2017-18 Blaze King Performance Thread (Everything BK)

[kennyp2339]

I tested the hole of the thermometer and found a strong negative pressure bringing air inside the stove. No odor and no smoke. My guess is that it is something to do with the door gasket.

When I take my indicator out I get a whistling noise with the t stat on high and the by-pass open, I have an excellent draft for a basement setup. The point I'm trying to make is that perhaps the whole issue with the ashford smoke smell is a bad high density door gasket from the gasket supplier. The stained through gaskets raise a lot of red flags to me, especially since the ashford design has a much better airwash system then the king and princess.

 

[coutufr]

Right now I am burning wood that I bought last December that was keep a long time under a tarp in the woods. Most of it is quite dry now that I stacked it in the open all summer but I have better wood (ash) for later this winter. Thermostat right now I keep at 12:05. I do not like to use the stove at a very high temperature and I try to keep the initial burn period to a minimum. I do not heat the stove full blast for 30 minutes. Once I see a lot of flames for 5 minutes or so I close the bypass and put it on 3 to slow it down a little, I leave it like that 15 minutes then bring it to 12:05 or higher if it is warm outside. When the temperature will lower outside I can bring it to 9 o’clock. Whatever your chimney length, draft is highly impacted by outside temperature. Gasket was already installed on my stove when I bought it new in December. Unless you burn at 4-5 o’clock all the time you will have creosote on the gasket. Those stoves get a lot of creosote build inside which is normal, especially if the wood used is not of excellent quality. I will try longer initial high burns when the wood is not of high quality. I am not talking about super high burn because I don’t want to change the cat every 4-5 years. High quality wood is 17% humidity or lower and was dryed properly from the time the tree was cut and kept dry afterwards. I am right now making my own firewood because wood quality helps a lot with creosote smell I think. The whole stove is under negative pressure at all time when the door is closed so there is no way smoke comes out of it. The smell can come out through the gasket if you use so so wood without doing a high temperature initial burn. I will try my best to confirm this theory in the next couple of months

 

[coutufr]

When I take my indicator out I get a whistling noise with the t stat on high and the by-pass open, I have an excellent draft for a basement setup. The point I'm trying to make is that perhaps the whole issue with the ashford smoke smell is a bad high density door gasket from the gasket supplier. The stained through gaskets raise a lot of red flags to me, especially since the ashford design has a much better airwash system then the king and princess.

In my case the gasket is not fully black. Just the portion of it that is inside the stove is black and full of creosote. I am not saying that the gasket can not be the problem because it is definitely a weakness for low burning stove. Just by looking at the thickness of the gasket compared to a conventional stove you understand that it must made that thick for a reason. I am pretty sure that wood quality and initial high burn are part of the solution assuming that the gasket was properly installed and that the door is adjusted. I do not know for sure so you may also be right

 

[kennyp2339]

I am right now making my own firewood because wood quality helps a lot with creosote smell I think

What seeds are you planting? LOLOLOLOL I had to say that, but I know what you mean.

 

[coutufr]

Lol I wish I could have land to plant my own trees. I live in the city and I pick up wood that I find. There is no shortage of free wood here, a new law will ban old wood stoves in 2018.

 

[SuperJ]

Love waking up to a Blaze King...
I started a fire with a partial load yesterday day at 7pm after work and work up to nice warm house... hours of burn left.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/yAtFs5czYtMch7R93

 

[Ashful]

My Scirocco has the creo smell on a rather regular basis. Not enough to make the wife mad.

So do my Ashfords, but as has been noted, the sirocco chinook and Ashford are all the same stove.

The trouble with evaluating this issue is that what’s bothersome to one might be no big deal to another, and could be affected by how well your house does or does not breathe. We need a scale for smell, maybe it’s time to resurrect the old Man Show concept of Hobo Power.

 

[begreen]

The smell could be affected by many things including room size, allergies, etc.. Burning creosote stinks, but this too may vary with the time of year and how saturated the gasket has become. It may also be that people are running the stove too low, perhaps trying to eek out an extra hour of burntime. Or that they need a smaller stove for the area heated. Lots of variables here. Then one has to take into account that nasal sensitivity varies from person to person.

 

[kf6hap]

I don't mind if I smell the stove but the smell builds up with time so constant ventilation is necessary. I have a very large exhaust fan with gravity louvers mounted in the ceiling. By propping the louvers open the hot air rises into the attic. The "lost" air is made up for by house leaks. This provides air change until repairs are made. I don't care to smell like a piece of bacon.

Within reason, what or how you burn should not dictate wether or not your house stinks because the stove leaks.

 

[shoot-straight]

Pallet wood- with nails ok for cat? Did some searches and didn’t get a good answer. Perhaps bkvp will chime in.

I have a bunch of old pallets I hope to burn up- pile or stove that’s the question. Hate to waste the btu’s

 

[coutufr]

Pallet wood- with nails ok for cat? Did some searches and didn’t get a good answer. Perhaps bkvp will chime in.

I have a bunch of old pallets I hope to burn up- pile or stove that’s the question. Hate to waste the btu’s

My understanding is that burning wood with metal in it is bad for the cat on the long run.

 

[Hardtopseadan]

Solid wood fuel only. No painted or treated wood or garbage of any kind.

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[Ashful]

Within reason, what or how you burn should not dictate wether or not your house stinks because the stove leaks.

“Leak” usually leaves the impression you’re talking about a stove that leaks too much air, but that may not be the case here. After all, if it was a leaky gasket, you’d lose the ability to turn your stove down, not have smoke leaking out.

Everything that has been described over the last year, in reference to the few having this issue points to two things:

1. It is often described as a burning creosote smell, by those who care to notice it specify a difference between smoke and burning creo.

2. These cases may be as much about some being more sensitive to others, perhaps exacerbated by some very tight construction that causes smells to not dissipate as well as others.

After initially assuming it was classic backpuffing trouble, the saturated gasket theory now seems more plausible to me, as we have at least one or two examples of folks with tall chimneys reporting a smell.

Let’s not ignore the possibility that folks may be describing more than one problem, backpuffing for those with poor draft, and burning creo on a saturated gasket for another who runs their stove very low in a tall chimney.

 

[shoot-straight]

Allow me to rephrase.

Lots of chatter on here about burning pallets, just wondering if those who do it pull the nails or what.

I know that the manual says.

 

[Ashful]

I cut the slats between the rails, such that there are no nails going in the stove. The nail-ridden rails are used for kindling yard scrap fires in my big outdoor fire pit.

 

[coutufr]

Allow me to rephrase.

Lots of chatter on here about burning pallets, just wondering if those who do it pull the nails or what.

I know that the manual says.

My father burns pallets in his conventional wood stove. I guess if you use a sawall and cut around the nails yes you can make yourself decent firewood. Try to find pallets that were used to transport ceramic flooring or something like that and I know there is a code for pallets that were heat treated instead of chemicaly treated for bugs and stuff. I have easy access to free pallets and free firewood and I find no advantage to burn pallets. If this is your first year burning and you can not afford to pay for firewood use pallet this year and remove all the nails

 

[Sailrmike]

“Leak” usually leaves the impression you’re talking about a stove that leaks too much air, but that may not be the case here. After all, if it was a leaky gasket, you’d lose the ability to turn your stove down, not have smoke leaking out.

Everything that has been described over the last year, in reference to the few having this issue points to two things:

1. It is often described as a burning creosote smell, by those who care to notice it specify a difference between smoke and burning creo.

2. These cases may be as much about some being more sensitive to others, perhaps exacerbated by some very tight construction that causes smells to not dissipate as well as others.

After initially assuming it was classic backpuffing trouble, the saturated gasket theory now seems more plausible to me, as we have at least one or two examples of folks with tall chimneys reporting a smell.

Let’s not ignore the possibility that folks may be describing more than one problem, backpuffing for those with poor draft, and burning creo on a saturated gasket for another who runs their stove very low in a tall chimney.

I would get the smell with my Chinook, but it would only occur when I had a hot fire and turned the air down enough to have the thermostat close for a while. My outside pipe would lose draft, and my stove pipe was garbage- I never really thought the smell was attributed to the stove, but really due to my sub-par setup for the stove.

 

[shoot-straight]

Burn barrel it is!

 

[Tegbert]

Got the call earlier today that my ashford 25 is in. Went and picked it up tonight before they closed so I can start installing it tomorrow. Wasn’t expecting it till after the 6th so of course I have been slacking getting the fireplace ready for it so it still might be a couple days before it gets fired up. But at least it’s here.

Hers is the setup that some of you may have been wondering about at the shop where they could only run the ashford 30 on display about halfway. I originally thought they had 5 or 6 stoves connected but it is only 4.



It was the gas stoves that had more connected to one flue.



Interesting setup to say the least. And here it is in the crate hopefully it doesn’t rain too much tomorrow but it’s not looking good.

 

[dh1989]

Pallet wood- with nails ok for cat? Did some searches and didn’t get a good answer. Perhaps bkvp will chime in.

I have a bunch of old pallets I hope to burn up- pile or stove that’s the question. Hate to waste the btu’s

Year 3 (~8000 cat hours) with about 50/50 pallet wood and firewood. Nails and all go in with no issues except having a bunch of metal in the ashes. If there was any zinc (galvanized) in the ashes it would need to boil to vaporize and reach the cat.

Be careful as they will burn hot and fast when cut into chunks. If my cat died tomorrow I've paid for it in free wood, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Ashful]

That’s a good point, dh1989. Zinc vaporizes around 1650F, which is a good bit hotter than a typical wood fire, I think. But, are there any other compounds in that zinc plating or galvanization, that might vaporize at lower temperatures? Plating is a process in which many unknowns are introduced, often proprietary alloys justified with incorrect assumptions of impact on end use performance, something I have to deal with frequently. You can’t assume that’s pure zinc on those nails, even when that’s how we’re used to seeing them labeled.

 

[kennyp2339]

“Leak” usually leaves the impression you’re talking about a stove that leaks too much air, but that may not be the case here. After all, if it was a leaky gasket, you’d lose the ability to turn your stove down, not have smoke leaking out.

Everything that has been described over the last year, in reference to the few having this issue points to two things:

1. It is often described as a burning creosote smell, by those who care to notice it specify a difference between smoke and burning creo.

2. These cases may be as much about some being more sensitive to others, perhaps exacerbated by some very tight construction that causes smells to not dissipate as well as others.

After initially assuming it was classic backpuffing trouble, the saturated gasket theory now seems more plausible to me, as we have at least one or two examples of folks with tall chimneys reporting a smell.

Let’s not ignore the possibility that folks may be describing more than one problem, backpuffing for those with poor draft, and burning creo on a saturated gasket for another who runs their stove very low in a tall chimney.

I don't think its a "classic back puff" trouble, these stoves are made so tight that any back puffing would come out the flue collar area. I honestly feel as though it could be the high density gasket not being as strong or the user isn't burning dry enough wood with the stove dialed down, these stoves need 15% wood moisture content, I truly think that unless your very disciplined that 15% is a hard number to match, especially on the east side of the county with our moisture and hardwoods.

 

[Highbeam]

Um? Kennyp. How often did you run the stove over the last 4 years? Wondering what I am doing wrong. My gasket is. And has been. Black for a looong time!

FWIW. My Scirocco has the creo smell on a rather regular basis. Not enough to make the wife mad.

That white gasket is weird. My oem gasket from bk was grey. My replacement oem gasket from bk is grey. Hardware store gaskets are often white.

Just don't think that your grey gasket is grey due to creosote saturation, it was probably born that way.

Fresh battery in my bk meter, Doug fir testing at 12-13%!

 

[Ashful]

I don't think its a "classic back puff" trouble, these stoves are made so tight that any back puffing would come out the flue collar area. I honestly feel as though it could be the high density gasket not being as strong or the user isn't burning dry enough wood with the stove dialed down, these stoves need 15% wood moisture content, I truly think that unless your very disciplined that 15% is a hard number to match, especially on the east side of the county with our moisture and hardwoods.

In my experience, back puffs always exhaust out thru the air inlet, not the flue collar. In fact, I can’t think of any reason a stove would ever exhaust there, as the pressure is in the firebox, not the cat chamber or flue. Also, it would be difficult to build pressure in the flue, since there’s a 30 sq in hole at the top.

BKs have an air inlet like any other cat stove I’ve owned, nothing different, other than sporting an automatic air control.

 

[Hardtopseadan]

That’s a good point, dh1989. Zinc vaporizes around 1650F, which is a good bit hotter than a typical wood fire, I think. But, are there any other compounds in that zinc plating or galvanization, that might vaporize at lower temperatures? Plating is a process in which many unknowns are introduced, often proprietary alloys justified with incorrect assumptions of impact on end use performance, something I have to deal with frequently. You can’t assume that’s pure zinc on those nails, even when that’s how we’re used to seeing them labeled.

I guess I am just getting old, $2000.00 for a stove and I will do my best to follow factory instructions.

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