2016-17 Blaze King Performance Thread (Everything BK)

[Shayne]

With my new (overactive) cat I see the cat thermometer needle on the outside of the active range from time to time. Worth noting FWIW, I never seen this with the ceramic cat.

I don't worry about it any more. I just run the stove the way I need to run the stove to heat my home and if the cat lasts two years or ten I'm just going to get another and keep going. The stove is absolutely that good!

When you look at new BK's in a stove shop you'll notice that the only numbers left on them to cause worry is the price tag!

TY TZ, I have a ceramic and it is real easy to get it above the active zone with the hardwood I have here, nice and dry and aged, no moisture meter required . @ a few hundred a pop it would be nice to get some feed back on the exact does and don'ts from someone that knows.

So r you running a steel cat now and how long did the your ceramic last, between both which works the best and which lasts longer in your case?

I think I only know part of the answer.

When I said full throttle I meant top of the swoosh, highest numbered position on the Tstat, NOT up past the top onto the hard stop.

Second, i think the fan kit probably does cool the coil on the cat probe a leetle tiny bit, but running the fan kit flat out pulls a LOT of heat off the stove, i can feel it and measure it in my back bedrooms far away from the stove room.

So top of the swoosh Tstat, fan kit wide open, my cat probe needle stays at or near the top of the active range until the wood gas is out of the load and the coals are starting to burn down.

Do you have a convection deck fan kit on your stove Shayne?

I understand and never thought of going past 6 o'clock on the knob (high swoosh), I use ecofans and strategically placed DC ceiling fans throughout the house, we never contemplated an electric fan on the stove due to noise. Two eco's up top do cool the stove down a bit and get the air moving but maybe not to the same extent?

Definitely purchased the convection deck add-on to help the eco fans, it makes no noise at all .

.....I do believe that my operating experience would be better with more draft but the only time I really notice a problem is when I get smoke spillage after opening the door when the stove is still partially loaded with burning fuel ......

No worries HB you will get the hang of it eventually Joke. Crack the door really slow, leave it just a jar (1/4 to 1/2") for a bit if it looks like it is going to be a problem, make sure it is drafting before you open it and then do that slow, if it wants to come back close it again to a crack and repeat, this the key. Let the home air enter the stove instead of the other way around, it is drafting fine until you open the door or your stove would be dead, choked by smoke, therefore you should be able to open the door without spillage as the draft is already established.

How do you perfectly "adjust" your gasket? Hear make sure you adjust your gasket right but how do you poke around the rope?

Regards

 

[Shayne]

Nice!

Yep that is -25 Canadian . Appears this stove is going to heat 2150 sq feet with full basement (4300) no problem, got to like that. We will have to see what -30 does but really do not care after this morning, as we do not need miracles, that is what oil back up is 4.

Regards

 

[Tar12]

Yep that is -25 Canadian . Appears this stove is going to heat 2150 sq feet with full basement (4300) no problem, got to like that. We will have to see what -30 does but really do not care after this morning, as we do not need miracles, that is what oil back up is 4.

Regards

You really can't ask for more! We never see those temps here..thank god! lol

 

[rwhite]

My highest point in my living room is 8.5 ft...add 1.5 ft to get through the sloped cathedral type ceiling..this will leave a lot of pipe sticking up in the air...and a tight wire act to clean it...I have no problem doing as you suggested but once again how will it be cleaned? and it will still be way up in the air and looking very silly. I live in a single level double wide BTW...

Use telescoping pipe on the interior. Just slide the pipe up and clean from the bottom. A sooteater is a great tool.

 

[Shayne]

^^^^ You are just a bit south of Ontario's Florida (Winsor) ............ but we can say the same about Poindexter, now that is a place where you may get some cold snaps.

Regards

 

[tarzan]

Shayne, don't insult my wood it's dry. I was never happy with my ceramic cat from the beginning. It never seemed to provide the performance I thought it should based on what I was hearing from others. I kept it two full seasons before changing it out. The Steelcat so far does a better job with the smoke than my ceramic cat ever did but I'm not knocking ceramics, just think the steel is a better fit for me.

To put my previous comments another way, cats are a wear item not unlike car tires. I drive my car when and where I need to without much worry about wearing out the tires. I'm going to run my stove the way I need to heat my home without much worry about the cat. If I were changing cats every season then that might be a problem but I don't think that will happen.

You can crunch your own numbers but I'm saving over $200 a month on the power bill by running a wood stove and saving about a cord of wood a year by running THIS stove. Looking at it that way, $300 dollars, even every other year, for a cat don't sound to bad.

 

[Tar12]

Use telescoping pipe on the interior. Just slide the pipe up and clean from the bottom. A sooteater is a great tool.

You guys are a wealth of information! I am stuck in yester year....I don't ever remember there being a telescoping pipe available back in the day. I always cut and crimped to fit.

 

[rwhite]

You guys are a wealth of information! I am stuck in yester year....I don't ever remember there being a telescoping pipe available back in the day. I always cut and crimped to fit.

Just duct tape a trash bag around the pipe with a slit cut for the rod to catch everything.i hate climbing on roofs so the sooteater was a godsend to me. The only stove that I could see it having trouble with is a catalytic insert but maybe folks have figured that out to.

 

[kf6hap]

Sooteater:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J7O3SJE/?tag=hearthamazon-20

 

[webby3650]

Just duct tape a trash bag around the pipe with a slit cut for the rod to catch everything.i hate climbing on roofs so the sooteater was a godsend to me. The only stove that I could see it having trouble with is a catalytic insert but maybe folks have figured that out to.

It's no problem on the insert, the flue collar is mounted at 30 degrees, the crud just falls into the firebox.

 

[kf6hap]

Easier than changing all 8 spark plugs on a 4 cylinder Ford Ranger! Not kidding.

 

[fireplacenoob]

Hello everyone, we have been getting cold snaps in southeast michigan now. Its averaging 10-15 deg F at night. My burn times have been a little disappointing. Last year I was burning red oak, this year its a mix of red oak and other hard woods (maple mostly).

I have a blazeking princess. I noticed that once the cat is active only the right side is glowing red, not the left side of the cat. So I would say right about 50% of the cat is glowing red when active. I tried at very high temp burns and low temp burns and its only glowing mainly on the right.

Also, my burn times, fully loaded, with my thermostat set at about 1.25-1.5 is about 5-6 hours, if I think about burning at 2-2.5 im looking at 3-4 hours of burn time. I do have a long chimney (28ft) and house is larger for the princess (2800sqft) but last year I recall hitting 7-8 burn times. My cold air intake is open, and I did the paper test and the seal is pretty good. AT this point not sure how to improve burn times and keep my temp comfortable. Could it be my cat, its only a one year old stove and I burned light last year. Right now I have been burning 4 weeks straight.

For night time I put in a full load (10pm) and at 5am I am at inactive, burning at 1.75 thermostat

 

[Ashful]

My highest point in my living room is 8.5 ft...add 1.5 ft to get through the sloped cathedral type ceiling..this will leave a lot of pipe sticking up in the air...and a tight wire act to clean it...I have no problem doing as you suggested but once again how will it be cleaned? and it will still be way up in the air and looking very silly. I live in a single level double wide BTW...

Hmm... I can't say I understand the logistics of putting a masonry chimney on a double-wide, but I can speak to the height issue.

1. Clean from bottom up. That's how I do all of mine, even the one that only pokes 3 feet out of the roof (albeit almost 50 feet above the ground).
2. With a masonry stack, even if it's a good 6' to 8' out of the roof line, you can put a ladder against it and walk right up there. I do that to inspect my chimney cap and crown on that chimney.

 

[Ashful]

Hello everyone, we have been getting cold snaps in southeast michigan now. Its averaging 10-15 deg F at night. My burn times have been a little disappointing. Last year I was burning red oak, this year its a mix of red oak and other hard woods (maple mostly).

I have a blazeking princess. I noticed that once the cat is active only the right side is glowing red, not the left side of the cat. So I would say right about 50% of the cat is glowing red when active. I tried at very high temp burns and low temp burns and its only glowing mainly on the right.

Also, my burn times, fully loaded, with my thermostat set at about 1.25-1.5 is about 5-6 hours, if I think about burning at 2-2.5 im looking at 3-4 hours of burn time. I do have a long chimney (28ft) and house is larger for the princess (2800sqft) but last year I recall hitting 7-8 burn times. My cold air intake is open, and I did the paper test and the seal is pretty good. AT this point not sure how to improve burn times and keep my temp comfortable. Could it be my cat, its only a one year old stove and I burned light last year. Right now I have been burning 4 weeks straight.

For night time I put in a full load (10pm) and at 5am I am at inactive, burning at 1.75 thermostat

Cat should not be glowing all the time, only when it's over 1000F. Active is anything over 500F, so there are many times when it's working but not glowing.

However, the fact that yours glows only on one half is really odd, and makes me think it's either damaged or defective. No issue debating which, it's definitely still under warranty at 1 year. I'd contact manufacturer about exchange, and they will probably want to inspect it anyway.

As to why it happened, I'd first guess a leaky gasket, but if you say gasket tests good... I don't know. It would be good to have some conclusion on what happened, before putting the new one into use.

I'll let someone else comment on the effect a bad cat could have on burn times, as I don't know. I would think the reduced burn times are also a sign of a leak, which is the most common way to destroy a cat. In other words, I'd be looking for other sources of potential air leak.

 

[Woody Stover]

A quick rough estimate leaves about 9-10 ft of pipe in the air to meet the 15 ft minimum..

The dream is slipping away...what are non cat chimney requirements?

The shortest non-cat height I've run across is the Hearthstone Manchester 8360. Manual says 10'...from the floor. Pretty stove, especially in the brown enamel, and cool convection fins on top of the firebox. But it's a 3 cu.ft. stove so you would probably have to run short loads in moderate weather to keep from roasting yourself out. I think it likes to run warm, as well. @webby3650 has installed some Manchesters, but probably not at 10'. Still, he may have a good idea of how they draft.
In cats, my BIL who I sold the Woodstock Fireview to is running on about 13', and Dennis had 13' for a while as well...no smoke roll-out even in warmer outside temps. But that stove has a small window and no ash grate, that's why I sold it...I'm not shoveling 'em out, noooo! I bet my Keystone would run on a short stack if it was top-vented, but it's not big enough for 1800 sq.ft.
So are you thinking of building a block chimney? That would open up your options. But with no chimney, if you don't mind the "rocket on your house" look and want to go cat, it sounds like these guys think the Princess may work at 12', or call Woodstock and ask how the PH, IS or AS will run on a short stack. The manuals say 15' for the hybrids (14' on the Fireview, for reference.)

 

[BKVP]

Tar, my King has a 18' chimney. No way in hell I'm getting on my roof, way too steep.

My first section of pipe is double wall slip joint (adjustable section). This is the piece that slides down onto the stove collar.

When I clean my chimney, I simply slide the section up towards the ceiling support box. I have a 5 gallon paint bucket with a 3/4" hole in the bottom.

I insert my first section of cleaning rod into the bucket from the bottom. I reach down into the bucket and attach the brush. I insert the brush into the exposed double wall and hold the bucket tight to the bottom of the pipe. I have a 2 x 4 cut to length and wedge it between bottom of bucket and the top of the thermostat cover, this holds the bucket tight to the bottom of the pipe.

I place a rag where the rod goes through the bottom of the bucket and push up and down, cleaning as I go up. I then add a length and repeat the process until I reach the cap. NEVER turn the rod counter clockwise as you do not wish to unscrew the brush in the pipe. As I come back down, I just remove sections of cleaning rod. You can also build your own cleaning rod with 1/2, schedule 40 PVC pipe. Using male to female threaded ends. If you do this process, drill a hole through each glued PVC fitting and put a screw or cotter pin so in the even the glue gives way, you can still remove all the lengths.

By this process I am able to clean my entire chimney is less than 10 minutes.

 

[Poindexter]

Sometimes inly half the cat in my ashford glows, usually rhe right side glows while the left side is dark.

I always figured it was turbulent flow because of the corners of the firebox.

I wonder if owners south of the equator see the ledt side glowing more often.

 

[begreen]

Curious. Ashful, do you see the same thing?

 

[lsucet]

Hi, to all. In my princess i get sometimes the same thing and it is a new stove. i think it depends in what side of the firebox the wood is out gassing more. I noticed too that when chunks collapse sometimes one side fed the cat more than other. i think it is normal. sometime i rake everything together and to the front and it lights up even. maybe i wrong.

 

[Shayne]

Shayne, don't insult my wood it's dry. I was never happy with my ceramic cat from the beginning. It never seemed to provide the performance I thought it should based on what I was hearing from others. I kept it two full seasons before changing it out. The Steelcat so far does a better job with the smoke than my ceramic cat ever did but I'm not knocking ceramics, just think the steel is a better fit for me.

To put my previous comments another way, cats are a wear item not unlike car tires. I drive my car when and where I need to without much worry about wearing out the tires. I'm going to run my stove the way I need to heat my home without much worry about the cat. If I were changing cats every season then that might be a problem but I don't think that will happen.

You can crunch your own numbers but I'm saving over $200 a month on the power bill by running a wood stove and saving about a cord of wood a year by running THIS stove. Looking at it that way, $300 dollars, even every other year, for a cat don't sound to bad.

I would never intentional insult a guy with a Massey, the red team needs to stick together. This ceramic cat came with a 10 year warranty but as I mentioned I bought a spare at purchase as not to have down time. I also read that it loses it efficiency after a few years so I will need to read this 10 year warranty a bit closer to see exactly what it says.

I am saving about $3000.00 a year not burning oil, but then we never have as wood is free, chain saw and splitter pretty much sip the fuel and the tractor will not even use a tank dragging and stacking 2 years of full length trees. It was the hope of saving a tree in our bush and keep an old man from working too hard that brought about this purchase.

So we have one vote for steel over ceramic. That appears to be a trend from my reading here lately. They must still be placing ceramic in them as to not toy with their EPA certification.

P.S. Not sure how you drop a trouble light "up" your chimney to ensure all is good but if it working for you all is well.

Regards

 

[Highbeam]

Other than cleaning the cap if needed I use the sooteater on my chimneys. The princess box and the NC30 are large enough that I can actually feed the rods through the firebox and up the chimney and leave the chimney assembled. The debris falls into the firebox where it must be cleaned out as though it was ash.

Some folks have a hard time cleaning right behind the cat but I've found that I can access this area fully by manually sliding the bypass plate up and holding it up with a small piece of kindling. I can touch the back of the cat and clean that whole area with the vacuum. If you can't do this then you will have to lift the interior flue off of the stove and vacuum the debris from above.

The dang cap can need cleaning though. Especially if it has a screen on it which will plug especially fast and kill your draft. The last time I cleaned my cap it took hours of hard labor with tools.

I would not feel comfortable installing a heating appliance and not satisfying the installation manual requirements. If your house burns down then it can be shown that you failed to follow the installation instructions and could lose coverage. If the manual requires 12' then provide 12'.

 

[webby3650]

I've had both steel and ceramic cats. I prefer the ceramic over steel. While the steel fires up much faster, I found the cat would go inactive much sooner on the tail end of fire. With my shorter flue, it was more finicky. With my ceramic cat it's almost alway still reading active once it's time to reload. These differences are very minor, but if I get to choose, I'd choose ceramic.

 

[Highbeam]

So we have one vote for steel over ceramic. That appears to be a trend from my reading here lately. They must still be placing ceramic in them as to not toy with their EPA certification.

All current model BKs have shipped with steel cats at some point. Only the princess/king have ever used the ceramic cats and usually ship with ceramics. The 20 and 30 boxes have only ever used steel and the new hybrid Woodstocks also only use steel. I've used both wouldn't have a problem with either ceramic or steel. The steel has way more surface area to do work on the smoke than the ceramics so it should be better at it. The steel also should be better able to resist thermal shock which is what usually kills cats.

When manufacturers are trying to hit peak efficiency and minimum emissions they move to steel. Steel costs more so if the ceramics were equal then I doubt the manufacturers would use steel.

All guesses of course. Based on the observations.

Here are pictures of the ceramic and steel for my princess.

 

[Tar12]

Other than cleaning the cap if needed I use the sooteater on my chimneys. The princess box and the NC30 are large enough that I can actually feed the rods through the firebox and up the chimney and leave the chimney assembled. The debris falls into the firebox where it must be cleaned out as though it was ash.

Some folks have a hard time cleaning right behind the cat but I've found that I can access this area fully by manually sliding the bypass plate up and holding it up with a small piece of kindling. I can touch the back of the cat and clean that whole area with the vacuum. If you can't do this then you will have to lift the interior flue off of the stove and vacuum the debris from above.

The dang cap can need cleaning though. Especially if it has a screen on it which will plug especially fast and kill your draft. The last time I cleaned my cap it took hours of hard labor with tools.

I would not feel comfortable installing a heating appliance and not satisfying the installation manual requirements. If your house burns down then it can be shown that you failed to follow the installation instructions and could lose coverage. If the manual requires 12' then provide 12'.

I will do the install correctly. This recent info on cleaning the pipe sure helps..now I need to research caps to keep the cap cleaning to a minimum..

 

[rdust]

To put my previous comments another way, cats are a wear item not unlike car tires. I drive my car when and where I need to without much worry about wearing out the tires. I'm going to run my stove the way I need to heat my home without much worry about the cat. If I were changing cats every season then that might be a problem but I don't think that will happen.

You can crunch your own numbers but I'm saving over $200 a month on the power bill by running a wood stove and saving about a cord of wood a year by running THIS stove. Looking at it that way, $300 dollars, even every other year, for a cat don't sound to bad.

I couldn't agree more, I burn my stove how I want/need without giving it much thought. My first ceramic cat lasted 5 seasons and was probably still in reasonable working order. I noticed the chimney getting a little dirtier than normal and not burning as long last season so I replaced it this year. I replaced it with another ceramic cat this season, we'll see how this one holds up.