2016-17 Blaze King Performance Thread (Everything BK) Part 2

[Woody Stover]

steam (might be smoke, but it's white)....I have decided that it must be steam unless it's blue.

Like a lot of other stuff with this wood-burning, it's not cut-and-dried. It can be hard to see the difference between smoke and steam, and what you see can be a combination of the two. I fired a load about an hour ago and went outside after the bypass had been closed for about ten minutes. It's sunny and 46*, with a humidity of 45%. Looking at the plume, the steam abruptly dissipated about 6' from the stack, but a small amount of smoke continued on. Once the cat heated up a bit more, no smoke, just steam.

 

[Woody Stover]

thinking about it , I will install the Madison big BROTHER. I am going to melt the house

Plenty of flame to watch with that baby!

 

[jetsam]

After accidentally getting the house up to 78F yesterday (hadn't loaded one stove since the day before, but they're BK's), I'm looking forward to 15F tonight.

Wind is howling, and the snow is coming down at 28F this morning. Both Ashfords are chewing on oak today (their normal diet), and the family is warm at home on this snow day, while I'm at work.

"Accidentally" ?

Come over to my place sometime. We have a lot of those accidents on cold days. =)

 

[rdust]

Currently 15F out and only able to keep the house 66-67 today without some electrical space heater assistance...

Is that the basement temp?

I heat right around 2k from the main floor(1100ish main floor) and shoot to keep that in the high 60's low 70's. When it's cold that puts the 2nd story(bedrooms) in the low 60's. If I got the main floor hot enough for the bedrooms to be in the mid 60's I'd melt on the main floor.

 

[Scoutin Wyo]

Feels like spring in Wyoming today. Crazy weather!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Niko]

First time i seen coming out my class a chimney pipe a bunch of icecyles coming right out the screen about 2 feet long. Got a bad snow storm with some huge temp drops.

I guess i gotta turn up the stove a lil?

 

[Poindexter]

I think you mean that it can run on max thermostat setting or even max output for days on end. Surely you aren't manually forcing the throttle blades "wide open" and surely the stove is closing that throttle blade to regulate its temperature? We often forget about that disconnect.

I forget poindexter, on that full load of softwood with fans running, how long does the stove burn before the wood is mostly gone? Are you having cat cloggage problems anymore?

Sorry for delay. Lateral transfer at my day job, lots of paperwork.

Max to me means the top of the swoosh or highest number, but not twisted all the way to the hard stop.

I am not having combustor clogging problems anymore.

I will have a data point over the weekend re burn times. In the 12-16% MC sweet spot I can fill the stove with spruce on 1-2 quarts of glowing coals and look for 12 hour burns with the Tsat on medium and the convection deck fans on low. But with wood that dry I can find the combustor active, open the bypass, reload, close the loading door and re-engage the combustor in under two minutes.

I have been into some damper wood lately, have some sequestered for analysis. Lately I have been having to run in bypass a good 10-15 minutes on hot reloads to get the fresh wetter wood burning good before I engage. The alternative is to stall the cat. When I run in bypass long enough to push out enough water to not stall the cat after engage with this current stuff, my burn times are more like 8-10 hours. I have been coming home from work to a Tstat probe perhaps halfway up the inactive zone and something like half a cup or a full measuring cup of glowing coals to work with.

However wet this wood is, I am blowing off 2-4 hours of perfectly good burn time boiling water out of it before I get the cat engaged. I am on call this weekend, but I will try to break open the splits I have sequestered. I predict the wetter wood that is cutting my burn times so hard compared to what I am accustomed to will meter 18-24%MC.

 

[moresnow]

First time i seen coming out my class a chimney pipe a bunch of icecyles coming right out the screen about 2 feet long. Got a bad snow storm with some huge temp drops.

I guess i gotta turn up the stove a lil?

Normal for myself and a buddy with those weather conditions. Almost need a warm up to get it all melted off. We don't use the screen type cap. Louvered. Never has caused a problem here. Just looks strange! I hear melt water sizzling as it drops into the stove occasionally as it melts off.
Opposite weather here today. From darn chilly to near +50F in a day? Hate to guess what comes next......

 

[Marshy]

Is that the basement temp?

I heat right around 2k from the main floor(1100ish main floor) and shoot to keep that in the high 60's low 70's. When it's cold that puts the 2nd story(bedrooms) in the low 60's. If I got the main floor hot enough for the bedrooms to be in the mid 60's I'd melt on the main floor.

That's upstairs on the main floor. The basement thermometer is located 10-15 ft away from the stove at the basement stairwell and typically reads 76-78f. It's probably on the low side of that range given the outside temps we have been having but I didn't check.

 

[lsucet]

Looks like i have a mini chimney fire. today was warm outside but the temp in the house when i got here was low 50s with 72 outside. i run the pellets stoves to bring the house to temp and got clean the BK and fill it up with a mix of big splits and kindlings on top for a top down fire. Ones got dark and outside temp start to drop I fired up.it was full. lol. I had newspaper and a piece of super cedar in there.
Everything was going ok and nice quick fire when i noticed the flue temp rising to quick. I keep my eyes on it and it climbs to 900 df in no time. HELL NO. I closed the bypass (it was almost in the active zone at that time) and closed the tstat. I was able to noticed something going on around the flue collar and about a couple feet up the flue. For sure was flame activity there.

About two minutes after I closed bypass and tstat, the flue probe stopped climbing and things got quiet in the flue. I open the tstat wide open and burn on high like always and the flue temp start to go down and everything comeback to normal.

I went outside during that time and nothing looks abnormal, no sign of chimney fire at all but i was able to hear the sound of fire in the lowest part of the flue pipe close to the collar. Is there something i should worry about?
Any input/help will be appreciate it.

 

[webby3650]

When you say you cleaned the stove, do you mean you cleaned out the ashes? Or cleaned the flue?

 

[lsucet]

When you say you cleaned the stove, do you mean you cleaned out the ashes? Or cleaned the flue?

The ashes. just that.

 

[lsucet]

I really got hell going on in there

 

[lsucet]

Well, I can say everything is normal like always. it was just those few minutes that scared the crap out of me. This is almost three hours into the burn.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

I really got hell going on in there

What's the purpose of the wadded newspaper distributed throughout the load? Won't the fire spread quickly if you start it localized to one spot? I've never seen this technique used. My experience is that newspaper ash slows everything down.

 

[lsucet]

What's the purpose of the wadded newspaper distributed throughout the load? Won't the fire spread quickly if you start it localized to one spot? I've never seen this technique used. My experience is that newspaper ash slows everything down.

I don't know how is supposed to work, but look the time of the pictures and you will see is less than five minutes window and that thing was going nuclear. It was loaded in the tight side.and I put some newspapers around. Hey, if it works, it works. Taking pictures was when I noticed something weird. The cat was almost touching between inactive/active line. Lol. That was quick

 

[Woody Stover]

Won't the fire spread quickly if you start it localized to one spot?

I haven't seen that, no.

 

[webby3650]

What's the purpose of the wadded newspaper distributed throughout the load? Won't the fire spread quickly if you start it localized to one spot? I've never seen this technique used. My experience is that newspaper ash slows everything down.

I load the box full and place a small piece of Super Cedar in the middle of it. The fire spreads very rapidly. I never use any paper, it's just not necessary with a good fire starter.

 

[Ashful]

You guys are lucky. I will be off three days starting tomorrow but temp will be in the 70s during the day and 40s at night for the rest of the week. No hot burning for me

You need an old stone house, then! In fall I can delay burning longer than those in "normal" construction, but in spring, I keep burning well past those outdoor temps. I was burning thru mid-June the year before last.

 

[Highbeam]

However wet this wood is, I am blowing off 2-4 hours of perfectly good burn time boiling water out of it before I get the cat engaged. I am on call this weekend, but I will try to break open the splits I have sequestered. I predict the wetter wood that is cutting my burn times so hard compared to what I am accustomed to will meter 18-24%MC.

I suspect that you are losing less burn time during the extra bypass time than you are from boiling off the water during the main burn.

 

[Highbeam]

Looks like i have a mini chimney fire. today was warm outside but the temp in the house when i got here was low 50s with 72 outside. i run the pellets stoves to bring the house to temp and got clean the BK and fill it up with a mix of big splits and kindlings on top for a top down fire. Ones got dark and outside temp start to drop I fired up.it was full. lol. I had newspaper and a piece of super cedar in there.
Everything was going ok and nice quick fire when i noticed the flue temp rising to quick. I keep my eyes on it and it climbs to 900 df in no time. HELL NO. I closed the bypass (it was almost in the active zone at that time) and closed the tstat. I was able to noticed something going on around the flue collar and about a couple feet up the flue. For sure was flame activity there.

About two minutes after I closed bypass and tstat, the flue probe stopped climbing and things got quiet in the flue. I open the tstat wide open and burn on high like always and the flue temp start to go down and everything comeback to normal.

I went outside during that time and nothing looks abnormal, no sign of chimney fire at all but i was able to hear the sound of fire in the lowest part of the flue pipe close to the collar. Is there something i should worry about?
Any input/help will be appreciate it.

Your flue temp of 900 internal is not a problem. that's in the normal range. Mine was at 900 just last night during the 30 minute warm up after cat engagement. That doesn't mean you didn't have a chimney fire though.

The good news is that there are small chimney fires and there are big ones. I believe that small ones are common and unnoticed by many. Some folks still ignite them intentionally to prevent big chimney fires.

 

[lsucet]

Your flue temp of 900 internal is not a problem. that's in the normal range. Mine was at 900 just last night during the 30 minute warm up after cat engagement. That doesn't mean you didn't have a chimney fire though.

The good news is that there are small chimney fires and there are big ones. I believe that small ones are common and unnoticed by many. Some folks still ignite them intentionally to prevent big chimney fires.

Yeah, normally i can see 900 flue temp if burning on high for those 20-30 minutes recommended after reloads or cold starts, but it gets there in a slow way. This time it got there in seconds and i can hear/feel something roaring in the flue, plus it got hot. The house was getting heat up just with the flue temperature.

 

[lsucet]

I got two pieces from inside and split them to measure MC. one is OAK and the other Alligator Juniper. Here are the results.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

Hey, if it works, it works.

Oh yeah. I'm all for what works, just never seen it done that way.

But I've never seen an airtight wood stove with a double walled flue liner that didn't blaze in 5 minutes or less. Assuming seasoned wood of course. With good wood, just about anything works.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

I got two pieces from inside and split them to measure MC. one is OAK and the other Alligator Juniper. Here are the results.

Nice! I'm not sure there's much advantage having wood below 10%-12% but, as long as your stove is airtight and can be damped as far as necessary, I don't think there is any harm!

Do your meter readings gradually go lower the longer the probes are embedded in the wood? The most accurate reading is the highest number you see as soon as the probe is inserted. Wood that dry wouldn't stay that dry where I like even if stacked in the middle of a dry barn!