2017-18 Blaze King Performance Thread PART 3 (Everything BK)

[Ashful]

Wow. What did the front of the cat look like?

Clean, but only because I’ve been shutting down the stove to vacuum it every second week. However, I had been noticing that each front vacuuming was less effective than the one prior, which is why I eventually bought new gasket and pulled the cat.

 

[Ashful]

How about do DNA is it wood ash or gasket material breaking up?

Does not appear to be gasket, but since it’s all in the belly of the shop vac now, no chance for further analysis.

 

[Ashful]

Ashful, your post reminded me that my cat has clogged a few timesView attachment 222786 this season and that my stove was cold right now. Here's a pic of the backside of my steelcat out of the Princess.

Looks very similar. Misery loves company.

Clean that bad boy, and end your misery! Mine seems to be burning fine now, for the first time in months.

 

[tarzan]

Looks very similar. Misery loves company.

My cat is getting near the end of its life but this is the first time I've pulled it so who knows when this progression started but like you, clogging has gradually gotten to the point of frustrating.

We have wood species in common but my flue is under BK recommended height whereas yours is over.

Cant wait to fire the stove up now that I got everything out of the back of the cat though. It may have more life left than I thought!

 

[Ashful]

My cat is getting near the end of its life but this is the first time I've pulled it so who knows when this progression started but like you, clogging has gradually gotten to the point of frustrating.

We have wood species in common but my flue is under BK recommended height whereas yours is over.

Cant wait to fire the stove up now that I got everything out of the back of the cat though. It may have more life left than I thought!

Just got home, but I'm at roughly 6 hours into the burn, at 3/4 throttle, and cat is holding 12 o'clock on the thermometer. Good enough for me.

After initially installing the key damper, I mentioned that draft was still running high, even with key damper closed. I think the plugged cat was the reason, like sucking on a straw with the other end blocked off. Now that cat is cleared, key damper seems to be working as intended. I'm hitting BK's draft spec with damper closed roughly 45 degrees.

I'm burning mostly oak and ash, with maple and sassafras here and there.

 

[tarzan]

I'm burning mostly Oak, Hickory and Maple. Some Cherry and Black Locust.

 

[Woody Stover]

velocity drop and particle deposition at the combustor exit where the airway widens out?

Maybe velocity is higher in the area where the cat stayed clear, and ash is deposited where velocity is lower?

I'm burning mostly oak and ash, with maple and sassafras here and there.

So how is the Sass for ash..Ash? We have it here but I don't burn much. It is "poppy" and I thought that would stir up more ash dust in the box and clog my screen/cat faster. Plus it doesn't burn all that long..

 

[kennyp2339]

Its been such a crappy weekend, damp, cool and wet. BK got 3 loads of wood in her since Friday, its just chugging along, keeping the house at 71 or so. Just a boring February day in the northeast.

 

[allan5oh]

Extreme Cold Warning in effect for:

City of Winnipeg

A period of very cold wind chills is expected.

Temperatures close to minus 30 and winds near 15 to 30 km/h will create wind chills near minus 40 to minus 45 tonight and Monday morning. Wind chills will moderate during the day on Monday.

Yeah you dont have my sympathy

 

[Ashful]

I came down with flu this weekend. Having a stove that can be loaded and set for a very exacting schedule has been a godsend. I’ve been loading the one in the main house 2x per day, and it’s holding 73F. I let the one at the far end of the house go out, too far to carry wood in my present condition, and we were running 76F over there on 24 hour reloads. Very warm weekend, here.

 

[moresnow]

Flu= Nooooo good. Stay warm and get well soon

 

[lsucet]

I came down with flu this weekend. Having a stove that can be loaded and set for a very exacting schedule has been a godsend. I’ve been loading the one in the main house 2x per day, and it’s holding 73F. I let the one at the far end of the house go out, too far to carry wood in my present condition, and we were running 76F over there on 24 hour reloads. Very warm weekend, here.

I hope you start feeling better soon. Looks like I am on my way out of it after 1 1/2 months. Good luck

 

[allan5oh]

2 tylenols and a teaspoon of cough expectorant every 6 hours works great for this nasty strain of the flu. Drink lots of water too. Dont take a cough suppressant.

 

[BKVP]

Hey folks, just walked into All Season Heating, up in mountains of California,
and look what I found!

530-257-7202

Blaze King Ceramics!

 

[kennyp2339]

Hey folks, just walked into All Season Heating, up in mountains of California,
and look what I found!

530-257-7202

Blaze King Ceramics!

Someone is copying your grade school art projects?

 

[BKVP]

Nope....pulling them off Stoves from Stove change out program. They are quite expensive if you can find them....

Chris

 

[begreen]

They're not easy to find. Last time I saw a full set on eBay they were going for about $50.

 

[Ashful]

Bump on the clogged outlet side of our combustors. Any guesses as to how that could be happening?

I’ll admit, I have started burning less than dry wood in the last few weeks, but this occurred back when everything I was burning was nice and dry. Although my gut would have me thinking that way, this does no appear to have been a wood quality issue.

 

[SuperJ]

Bump on the clogged outlet side of our combustors. Any guesses as to how that could be happening?

I’ll admit, I have started burning less than dry wood in the last few weeks, but this occurred back when everything I was burning was nice and dry. Although my gut would have me thinking that way, this does no appear to have been a wood quality issue.

Do you think your combustor plugged quickly (over days/weeks), or was your exhaust side deposits the result of 3+years of burning? I'm curious if aggressive bypass closing leads to this? I never wait for the indicator to hit active, I have a pretty good feel for when it will take off and it usually way before the needle is in the active zone.

Sound like an annual combustor pull and gasket replacement might not be a bad thing (at least for those of us with steel cats).

Also, was your clog on your 24hr or 12hr load stove? Or did you pull both cats? It would make sense that exclusively running on 24hr+ burns generates such low flow velocities thru the cat that you get stratified flow patterns thru the cat and subsequent clogging. Opening it up occasionally might be enough to burn out the deposits before they become thick enough to require a manual cleaning. Basically what I'm suggesting is that the cat might be slightly oversized for long low burns. There is probably some magic feet per second above which (combined with high temps) the cat becomes self cleaning.

This theory suggests that the Woodstock hybrid burn may give a higher dynamic range. Use a smaller cat, coupled with secondary burn for high outputs. Too bad they don't have good thermostatic control over combustion air.

 

[lsucet]

If I remember correctly his issue with clogging is the taller setup with the 12 hrs burn time. The one with strong draft?.

 

[Ashful]

Do you think your combustor plugged quickly (over days/weeks), or was your exhaust side deposits the result of 3+years of burning?

That’s a tough call. It would seem to clog (at least on the inlet face) after just one or two days of burning at wide-open throttle, but would be fine thru weeks of consecutive 12-hour burns. I also noticed that vacuuming the face was never enough to clear it, I’d also have to blow it clean with compressed air. This makes me think it may have been clogging quickly on the back side, but since I hadn’t pulled it in my 2.5 years of burning it... who knows?

I'm curious if aggressive bypass closing leads to this? I never wait for the indicator to hit active, I have a pretty good feel for when it will take off and it usually way before the needle is in the active zone.

Aggressive bypass closer, here. In my case, the tall chimney made it mandatory. If I waited for the cat needle to read active before closing the bypass, I’d almost surely melt my bypass retainers, if not my stovepipe.

Sound like an annual combustor pull and gasket replacement might not be a bad thing (at least for those of us with steel cats).

I’m hoping BKVP chimes in on this, after having a chance to look into it, but I suspect that might be the direction it’s headed. That doesn’t really bother me, it’s good maintenance, but we need to find a better source for interam gasket. I got ripped $15 for shipping on just a few feet of the stuff. Hello, Amazon?

Also, was your clog on your 24hr or 12hr load stove? Or did you pull both cats?

This was on the 12 hour stove, which is on the tall chimney. I only ever vacuumed / blown clean the other one (24 hour / short chimney) on one occasion, and that’s just because I already had the gear in the house to do the other stove, I can’t remember if it even needed it.

Opening it up occasionally might be enough to burn out the deposits before they become thick enough to require a manual cleaning.

There may be more than one thing at work, here. Cloggage would only seem to happen after an extended high burn (like ripping a full load or two on high). But of course, I had only observed the front-side cloggage, it’s hard to guess as to how this back-side cloggage relates. However, I’d be surprised if it could be “burned off”, it’d have surely burned off it it were possible, on some of my high burns.

This theory suggests that the Woodstock hybrid burn may give a higher dynamic range. Use a smaller cat, coupled with secondary burn for high outputs. Too bad they don't have good thermostatic control over combustion air.

I’ve never looked at the Woodstock hybrids, but I have measured and compared Woodstock cat stoves to the BK’s, and their combustors are sized almost identically, per firebox volume.

 

[tarzan]

I would also notice the clogging on the front of the cat during a high burn. I think maybe the reason may be twofold.

One, the amount of air/smoke traveling through the cat on a lower burn is low enough that the restriction in the back of the cat can be overcome by the open cells.

Two, with only half or less of the cat cells free, more gets sucked into the available exit routes.

 

[jetsam]

Shoulder season day! Had half a stove full of coal left from yesterday, threw in a big heap of odds and bark and splitter chips.

In 12 hours I'll be coming back to plenty of coals (still the same ones from yesterday, all that splitter junk will burn off). Wouldn't have believed it until I got a BK!

 

[BKVP]

As to combustor accumulation. I have been trying to replicate Ashful's experience. First observation, my fire and coal bed is much further away from the combustor than his Ashford. The King is 9" deep.

Nevertheless, I had formed a deep enough coal bed (about 5" deep of solid coals) by burning a load of maple on high. I did this again on low and could not get much in the way of accumulation.

Then, I noticed each time I cleaned out my stove, large amounts of material were going up, onto and through the flame shield. I see the accumulation clearly as the draft pulled particles into the cat.

So, I opened the by pass and that action changed the direction of the particles, greatly reducing accumulation in my cat.

Is this causing others to increase accumulation? Perhaps, but in my King, it was OBVIOUS!

 

[showrguy]

As to combustor accumulation. I have been trying to replicate Ashful's experience. First observation, my fire and coal bed is much further away from the combustor than his Ashford. The King is 9" deep.

Nevertheless, I had formed a deep enough coal bed (about 5" deep of solid coals) by burning a load of maple on high. I did this again on low and could not get much in the way of accumulation.

Then, I noticed each time I cleaned out my stove, large amounts of material were going up, onto and through the flame shield. I see the accumulation clearly as the draft pulled particles into the cat.

So, I opened the by pass and that action changed the direction of the particles, greatly reducing accumulation in my cat.

Is this causing others to increase accumulation? Perhaps, but in my King, it was OBVIOUS!

Once you get a little more familiar with these stoves, you will likely realize that you need to open the bi-pass anytime you are doing something inside the stove !!
If you have any questions in the future, please don't hesitate to send me a PM..