2017-18 Blaze King Performance Thread (Everything BK)

[kf6hap]

You are not alone with the smoke smell issue with the Ashford. It is a matter of draw and door gasket sealing. The flue must meet or exceed the minimum height with no bends and be of the correct diameter all the way up (6"). Add 1' of flue for every bend. My flue is good so, for me, it is the loading door gasket. It appears to be in perfect condition but still permits the smell to escape. Why, I don't know. A mystery. On the 9th, the gasket is going to be replaced with a graphite impregnated type to see if that is the fix.

This problem is going long and my wife is pushing to go propane as the smoke problem is a health issue. Except for this smoke issue, the BK stoves are best house heating units ever made so, I am not giving up just yet. I do love this stove.

Also on the 9th I am having the local stove company insulate the 6" sleeve (and replace the plain steel with stainless) I placed in the 8" flue. Cost $850. This is an effort to improve the smoke issue.

Stay tuned. I will post any fixes that does or doesn't work.

 

[Bullyboy]

 

[Bullyboy]

There's some pics. You can see on the stove itself I'm also getting drips and rust on the back.

 

[kf6hap]

Good looking install. Where is the dog? The drips might just be a little condensate and stop after a few firings.

 

[SuperJ]

Absolutely keep it here. BK owners have a lot of interest in this, and finding a fix for those having it.

My Ashford has that smell too, it's faint enough that I ignore it. But, I'm worried if my wife picks up on it that it will make her very dissatisfied.
It's a mildly unpleasant, unique to BK smell (creosote), or at least it's not that somewhat pleasant wood smoke smell I smell in other wood burners houses. I'm very confident in my chimney (completely vertical 16' ICC Excel and Ultrablack doublewall with no funny business going on anywhere).

I ignored it initially after install since I thought it was just the paint curing, but after a couple weeks of hot fires I realize that it is different and not going away.

There doesn't appear to be any gasket for the thermometer, does it just rely on the draft to maintain negative pressure at the probe hole?
Door gasket is poorly aligned (from the factory on the hinge side), perhaps this is contributing. The gasket is mostly inside the fire box with only the outer 20-30% on the outside of the seal edge (instead of being 50/50 like the rest of the door).

 

[kf6hap]

The thermometer does not need a gasket as the interior is in a negative. Why these door gaskets leak "smoke smell" is a mystery yet to be resolved. I did place Rutland Grapho-Glass thin flat gasketing in the corners where the gasket is dark indicating passage of (?) smoke. It helped and made it tolerable but is still not right. All of my other stoves were smoke free when operating. The gasket is self sticking and very easy to place. The door is somewhat harder to shut but not unduly so. It can be pulled back off if you don't like the results. 11/16 X 56", Rutland No#93. Ace Hardware $8.99. Each strip I placed was 17", just in the lower corners. Temporary help until the whole gasket gets replaced.

Lets put our collective brains on this one.

 

[Heftiger]

I had the smoke smell last year. BKVP sent me a new door gasket, I paid close attention to the alignment in the corners near the hinges. We haven’t noticed a smell at all this year.

 

[webby3650]

View attachment 202176 View attachment 202177 View attachment 202178 View attachment 202179

Did you do the install yourself?

 

[kennyp2339]

Mostly between 20 and 25 right now. I have some that is reading close to 30 that I'm holding off on.

BK recommends wood moisture content to be at 15%, yes wood will burn at a higher air setting but for low burns due to stove design you will need to be closer to the 15% margin. This is because BK's are designed to extract as much heat as possible, at 15% moisture in fuel, flue temps run near 350 deg f at low burn, higher wood moisture cools the flue gas even further. Some will argue that if that was the case the T-stat would stay open and you wouldn't be able to get long burn times because the firebox could not get hot enough, I think that's not the case when your able to get a belly full of coals and then wetter wood on top, for now or until you wood goes into the teens % in moisture content I would burn hotter, T-stat set at 2:30 - 3 o'clock with small to medium flames in the firebox. Also keep an eye on your cap, it will start to crud up in no time.

 

[Bullyboy]

Did you do the install yourself?

No, we had it done by the shop we bought the stove from. Very disappointed in the work. They talked us out of the location we wanted to avoid any angles. As you can see I'm now the proud owner of 2 45's. The stove isn't centered properly on the hearth, the telescoping chimney was pretty scratched up and the paint they used to hide it is gloss black on the matte pipe. But all that is small stuff compared to the massive leaks in the roof They left. You can tell by the one pic how much tar I had to use to patch it all up. All summer I still had the leak hitting the back of the stove but I couldn't locate the source. We have had 4 days of rain over the last 6 and not a drop so I'm knocking on wood that it's good to go for winter.

 

[SuperJ]

The thermometer does not need a gasket as the interior is in a negative. Why these door gaskets leak "smoke smell" is a mystery yet to be resolved. I did place Rutland Grapho-Glass thin flat gasketing in the corners where the gasket is dark indicating passage of (?) smoke. It helped and made it tolerable but is still not right. All of my other stoves were smoke free when operating. The gasket is self sticking and very easy to place. The door is somewhat harder to shut but not unduly so. It can be pulled back off if you don't like the results. 11/16 X 56", Rutland No#93. Ace Hardware $8.99. Each strip I placed was 17", just in the lower corners. Temporary help until the whole gasket gets replaced.

Lets put our collective brains on this one.

So you double stacked the gasket at the suspected leak points only? You can see in my picture that on the hinge side there isn't much gasket filling the groove between the metal ridges. I suspect the gasket should be on top of the outer ridge on the inside of the door to get a good seal.

Another oddity is that my ash plug seems to be way too far back. It drops the ash right onto the back edge of the ash tray. My wife had heard horror stories from her friends about how ash dust was going to be the bane of her existence if we got a stove. I assured her the one we were getting had a good ash drawer system so we wouldn't make a mess shoveling.
Overall I really like the Ashford, nothing comes close to how it runs.

 

[redktmrider]

Another oddity is that my ash plug seems to be way too far back. It drops the ash right onto the back edge of the ash tray.

My Ashford is the same way, I just try to push a little into the pan then pull out the drawer and rake it forward, then repeat. It is a minor annoyance on a otherwise great stove.

 

[kennyp2339]

So you double stacked the gasket at the suspected leak points only? You can see in my picture that on the hinge side there isn't much gasket filling the groove between the metal ridges. I suspect the gasket should be on top of the outer ridge on the inside of the door to get a good seal.

Another oddity is that my ash plug seems to be way too far back. It drops the ash right onto the back edge of the ash tray. Major annoyance! My wife had heard horror stories from her friends about how ash dust was going to be the bane of her existence if we got a stove. I assured her the one we were getting had a good ash drawer system so we wouldn't make a mess shoveling.
Even though overall I really want like the Ashford, nothing comes close to how it runs. Defending to her spending the extra $1000 on the Ashford over the PE Alderlea T5 is getting old.

I see what your saying with the gasket and door hinge, you can tell by the creosote marks that there's a seepage issue.

 

[SuperJ]

I see what your saying with the gasket and door hinge, you can tell by the creosote marks that there's a seepage issue.

I guess I'll followup with my dealer first since it's a brand new install. If I run into resistance then I'll just put a new gasket on myself. Looks like a new rutland gasket is about $20 cdn. 5/8" or 1/2" thick?

 

[kennyp2339]

I guess I'll followup with my dealer first since it's a brand new install. If I run into resistance then I'll just put a new gasket on myself. Looks like a new rutland gasket is about $20 cdn. 5/8" or 1/2" thick?

Negative, you must use a manufacturers approved high density gasket, the rutlands are not high density type

 

[Bullyboy]

Good looking install. Where is the dog?

Took a while to get the pic. He's only about 14 weeks and we've only had him for a week or so, so his sit stay needs some work. Lol.

 

[Bullyboy]

Sorry. My bad. Here's the pic.

 

[webby3650]

No, we had it done by the shop we bought the stove from. Very disappointed in the work. They talked us out of the location we wanted to avoid any angles. As you can see I'm now the proud owner of 2 45's. The stove isn't centered properly on the hearth, the telescoping chimney was pretty scratched up and the paint they used to hide it is gloss black on the matte pipe. But all that is small stuff compared to the massive leaks in the roof They left. You can tell by the one pic how much tar I had to use to patch it all up. All summer I still had the leak hitting the back of the stove but I couldn't locate the source. We have had 4 days of rain over the last 6 and not a drop so I'm knocking on wood that it's good to go for winter.

Sorry to hear that. The flashing install is very uncraftsmanlike. Whoever did it has little to no experience. The interior elbows look unavoidable if you want the stove between the windows. A 6” slip between the 45’s would have gotten it actually centered looks like to me.
You can really touch up the pipe, as you see it won’t match. Satin stove Bright is the closest match, but I still paint the entire pipe.

From the picture it looks like the flue is a few feet low anyway.

 

[Ashful]

Another oddity is that my ash plug seems to be way too far back. It drops the ash right onto the back edge of the ash tray. Major annoyance! My wife had heard horror stories from her friends about how ash dust was going to be the bane of her existence if we got a stove.

There is a new ash pan drawer out to fix this issue. Just contact BKVP on this forum, and he’ll get you set up right. The new tray assembly is a direct swap for the old one, and can be installed in about an hour. He or I can walk you thru the steps, when you get it.

He tells me that only a few stoves went out the door with this issue, when they initially updated the Ashford 30 to the 30.1. You are one of the lucky few.

 

[SuperJ]

There is a new ash pan drawer out to fix this issue. Just contact BKVP on this forum, and he’ll get you set up right. The new tray assembly is a direct swap for the old one, and can be installed in about an hour. He or I can walk you thru the steps, when you get it.

He tells me that only a few stoves went out the door with this issue, when they initially updated the Ashford 30 to the 30.1. You are one of the lucky few.

Weird. My stove was ordered in September 2017 and I had to wait for it until October so I don't think it's old stock. But maybe it sat in a warehouse somewhere and I drew the short straw. What are the differences between the 30 and 30.1?

 

[kennyp2339]

Weird. My stove was ordered in September 2017 and I had to wait for it until October so I don't think it's old stock. But maybe it sat in a warehouse somewhere and I drew the short straw. What are the differences between the 30 and 30.1?

If I’m not mistaken the original 30 has the numbered t-stat and the 30.1 has the shwoosh t-stat

 

[HuskyNewman]

Hello. It was suggested by another member to post in this thread about my question(s) concerning a Princess Insert. Rather than throwing this thread out of whack, here is the thread I started if anyone would like to check it out. Thanks.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/calling-on-blaze-king-princess-insert-owners.164107/

 

[Ashful]

If I’m not mistaken the original 30 has the numbered t-stat and the 30.1 has the shwoosh t-stat

I think that's mostly correct. The change from numbers to swoosh may have been intended to occur with this model change, but I actually have a 30.1 with numbers, and another with a swoosh, both ordered on the same date. I imagine BK's change control is probably among the best of stove companies, but perhaps not as well-controlled as Apple or Samsung.

Weird. My stove was ordered in September 2017 and I had to wait for it until October so I don't think it's old stock. But maybe it sat in a warehouse somewhere and I drew the short straw. What are the differences between the 30 and 30.1?

You know, I looked into this once, but have since forgotten most of what I learned. I remember there was a change in the layout of firebrick inside, perhaps driven by the relocation of the ash plug, since the bricks in my stoves don't match my manuals (which seem to have been written around the 30). I'm sure BKVP will be along shortly, to tell us more differences.

Did the 30's have ceramic cats?

 

[Bullyboy]

From the picture it looks like the flue is a few feet low anyway.

Can you explain what you mean by this please? If something is wrong I would like to get it fixed.

 

[webby3650]

Can you explain what you mean by this please? If something is wrong I would like to get it fixed.

The chimney should terminate 2’ higher than anything within 10’. Meaning, if you stood beside the flue with a tape measure stretched out level 10’ up the roof, the pipe should extend 2’ above that point.