2016-17 Blaze King Performance Thread (Everything BK)

[Marshy]

Yes, the crock is clay. The chimney is rectangle. Would have to get up on the roof to check how thick the clay is and it's pure ice here this week so that might take some time. I hear the concerns and we are certainly taking them into consiseration. No point in buying a stove that isn't right for our house. What makes the king have these requirements? The fact that it is a cat stove?

A large part of it is the high efficiency of the stove. As you compare stoves efficiencies (HHV and LHV) ratings the higher the efficiency the less heat loss up the chimney (i.e. lower flue gas temperature). As you get into the high 80% efficiency and low 90% then the flue gases temps are so low that they cannot draft well (lack of buoyancy) and would need to be supplemented with a combustor fan to induce draft. The BK happens to have a high efficiency rating and when you hook it to a non-insulated masonry chimney you remove heat from the flue gas and can cause poor draft and potential creosote build up. Hence why BK recommends an insulated liner in masonry chimney. The same applies to any stove with a high efficiency rating.

 

[Squisher]

Oh wow, that sounds like a leaky situation. I'd definetly be looking to insulate and save yourself a ton of work/wood.

I'm about 1400 up and 1200 down ranch with basement below grade except on two sides I have windows at grade level nearly that are close to the ceiling in the rooms inside. I use about 3-4 full cord a year with a non-cat.

Seems like you're not getting the full benefit of a cat stove if you just have to run it on high anyways to keep up?

 

[Marshy]

Oh wow, that sounds like a leaky situation. I'd definetly be looking to insulate and save yourself a ton of work/wood.

I'm about 1400 up and 1200 down ranch with basement below grade except on two sides I have windows at grade level nearly that are close to the ceiling in the rooms inside. I use about 3-4 full cord a year with a non-cat.

Seems like you're not getting the full benefit of a cat stove if you just have to run it on high anyways to keep up?

That is true, when its 15 out I've has to run a small space heater to keep the wife happy. The basement is all subgrade except the one area that has the doors as they dug out the grade and tapered it up so its a walkout. I only have 3 windows in the basement so I suppose I have one wall that has 2' above grade where the windows are...
Getting the heat up to the living space is complicated. I have just the main stair well (with open stairs) that the warm air flows up. My old stove was a significant source of radiant heat and it was like I had heated floors. With the King it doesn't radiate like the old stove (excepts for the front door), its heats the air and needs convection from the fans. I may have to incorporate some floor vents to allow the warm air to rise, I just haven't gotten there yet.

 

[tarzan]

lol... best answer yet. I should put that in my sig line, with your permission.

I'll try to summarize several years (somewhat painful experience) in a few sentences. Yes, the house is a little on the large side by 18th century standards, not so much by today's McMansion standards, but about half of it is completely un-insulated mud-stacked stone. The windows and doors date to the 1773 expansion of the house, but I do have storm windows on the windows, so radiant loss is not all that bad but they are a little drafty (esp. the doors). Total area I'm heating is about 8100 sq.ft., but of that total, only 4500'ish square feet is being heated by wood (hence the high oil and electron use).

I do this work of felling, processing, and handling firewood under the guise of saving money, or at least that's how I sell the time investment to my wife, but I believe it has cost me at least as much in stoves and equipment as I have saved in heating oil. While it's a poor use of my time, if saving money were the sole goal, I believe it's good for the mind, body, and soul.

I run two stoves 24/7, and each is installed in a large cooking fireplace (see my avatar) on an exterior exposure wall. The first stoves were Jotul Firelights, and I found they were dumping a very high fraction of the heat they produce into the exterior masonry, by noticing that oil savings were not correlating to my efficiency-corrected wood BTU usage. I also have Flir thermal images showing the exterior stonework of my house being alarmingly hot, over large areas behind each stove. It was during this time, with these stoves, that I hit those 10 cords per year numbers, while my oil usage was simultaneously over 1200 gallons per year. I also noticed that the Jotuls did not have much effect on room temperature, no matter how hard or light I rode them.

So, I switched to the BK Ashfords, being a convective design. I immediately noticed they "feel" better in the house, as they have a much more noticeable effect on room temperature. Significantly, I can get very repeatable 36 hour burn times (I burn mostly oak), and have been able to mark settings on my dial for predictable 12 and 24 hour burns. Being worn out from pushing insane amounts of fuel thru those Jotuls, I've been treating the BK's differently, loading them full on a schedule that suits my work, and letting the oil burner pick up the slack.

I am looking forward to having comparative data, between the Firelights and the Ashfords in this house, but a few factors have confounded me. First, it was very cold the three years I was running the Jotuls, and it has been unusually warm the two years I've had the Ashfords. I'm scaling for HDD's, but there is still error in this for such different conditions (eg. imperfect choice of base temperature). Also, whereas I had expected my oil usage to go up a bit, since I'm burning maybe 40% less wood in the Ashfords, all the data I have so far indicates my oil usage is going DOWN (yes, that's scaled to an "average HDD year").

So, that's the story for the few who haven't heard it before. My highest oil usage, since firing up the first Jotul Firelight 12 is 2600 gallons in one year. My highest wood usage in a single year is somewhere over 10 and less than 11 cords, and I believe I burned 1200 gallons that particular winter. I believe my current usage will fall in somewhere over 6 but less than 8 cords, with 1000 gallons of oil per year.

Ashful, I'm curious if you see any noticeable burn time difference with your 12 hour setting in mild vs cold weather.

I ask because I use the same setting and keep the house about the same temp whether it's 10* or 20* outside. The difference is the load burns a little quicker at the colder temp.

 

[Squisher]

Marshy

That was exactly what I was concerned about with my home when I upgraded from my old Lakewood pre EPA stove to my new one, and why I chose my summit over a princess. Honestly if I had room for a 8" liner in my interior masonry chimney I may have gone with the king as I figured it would have enough btu capabilities to crank out the heat when I needed it, but it wasn't a option without major modification. I've been happy with the output of my stove though compared with my old lakewood which is a huge firebox stove, I don't know the cubes but way bigger firebox than my summit. Still the output of the summit has been impressive and not lacking.

I really want to find a king cat for my shop one day. It has a 8" chimney already and my Lakewood is heating in there, but burn times suck and the wood consumption is crazy. A nice king that I could get 24hr+ burn times out of on low would be ideal. I search the classifieds daily and bide my time. Lol.

 

[Highbeam]

Seems like you're not getting the full benefit of a cat stove if you just have to run it on high anyways to keep up?

It is true that efficiency falls and emissions rise with higher burn rates in the BK cat stoves. I wonder if @Marshy would be better served by a nice wood furnace in the basement tying into the existing house ductwork or with its own ducts to supply the upstairs. The new models are thermostatically operated with very large blowers, windows, and have much larger fireboxes on a 6" flue. Efficiency is not that much lower than a BK on high!

I would like a wood furnace for the shop but they are all still to polluting for Washington state. Good enough for EPA but not WA yet.

 

[Marshy]

Marshy

That was exactly what I was concerned about with my home when I upgraded from my old Lakewood pre EPA stove to my new one, and why I chose my summit over a princess. Honestly if I had room for a 8" liner in my interior masonry chimney I may have gone with the king as I figured it would have enough btu capabilities to crank out the heat when I needed it, but it wasn't a option without major modification. I've been happy with the output of my stove though compared with my old lakewood which is a huge firebox stove, I don't know the cubes but way bigger firebox than my summit. Still the output of the summit has been impressive and not lacking.

I really want to find a king cat for my shop one day. It has a 8" chimney already and my Lakewood is heating in there, but burn times suck and the wood consumption is crazy. A nice king that I could get 24hr+ burn times out of on low would be ideal. I search the classifieds daily and bide my time. Lol.

Well, I bought and installed the King to my chimney without an insulated liner. The chimney is ~30 ft from the basement to the cap and goes through the house in a chase way. Its 8x8 square with a clay liner. I was aware of the recommendations for the insulated SS liner but felt like I had reassurance from BK after talking with great lengths about my chimney configuration. As long as I'm not generating creosote in the chimney (which I know I have some in the top 12") I'd say the chimney is adequate. If once I install the BK fans and get the garage door tightened up better and I still cannot heat the house then I will be looking for a stove with a higher output. If I replace the stove with another stove it will likely be a Quad because my next closest BK dealer carries Quad stoves and I believe they make one large enough and they might give me a fair trade on my King. What I don't want to do it trade my King for a different stove that doesn't meet my needs. A secondary burn stove will probably eliminate the small creosote issue but it also needs to meet me needs. If I can afford it I would love an outdoor gasification boiler or a Froling with Lambda control.

 

[Marshy]

It is true that efficiency falls and emissions rise with higher burn rates in the BK cat stoves. I wonder if @Marshy would be better served by a nice wood furnace in the basement tying into the existing house ductwork or with its own ducts to supply the upstairs. The new models are thermostatically operated with very large blowers, windows, and have much larger fireboxes on a 6" flue. Efficiency is not that much lower than a BK on high!

I would like a wood furnace for the shop but they are all still to polluting for Washington state. Good enough for EPA but not WA yet.

I don't have a forced air system in the house. It has a hydronic system. Small oil boiler made by Utica Boiler Company. If I go an indoor boiler route I will need storage as there is none. That's not a factor with a large outdoor boiler.

 

[Squisher]

Myself I much prefer a freestanding stove to a furnace in a house say up to almost 3000sqft. I'd even go two stoves like I have now before a furnace, even though at my size of house, the 2nd stove is luxury/overkill. The practical side of two is having the ability to heat my place up faster if we've been away and the stoves have gone out. One of the drawbacks of non-cat stoves for certain, not being able to slow down more for longer absences.

My shop is 30x40 with 12' ceilings, decently insulated except for the two bay doors and I really think a king would be the ticket. I prefer to keep it heated all winter with wood on low and then just crank it up when I need to. I do have a natural gas heater in the shop too, but rarely use it. It's one of those big boxes that hangs from the ceiling, like a furnace but no ducting, just blasts heat. Natural gas is pricey up here, I try to never use it. I think a king king would fill the niche perfectly in there. Keep it from freezing and then kick it up to high if need be for when I was going to be in there.

My house is about 2600 sq ft and I have a FAF on natural gas, high efficiency vented out the side of the house I upgraded the old one too. And IMO having a freestanding stove which requires no electricity is the best option for heating a house of this size. I've heated a handful of different homes around this size now in my lifetime and have always been comfortable with just a hot stove running. In my locale anyways it works well.

 

[Marshy]

Myself I much prefer a freestanding stove to a furnace in a house say up to almost 3000sqft. I'd even go two stoves like I have now before a furnace, even though at my size of house, the 2nd stove is luxury/overkill. The practical side of two is having the ability to heat my place up faster if we've been away and the stoves have gone out. One of the drawbacks of non-cat stoves for certain, not being able to slow down more for longer absences.

My shop is 30x40 with 12' ceilings, decently insulated except for the two bay doors and I really think a king would be the ticket. I prefer to keep it heated all winter with wood on low and then just crank it up when I need to. I do have a natural gas heater in the shop too, but rarely use it. It's one of those big boxes that hangs from the ceiling, like a furnace but no ducting, just blasts heat. Natural gas is pricey up here, I try to never use it. I think a king king would fill the niche perfectly in there. Keep it from freezing and then kick it up to high if need be for when I was going to be in there.

My house is about 2600 sq ft and I have a FAF on natural gas, high efficiency vented out the side of the house I upgraded the old one too. And IMO having a freestanding stove which requires no electricity is the best option for heating a house of this size. I've heated a handful of different homes around this size now in my lifetime and have always been comfortable with just a hot stove running. In my locale anyways it works well.

Being able to heat my home with no electricity is very desirable. Our electricity supply is fairly reliable but independence feels nice and warm when the electricity goes out.

Too bad you're not on the East coast of Canada, it might be fore sale a the end of the heating season. Unfortunately I heard your dollar is not very strong at the moment.

 

[Squisher]

It isn't but BK's are quite reasonably priced here IMO. I can't remember the exact numbers from when I was shopping but quite inexpensive. Their penticton (Canadian headquarters) plant is about hour and a half south of me. So maybe the shipping comes into play?

I'd still like to scoop one for cheap second hand. So I watch and wait. That's how I get it wife approved. By getting a deal. Lol.

 

[Squisher]

Heh. I would be a perfect beta tester for BK Canada if they're watching. Lol. Three different flues, insert capable or 6" or 8" freestander. Chimney sweep and online participant. Just throwing it out there!

 

[black smoke signals]

How about Wyoming where the wind blows 40-70mph? I would be interested seeing beta tests from all over the world about different condition stove owners have!

 

[Ashful]

Ashful, I'm curious if you see any noticeable burn time difference with your 12 hour setting in mild vs cold weather.

I ask because I use the same setting and keep the house about the same temp whether it's 10* or 20* outside. The difference is the load burns a little quicker at the colder temp.

I believe the differences I see day to day, in the amount of coals left when I return home after a long day at work, is due more to variations in wood species and how tightly I can pack the stove. In other words, I believe there are variations in how many BTU's I'm putting into the tank, and not so much in my usage rate (mpg). I am sure there is some secondary effect, in which burn rate is affected by draft, but it seems to me the thermostat does a pretty decent job at hitting a consistent burn rate for a given dial setting.

For full disclosure, the stove which I burn on 12 hour settings has a 29 foot insulated liner as a chimney, so I pretty much always have decent draft. I have another Ashford which is run on a lower setting for 24 hour reload cycles, and it is on a 15 foot chimney, but even that one seems reasonably consistent (less than 10% difference day to day) in burn time.

One thing I have noticed with both my stoves, which contradicts others on this forum, is that my cats stay active right thru the coaling phase. I mean, I can be down to nothing but golf-ball sized coals, and my cat is still hovering on the edge of active for hours and hours. This might be credited to the species I burn (mostly oak in the last two years), but I have been mixing in other hardwoods without noticing much difference in this behavior.

 

[Ashful]

Myself I much prefer a freestanding stove to a furnace in a house say up to almost 3000sqft. I'd even go two stoves like I have now before a furnace, even though at my size of house, the 2nd stove is luxury/overkill. The practical side of two is having the ability to heat my place up faster if we've been away and the stoves have gone out. One of the drawbacks of non-cat stoves for certain, not being able to slow down more for longer absences.

My shop is 30x40 with 12' ceilings, decently insulated except for the two bay doors and I really think a king would be the ticket. I prefer to keep it heated all winter with wood on low and then just crank it up when I need to. I do have a natural gas heater in the shop too, but rarely use it. It's one of those big boxes that hangs from the ceiling, like a furnace but no ducting, just blasts heat. Natural gas is pricey up here, I try to never use it. I think a king king would fill the niche perfectly in there. Keep it from freezing and then kick it up to high if need be for when I was going to be in there.

My house is about 2600 sq ft and I have a FAF on natural gas, high efficiency vented out the side of the house I upgraded the old one too. And IMO having a freestanding stove which requires no electricity is the best option for heating a house of this size. I've heated a handful of different homes around this size now in my lifetime and have always been comfortable with just a hot stove running. In my locale anyways it works well.

I went stoves, and now you know the sq.ft. I'm heating. If I'm going to work this hard for heat, I want to sit by a fire in my living room, damnit! No one ever talks about the family gathering around the boiler on a cold winter's night.

 

[webby3650]

I went stoves, and now you know the sq.ft. I'm heating. If I'm going to work this hard for heat, I want to sit by a fire in my living room, damnit! No one ever talks about the family gathering around the boiler on a cold winter's night.

We've put stoves in houses a few times over the years that had boilers outside. They wanted some quick heat, and to see a fire.

 

[Marshy]

Has anyone every noticed this line in the manual that says the stoves output range during testing? Does this really mean the peak maximum heat output is 38,000 but/hr? This seems low to me.

 

[Highbeam]

I went stoves, and now you know the sq.ft. I'm heating. If I'm going to work this hard for heat, I want to sit by a fire in my living room, damnit! No one ever talks about the family gathering around the boiler on a cold winter's night.

Yes, but the context is a big king running at 100% output in a bare concrete basement beside a roll up door being used to heat the living space above. This application screams for a wood furnace. In addition, I would also want a hearth and stove in the living space.

 

[lsucet]

One thing I have noticed with both my stoves, which contradicts others on this forum, is that my cats stay active right thru the coaling phase. I mean, I can be down to nothing but golf-ball sized coals, and my cat is still hovering on the edge of active for hours and hours. This might be credited to the species I burn (mostly oak in the last two years), but I have been mixing in other hardwoods without noticing much difference in this behavior.

That is what i'm seeing with my princess. till now not a single time the cat goes inactive regardless how low i dial it down. the weather here lately at night drop into teens some times but during the days can be in the high 40s and 50s, and i dial it low in the morning for the rest of the day and i never see my cat probe under 10:00 o'clock and that is if i just don't touch anything in there. if i rake to the front in the morning it stays between 12 and 1:00. if i go for the cat getting into the inactive zone to reload , is pretty much ash what is in there. just some coals and it takes longer to catch back on reload.

Most of the time i reload with the cat well into the active zone and between 19 to 25 hrs burn time. i think the stove is doing pretty good.

 

[Marshy]

Yes, but the context is a big king running at 100% output in a bare concrete basement beside a roll up door being used to heat the living space above. This application screams for a wood furnace. In addition, I would also want a hearth and stove in the living space.

A stove in the living room has crossed my mind but all I have is a propane insert there now. I'd have to take it out and build a spot for it and a hearth and install the chimney pipe. I was really hoping to install a new high efficient stove to retire my old one that was able to heat the house from the basement.

 

[Squisher]

Has anyone every noticed this line in the manual that says the stoves output range during testing? Does this really mean the peak maximum heat output is 38,000 but/hr? This seems low to me.
View attachment 192564

So what is the scoop with that output. And what's the scoop with btu listings? PE lists the summit at 38,500 EPA btu but also lists it at 99,000 cordwood btu? I mean this stove cranks it out, there's no doubt about it at 3.0 cu/ft it is doing what my much larger pre EPA Lakewood used to do heating wise. And using a lot less wood.
(broken link removed to http://www.pacificenergy.net/products/wood/summit/summit/)

 

[Marshy]

So what is the scoop with that output. And what's the scoop with btu listings? PE lists the summit at 38,500 EPA btu but also lists it at 99,000 cordwood btu? I mean this stove cranks it out, there's no doubt about it at 3.0 cu/ft it is doing what my much larger pre EPA Lakewood used to do heating wise. And using a lot less wood.
(broken link removed to http://www.pacificenergy.net/products/wood/summit/summit/)

I wish I knew. It doenst quite make sense to me because they advertise 50 some thousand btu/hr over a 12 hour burn cycle on high. I understand that peak output isn't very beneficial for understanding the stoves heating ability through a cycle but it is useful to know. Maybe @BKVP can shed some light on why in the manual it says 8600 - 36,000 btu/hr under specific test conditions...

I'd reall like to know what the average btu/hr output is over a 8 hour cycle on high with a full load... I say 8 hour because the usable heat for me is about used up by then.

 

[Jason763]

Scirroco 30.1 in full satin trim
I bought it site unseen save for pictures and its perfect.

Nice. Let me know how you like it, operation wise.

 

[Ashful]

Has anyone every noticed this line in the manual that says the stoves output range during testing? Does this really mean the peak maximum heat output is 38,000 but/hr? This seems low to me.
View attachment 192564

No, this is misleading. If you notice, BK rates their "HHV" at 10 or 12 hour burn times, essentially a lower burn rate than most non-cat stoves can even achieve. We all know a BK Ashford 30 can rip thru a load of wood in much less than half that time (perhaps close to one-third that time), at wide-open throttle. I believe BK lists their maximum output conservatively low because this is where they achieve very good efficiency, or perhaps to help prevent people from under-sizing their stove, and having to ride them hard to heat their house. We know these stoves excel at running low, so why not size them to run as such?

 

[Marshy]

No, this is misleading. If you notice, BK rates their "HHV" at 10 or 12 hour burn times, essentially a lower burn rate than most non-cat stoves can even achieve. We all know a BK Ashford 30 can rip thru a load of wood in much less than half that time (perhaps close to one-third that time), at wide-open throttle. I believe BK lists their maximum output conservatively low because this is where they achieve very good efficiency, or perhaps to help prevent people from under-sizing their stove, and having to ride them hard to heat their house. We know these stoves excel at running low, so why not size them to run as such?

Maybe they should offer a bigger one then.