2016-17 Blaze King Performance Thread (Everything BK)

[Poindexter]

Two kinds of firebrick, clay and pumice.

My old stove used the pumice brick, very hard to find, i got some from my local pottery cooperative.

My ashford uses clay brick. if they are just cracked but staying in position, keep using them as is and wait for webby or bkvp to chime in.

If they are broken, fallen out of position, take a scrap piece with you to home depot to make sure they are somewhat similar clay so you can run your stove while you are waiting to hear from one of them.

Best wishes.

 

[jetsam]

I reached out to tech support at condar directly last year (this was after I learned I was at high risk for deadly CREOSOTE but before I figured out that the cure was a $6 plastic brush and a fiberglass stick)- they say that under no circumstances should you use any creosote modifying chemicals with their cats.

Sweeping the flue is a 20 minute job, most of which is getting the top section of pipe and cap off and on again, and getting the stove vacuumed out. I'd rather do that a couple times a year than spring for a $200 part.

 

[Highbeam]

But is there any real danger in the cap being covered in creosote? It looks bad and can be a bother to clean but the only real problem would be clogging (if you run a screen) and deterioration of the cap.

Oh my cap was partially clogged from the waterfall of tar. I first noticed the cloggage starting with binoculars. You don't need a screen to clog a cap. Then that top 3-4" was significantly choked already. Puffy and wet. I've never seen anything like it.

 

[jetsam]

Tip: Even though the name of the company makes it sound like it might be OK, old car tires are NOT recommended fuel for your Blaze King stove.

 

[lsucet]

I am not planning to use anything like that. trust me I was just asking. I know the manual says so. I have a different approach when is time for cleaning. I have the same amount of sections for spare and for cleaning process.

From the piece that goes thru the roof and up I replace everything including cap. I also have more double wall telescope sections spare cause all of what I went thru. But no need of replace that one, it is easy to remove and clean from the inside.
Then later I go to the back away from the house and I clean everything with a cordless drill, rods and six inches brush. ready to next cleaning or replacement of any section if necessary. i got 2,3,4,and 5 foot sections.

in what i need some more input whether to run the fan on high or low when being controlled by the wall tstat. I know the manual says LOW-LOW MEDIUM-MEDIUM HIGH-HIGH. plus some input from other members that advised me to not run it on high with stove tstat on low.

this is what i noticed: I catch the fan during the day back on ( we all going in and out a lot, doors open bla bla bla looks like temp drop and fan kicks on ).
the stove at that time still have a good amount of wood left. i think the fan on high makes stove tstat open quickly and because the amount of wood in the box everything start getting back to temperature. From little under 380df stove top in no time it was about 525df and it did hang in there till the fan went off, room back to temp and then 10-15 minutes later it was touching almost 600df stove top. I think the key here is to be sure that always there is plenty of wood in the box. Maybe the deficiency will be at the end of cycle when just coal and not enough wood to bring back everything. but at that point what damage can be caused to cat? any idea?

I will like to see if BKVP is ok with giving some input in respect to this subject.

 

[Poindexter]

I have been able to find a tstat and fan setting that keeps the house temp stable for years, but i dont have kids at home any more.

Its a fascinating idea. it would depend on the outdoor temp and your envelope, but if you got a ..... hmmmmf.

 

[Poindexter]

I am not convinced that running the convection deck fans makes a meaningful difference in the reading indicated on the cat probe thermometer.

I am convinced that running the convection deck fans pushes a bunch of heat off the stove into the house where i want it - as indicated by both shorter burn times with the fans running and how much warmer my back bedrooms get with the fans running.

I think running the fans cools the firebox top (and via conduction the cat) rather muchly, but that same airflow probably doesn't cool the shaft of the thermometer probe very much extra beyond what is actually happening.

Not sure how to test this hypothesis.

 

[volunbeer]

Still trying to get the hang of this thing - no major problems, but finding the sweet spot on how low to burn it when I don't need as much heat is still eluding me. No worries - will be down to single digits here this week so I will be more concerned with high output vs long burns. I still have not really loaded this thing with as much wood as I can fit into it. Have also discovered that the ornamental red cedar rounds that I split are amazing for starting a fire. I can light one of those splits with a piece of paper and it gets the whole stove going (they are big splits - rounds were about 30 inches). They were a pain to split (twisted satanic stringy stuff that was free from tree service), but no need for kindling when I need to restart Mostly burning fir now and a few splits of pine. Will save the tamarack for when I need it - I am shocked how much longer those splits last compared to my fir. Guess I have learned why tamarack would be more expensive to buy than fir (I'm cutting it all so far). Very little ash in this thing from 4 days of burning.

It is amazing how warm this thing is keeping the upper two floors of our home and that is 3800 sq ft with a lot of windows! It is 19 degrees outside and it's 76 here in the den and 74 upstairs. It feels a little stuffy in the room with the stove, but heat seems to be moving around the two floors without any assistance beyond the fan on the central air system for bottom two floors (upstairs has separate unit). Wife is now complaining that it is too warm, but I am happily dialed in for 12 hour reloads (morning and night) and will keep turning it down lower to try and cut back on the heat when it is not needed.

 

[Jeff in Maine]

Nope, ur good. no harm to cat. went through this my first season, talked it over with @BKVP , no worries, no warranty issues.

Thank you for your answer. I paid a lot for the stove and if I can avoid doing any damage that's a good thing.

 

[Shayne]

Thank you for your answer. I paid a lot for the stove and if I can avoid doing any damage that's a good thing.

I too wondered the same. Then thought it would be hard to sleep , literally, if you could ruin your stove because it fell out of the active zone while you were. If it did cause problems it would make for many unhappy burners. The stove would also not be of much use if it did and would cause numerous rma's and comments here. Of course the rep is going to say it does not, as it should not. What's the worst a cold stove could do, plug the cat?

That said mine has not gone inactive since I fired it up about 2 weeks ago. It appears pretty simple to burn well over 20 hour loads with no stall, this is more than adequate because I do not sleep that long. I would say try not to let it fall out of the active zone but do not loose sleep over it, just learn how to push your better half out of bed to throw a few logs on if it is too cold in the morning to get out from below the covers.

Regards

 

[tarzan]

Still trying to get the hang of this thing - no major problems, but finding the sweet spot on how low to burn it when I don't need as much heat is still eluding me. No worries - will be down to single digits here this week so I will be more concerned with high output vs long burns. I still have not really loaded this thing with as much wood as I can fit into it. Have also discovered that the ornamental red cedar rounds that I split are amazing for starting a fire. I can light one of those splits with a piece of paper and it gets the whole stove going (they are big splits - rounds were about 30 inches). They were a pain to split (twisted satanic stringy stuff that was free from tree service), but no need for kindling when I need to restart Mostly burning fir now and a few splits of pine. Will save the tamarack for when I need it - I am shocked how much longer those splits last compared to my fir. Guess I have learned why tamarack would be more expensive to buy than fir (I'm cutting it all so far). Very little ash in this thing from 4 days of burning.

It is amazing how warm this thing is keeping the upper two floors of our home and that is 3800 sq ft with a lot of windows! It is 19 degrees outside and it's 76 here in the den and 74 upstairs. It feels a little stuffy in the room with the stove, but heat seems to be moving around the two floors without any assistance beyond the fan on the central air system for bottom two floors (upstairs has separate unit). Wife is now complaining that it is too warm, but I am happily dialed in for 12 hour reloads (morning and night) and will keep turning it down lower to try and cut back on the heat when it is not needed.

Am I reading your post wrong or is your home 4 stories for a total of roughly 7,600 sq ft. and your heating 3,800 sq ft of it with the King.

 

[BKVP]

Still trying to get the hang of this thing - no major problems, but finding the sweet spot on how low to burn it when I don't need as much heat is still eluding me. No worries - will be down to single digits here this week so I will be more concerned with high output vs long burns. I still have not really loaded this thing with as much wood as I can fit into it. Have also discovered that the ornamental red cedar rounds that I split are amazing for starting a fire. I can light one of those splits with a piece of paper and it gets the whole stove going (they are big splits - rounds were about 30 inches). They were a pain to split (twisted satanic stringy stuff that was free from tree service), but no need for kindling when I need to restart Mostly burning fir now and a few splits of pine. Will save the tamarack for when I need it - I am shocked how much longer those splits last compared to my fir. Guess I have learned why tamarack would be more expensive to buy than fir (I'm cutting it all so far). Very little ash in this thing from 4 days of burning.

It is amazing how warm this thing is keeping the upper two floors of our home and that is 3800 sq ft with a lot of windows! It is 19 degrees outside and it's 76 here in the den and 74 upstairs. It feels a little stuffy in the room with the stove, but heat seems to be moving around the two floors without any assistance beyond the fan on the central air system for bottom two floors (upstairs has separate unit). Wife is now complaining that it is too warm, but I am happily dialed in for 12 hour reloads (morning and night) and will keep turning it down lower to try and cut back on the heat when it is not needed.

Please tell me how long your chimney is from stove to cap and if it straight up and out or has off sets? If you are missing a little draft, you won't be able to burn as low as the stove can and still keep cat active.

 

[BKVP]

I too wondered the same. Then thought it would be hard to sleep , literally, if you could ruin your stove because it fell out of the active zone while you were. If it did cause problems it would make for many unhappy burners. The stove would also not be of much use if it did and would cause numerous rma's and comments here. Of course the rep is going to say it does not, as it should not. What's the worst a cold stove could do, plug the cat?

That said mine has not gone inactive since I fired it up about 2 weeks ago. It appears pretty simple to burn well over 20 hour loads with no stall, this is more than adequate because I do not sleep that long. I would say try not to let it fall out of the active zone but do not loose sleep over it, just learn how to push your better half out of bed to throw a few logs on if it is too cold in the morning to get out from below the covers.

Regards

Shayne,

All the water is gone in the first few hours. So the cat won't get plugged at the tail end of a burn that has gone inactive. What will plug the cat is wet wood and always keep the from door gasket nice and tight to avoid air leaks.

Incidentally, this "rep" doesn't say it if it isn't true.

 

[Ashful]

They in no way replace a chimney cleaning. They simply loosen up the glazed creosote to make it easier to remove, their performance is up for debate. I'd save my money!

... and apply it to a SootEater. Best device I know for DIY cleaning, without going up on the roof.

 

[Ashful]

I'm sure this has been covered I searched and didn't find anything. I cracked a few fire bricks in the back of the ashford and was wondering if I need BK bricks or are the ones at Home Depot ok?

I also had a few cracked bricks in the back of my two Ashfords, and for the life of me, can't figure out how it happened. We gently place wood into the stove, we don't chuck 'em in from across the room.

Watch out... here comes Woody Stover with his notepad, and and comments on this being another reason BK's are inferior.

 

[shoot-straight]

I also had a few cracked bricks in the back of my two Ashfords, and for the life of me, can't figure out how it happened. We gently place wood into the stove, we don't chuck 'em in from across the room.

.

several of my bricks were broken on arrival of the stove but we put the pieces in and its been fine overall. some of the bricks on the bottom appear to be "weathering" down a bit, so I plan to replace them all this year at some point. i got the brick diagram from BK. the density of the bricks is another question, i want to use similar bricks but dont have many local source options

 

[shoot-straight]

Lemme guess....this guy is not a CSIA-certified sweep, is he?

actually, yes he is. Creosote comes in many forms. the thick tarry black stuff is unburnt. its tough to scrape off. so we stuffed the cap with newspaper, set it on my concrete driveway and lit it off. the creosote ignited and made lots of heat. it leaves a crackly fagile product afterwards that comes off with a brush easily. the cap is ss. no harm to the cap.

so, if you have the crackly fragile stuff on your cap, its burnt creosote, meaning the cap lit off at some point.

i have a 25' insulated ss liner inside a masonry fireplace. lots of wind at times. my stuff is always right at the top. hard to keep hot all the way up.

 

[Highbeam]

actually, yes he is. Creosote comes in many forms. the thick tarry black stuff is unburnt. its tough to scrape off. so we stuffed the cap with newspaper, set it on my concrete driveway and lit it off. the creosote ignited and made lots of heat. it leaves a crackly fagile product afterwards that comes off with a brush easily. the cap is ss. no harm to the cap.

so, if you have the crackly fragile stuff on your cap, its burnt creosote, meaning the cap lit off at some point.

i have a 25' insulated ss liner inside a masonry fireplace. lots of wind at times. my stuff is always right at the top. hard to keep hot all the way up.

I made the same conclusions when cleaning the tar from my cap. The sticky, wet, gunk can be lit on fire. I used the same propane torch that I use for starting fires. The goo gets liquid and starts to slide, then ignites and puffs up into carbon like a cheeto or those little carbon snake fireworks we had as kids. The whole process takes only seconds and is quite controllable. The cheeto creosote is easily wiped off but sometimes there is additional wet creo underneath so you repeat the process.

I don't think the presence of crunchy black creo on the cap means that the cap ignited at some point. I believe that sometimes, the creo deposits form as crunchy black stuff not unlike what we see in the entire flue of the BK.

 

[Highbeam]

All the water is gone in the first few hours.

I think I've read this before but it has become clear to me now that the immense, white, smoke plume from the BK during the first few hours is just steam. Regardless of wood MC, there will always be lots of water that must exit through the flue and it is often mistaken for smoke/pollution by operators, neighbors, and clean air authorities. Unfortunately, burners are regulated by stack opacity and not by emissions composition.

The non-cats don't do this for a couple of reasons, higher flue temps and higher volumes of dilution air added to the flue gasses are my guesses.

Now if your smoke is blue or black and occurs later in the burn then that is smoke.

 

[Highbeam]

Watch out... here comes Woody Stover with his notepad, and and comments on this being another reason BK's are inferior.

Hey now, that whole thread wasn't about BKs being inferior but of expectation management for new owners mixed with a little bit of constructive criticism. I thought it went pretty well and didn't degrade into a WS vs. BK battle as usual. It was a risky thread that was only possible due to the immense amount of positive BK content on this site to balance the issues.

 

[tarzan]

Oh my cap was partially clogged from the waterfall of tar. I first noticed the cloggage starting with binoculars. You don't need a screen to clog a cap. Then that top 3-4" was significantly choked already. Puffy and wet. I've never seen anything like it.

Ok, that description puts it in perspective. From your first post I didn't get that it was THAT bad. I pictured a glaze of tar on the inside top of the cap.

If it happens again (hopefully it won't) would you post pics?

 

[volunbeer]

Am I reading your post wrong or is your home 4 stories for a total of roughly 7,600 sq ft. and your heating 3,800 sq ft of it with the King.

It's 5800 sq ft - 3 stories - 2000 basement, 2000 main floor, and 1800 upstairs - open floorplan with large central staircase. Don't expect to heat the whole house, but figure any time the heat is not running it's a win! Basement temps stay pretty consistent as it is only a partial daylight.

 

[Poindexter]

@Highbeam the curriculum for epa "visual emissions certified inspector" spends a lot lot lot of time talking about how to tell unregulated steam in a plume from regulated smoke.

Curriculum is free online, it is the test you have to pay for to get the cert.

 

[Shayne]

Shayne,

All the water is gone in the first few hours. So the cat won't get plugged at the tail end of a burn that has gone inactive. What will plug the cat is wet wood and always keep the from door gasket nice and tight to avoid air leaks.

Incidentally, this "rep" doesn't say it if it isn't true.

I do believe that you speak the truth and never indicated otherwise. I have read some very informative post by you and appreciate you taking the time to voice them, this was one of the reasons we went with your company.

I have burnt two year old hardwood for close to a couple of decades in my old stove with little to no creosol when sweeped once a year in the fall. I should not need a moisture meter and my new little princess should handle wood even if it is a bit wet, is this correct, as we burn what we harvest and each year has different precipitation/humidity records etc. It comes dirty out of the bush sort of speak.

I understand the air leaks and shocking hot ceramic and this is what I consider to be the one to look out for as this is my first cat stove. The gasket is a lot more protruded than my last stove (no groove) and the door is a whole lot lighter than the old cast iron one I am accustomed to. I understand the paper test but not too much about what it is I am looking for or how would we adjust the gasket so it is perfect. What should we see if we a have an air leak and what should we see when it is perfect. I have a groove and do not see blow by yet but do not know for sure I have the "perfect" air tight seal.

Can you bugger the cat up by opening the stove when it is too hot and what is the correct way of opening a hot stove, baffle open should be ok?

Can you bugger up the cat by going above the active zone and what type of safety factors are built in to the gauge up top and how much can we go over ;-)?

Can you bugger up the cat by shutting the baffle to early as there must be moisture that goes through it on a reload when it is still very much in the active zone and closed quickly after the reload and burnt on high for 1/2 an hour.

If I turn the stat to 12 O'clock does this basically shut down the air and if not at what position does?

We are glad you are here.

Regards

 

[volunbeer]

Please tell me how long your chimney is from stove to cap and if it straight up and out or has off sets? If you are missing a little draft, you won't be able to burn as low as the stove can and still keep cat active.

We were lucky and the pipe is a straight shot from second floor to above the roofline at top of the house - no turns and it is 4' above the roof. Stove to cap is 24' and it does not appear to have any draft issues. I suspect I need to put more wood in it or pack it more tightly if I am going to turn it way down? I am putting in a fair amount of wood, but still a lot of space in it. It's finally gotten cold up here so I will try to do a better job of packing the stove next time I am looking for a longer burn.