trying to get something going when the weather is mild like this.

 

[Highbeam]

I have trouble with "quick" overnight burns. My stove really likes to be about 3/4 full at light off to perform what I consider normal. As I've said before, this stove is not built for quick, shoulder season fires. At least not in my experience.

We have many weeks of burning where the low outside temp is 50 overnight. My "barely legal" flue is not particularly strong drafting until I get some heat in it.

I burn 3/4 or half loads and split the splits down to 3-5" range. Stack loosely. All the opposite of what BK recommends for long burns. Every burn I run the stove on high for 30 minutes to try and limit creo accumulation in the firebox. Still 12-15 hour burns though which is what I need to pulse my house from 63 to 77 when I glide down for the next day or two to 63 again and need another fire. I have pretty dang good house insulation which means I don't pick up solar gain, the outside temps moving up to 70 during the day doesn't mean anything inside my cooler of a home. I still need heat until the average temp picks up, or unless we do some baking.

The stove can burn small loads just fine. Remember those break in fires? Trying to just warm up the stove and cure the paint properly? Seemed like a few sticks lasted forever.

 

[kf6hap]

The very low burn in the shoulder season is where my Ashford 30.1 excels. How low a burn can it do? I use this wood stove to raise new born chicks for the first 5 weeks of life. At week 4 in the middle of the day they would perch just to soak in the soft radiant heat. See my post,2067 first paragraph. A "quick" burn is heat for 12 hours of low heat production in my experience. My flue system is 8" sleeved down to 6" with single wall pipe (~17') so it is exceptionally well insulated. This might be giving me an advantage over other "standard" flue systems. I always run the stove full bore for 20-30 minutes at startup. If the load is not "charred" bad things happen.

 

[tarzan]

With my stove I can load about 3/4 full, completely shut the thermostat and it will hold just in the active range for hours. The problem with this method is, sometimes to many hours! On the flip side, if I load the stove ~half full it just doesn't act normally. It requires the thermostat slightly open and a fire a little hotter than is often needed for a cool night. For whatever reason, shutting the thermostat on a half load will result in the cat falling inactive. This could be due to the mix of a small load and poor draft in the shoulder season weather.

Not a BIG problem as this stove can still be ran low and slow allowing us to heat comfortably even when outside temps reach the low 50's. It's only those few weeks on either side of winter when we can get daytime highs in the 70's and night time lows around 40 that it's even an issue.

 

[kf6hap]

Tarzan, see my post of 2067. My guess is keeping the fire as close to the cat as you can-loading it 3/4 full-permits the desired burn. At 1/2 full the cat does not get heat long enough because the fire is too far away. By the time the 3/4 full load burns down to equal the size of a half load, the wood is very well charred and perfectly dry from all the heat thus permitting the burn to continue in good fashion. My small loads are ~1/4 load piled in a steep triangle. As steep as I can make it to get the wood as close as possible to the cat. All splits. The ends of the wood face the window/rear. At some point in the burn the triangle will fall down somewhat but by then the wood being very charred continues to burn. This might work for you too, or perhaps you have already done this but if it does work for you other readers can benefit also.

 

[webby3650]

I stuffed mine full about 30 hours ago and it still has an unbelievable amount of wood left in it! I'm sure I will burn into the 40 hour mark since I struck a match. It's been in the upper 30's and mid 40's at night and rainy so I fired it up again. Almost unbelievable burn times with incredible control!

 

[Gotrek]

BK digging the vintage commercials just posted on YouTube :D

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

[Jeff in Maine]

Hello all I have not posted since last February sometime. Before burn season I want to go over the stove to be sure the gaskets are sealing , the door latches tight and look at the Cat for ash. I will of course clean the chimney as well. I will look at my book before I do anything I have the 2016 Princess bought it new last summer late. I think I am supposed to clean the fans as well we have pets one dog 2 cats so hair will be collected someplace I am sure. Other than what I have mentioned what else can you think of ?

I was unable to get the 40 hr burns I read about so often here,.. maybe if I run it in October it might get closer to those longer times. One thing I am doing this year is try burning much larger wood. Last fall I split my wood small very small, smaller than I have ever in the last 40 years,,, nothing bigger than maybe 4" across. The stove was going to be new to me and I knew even if I had a hard time learning how to run it small wood ,would be more forgiving.

This year I have begun splitting out much larger pieces some are 8x8x16. I am taking my big rounds ( 80# pieces) and splitting off the 4 sides and leaving the big square center, I used to call them over night wood in years past when using my Old Mill. I am hoping the larger pieces will allow for longer burn times. Last year I generally ran the thermostat on 3 or 3.5 or so ( I have the swish sticker but I am all set )I use the 3-3.5 as a way to describe where the thermostat was set.

I would get a full load burning good maybe 1/2 hr or so,and close the by pass at about 8pm . We get up at 5:30 and there would be a Hugh amount of coals,.. So we would re-fill and off to work we go till 4 pm then a little wood till ready for bed at 8.

One more thing I will be doing is putting up a 1/3 of a cord +/- or so of soft wood to help burn excess coals off and still get some heat. I had a issue with this last winter, with the stove coaling,.. coals are good but when I need heat they don't cut it. I was advised to just toss in a piece of fir or pine on to help burn off some of the 10" deep in coals and still get some heat from the soft wood flames. So I will be trying that this year. Hope you all have had a good spring and a productive summer I have been very busy up here this year. Talk to you all again soon Jeff

 

[Poindexter]

Yup, small piece of softwood on a big pile of coals, tstat wide open, come back in two hours.

 

[Jeff in Maine]

I have a large fir I will split up just for this reason.

 

[mwhitnee]

Quick question, I pulled out the cat in my King as I was cleaning the stove. I have to replace the cat gasket as they fall apart when removed.

Anyway, I have a CSL log just hanging around, suppose it would't hurt to burn it with the cat out of the stove? Figured it would help with the chimney sweeping. What do you think?

 

[tarzan]

Quick question, I pulled out the cat in my King as I was cleaning the stove. I have to replace the cat gasket as they fall apart when removed.

Anyway, I have a CSL log just hanging around, suppose it would't hurt to burn it with the cat out of the stove? Figured it would help with the chimney sweeping. What do you think?

My thoughts are it shouldn't hurt a thing BUT BKVP would disagree. He has stated not to burn any of these type products in a BK stove.

 

[Highbeam]

Also, I don't know how hot the log will get but running the stove with the bypass open after active cat temps are reached can damage/melt the dome which would screw the stove. It is one of the weaknesses of the BK design, got to close the bypass and let the cat work once it gets hot. It's easy to leave the stove during warm up and forget to engage the cat which can be a disaster.

I wouldn't burn the stove at all without a cat in place. Don't think that the CSL products do anything unless you have that glossy, gooey, creo anyways which is nearly impossible with a modern stove.

 

[tarzan]

Well, with the cat out you wouldn't have a need to open the bypass at all. Nothing there to bypass.

Ok, I'm out before I get myself in trouble

 

[Highbeam]

Well, with the cat out you wouldn't have a need to open the bypass at all. Nothing there to bypass.

Ok, I'm out before I get myself in trouble

Okay, the flippy door thingy must be closed or it can melt and then it will never close tightly again. No idea how the frame that holds the cat will handle heat without a cat.

 

[mwhitnee]

Eh not worth it...

 

[MacinJosh]

You're welcome BK. [emoji1360]



In all seriousness, I'm thrilled Kentucky now has a BK dealer. Hopefully I can get my chimney installed soon so I can order one of these. I was still trying to figure out how I was going to get it from Webby in Indiana all the way down to Kentucky. Should be a lot easier now.

 

[Highbeam]

To celebrate splitting that last of my wood supply for the next three years I went ahead and cleaned the glass and ashes from the BK princess in preparation for fall. We were burning through almost all of June. Could have burned in July but just toughed it out. We don't get as cold as you eastern folks but we have a LONG burn season.

Looking forward to a nice fire.

 

[webby3650]

I found yet another perk to having a Blaze King! I never got around to cleaning out the stove after I snuffed my last fire in late May. I put the charcoal to use! Had the smoker to 200 in less than 10 minutes!

 

[Highbeam]

I found yet another perk to having a Blaze King! I never got around to cleaning out the stove after I snuffed my last fire in late May. I put the charcoal to use! Had the smoker to 200 in less than 10 minutes!

Is that the BK's door opening? Doesn't look like my princess, the brick retainers below the door are missing.

 

[Ashful]

Here's one to close out the 15/16 burning season. Advice on a cleaning / chimney sweeping procedure for an Ashford 30?

Debating now on using my usual sweep (not the most fastidious, but honest and affordable), or calling the BK dealer from whom I bought (probably more than double the cost, but they're true professionals). If I go with my usual sweep, I feel like I'm going to have to give some guidance on the particulars of handling this stove.

Thanks!

 

[webby3650]

There's nothing too difficult, your Jotuls were more difficult to clean properly.
Just sweep like normal and vacuum off the cat, don't pull it out.

 

[Highbeam]

Here's one to close out the 15/16 burning season. Advice on a cleaning / chimney sweeping procedure for an Ashford 30?

Debating now on using my usual sweep (not the most fastidious, but honest and affordable), or calling the BK dealer from whom I bought (probably more than double the cost, but they're true professionals). If I go with my usual sweep, I feel like I'm going to have to give some guidance on the particulars of handling this stove.

Thanks!

What's unique and hard about the BK is that you need to remove the black stove pipe to vacuum out the cat chamber and the back of the cat after sweeping. Much harder than my non-cats where I could drop out the baffle, and reach everything from below.

I was not a believer in removing the flue from my BK since this PITA seems unnecessary but it's not too bad of a job. I now sweep and then follow with the flue removal and vacuum.

I wouldn't want somebody carelessly retightening the small sheet metal screws into the black pipe since they can easily strip.