2018-19 Blaze King Performance Thread Part 2 (Everything BK)

[begreen]

I'm perplexed as to why it doesn't rate better for high end on the EPA list? They show it about the same as the lowly Ashford. Maybe their BTU/hr. figures are averaged over the entire load, at the high burn rate, or whichever of the four burn rates they do for each stove? Or maybe they had a bad test, for some other reason? Hmmm..
That brings up another question; In the EPA tests, are free-standing stoves tested with the optional blowers installed? That would definitely yield a higher BTU/hr. output, based on what I've seen with the blower on my Dutchwest 2460, vs. uninstalled. The blower was the difference here between keeping up and not keeping up when it got cold and windy out.

EPA testing is done with a fixed amount of crib wood and by strict protocols. This standardized testing does not reflect cordwood burning, nor does it reflect maximum heat output.

 

[MissMac]

Yikes! I would need a few extra layers at least to survive low 60s, sitting at the computer generating no body heat.
He's apparently under-stoved when it gets cold out. By EPA high-output numbers, the Ashford is a notch lower than the Princess, which is a notch lower than the King, which is a couple notches lower than the Buck 91 I had at my MIL's house. When that thing is firing, you can't hold your hand where the heat blows out, for more than two seconds. The Ws hybrids are ranked at the top of the charts for high-end heat. The Ashford is given about the same high-output numbers as my Dutchwest 2460 Small Convection, which ain't a lot I can tell ya.
I'm perplexed as to why it doesn't rate better for high end on the EPA list? They show it about the same as the lowly Ashford. Maybe their BTU/hr. figures are averaged over the entire load, at the high burn rate, or whichever of the four burn rates they do for each stove? Or maybe they had a bad test, for some other reason? Hmmm..
That brings up another question; In the EPA tests, are free-standing stoves tested with the optional blowers installed? That would definitely yield a higher BTU/hr. output, based on what I've seen with the blower on my Dutchwest 2460, vs. uninstalled. The blower was the difference here between keeping up and not keeping up when it got cold and windy out.
Get some fleece blankets and a down comforter. We let our bedroom goes down into the low 60's to concentrate more heat in the main room, but it's toasty out there after about 5 minutes under the covers.
If you have an IR thermometer gun, walk around the house when it's cold and windy out, find out where your worst air leaks are and work on those over the summer.


What? I figured that only low-end stoves wouldn't be equipped with a variable speed auto-blower like the Buck 91 had.
It's hard not to get swept up in the moment, and buy before you have done much research. I bought my stove in a rush as well, to beat the deadline on the federal tax rebate. I got lucky, and ended up liking most things about the stove I grabbed.


Ashful said: ↑
This is the way I run my house, since i̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶l̶a̶r̶g̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶n̶d̶l̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶i̶r̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶w̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶v̶e̶s̶ I bought little stoves because Kings clash with my doilies.
To each, his own, but if I'm going to the trouble involved with wood heating, I'm not messing around with the "gentleman wood-burner" approach. And like I said, you don't have to load Kings as often so that would be a bit less hassle than the 30s. You'd obviously be hauling more wood with my approach though, and he said he doesn't have time..the time he spends posting notwithstanding.
Yes I would, if it was -40 out.
Ah cheeze, crank up the furnace, ya tightwad! Or your gas cook stove at least. A few generations back, they froze their butts off all winter long, whether they were inside or out!

In AK, I bet they pay a lot more attention to insulation and air-sealing than most of us do. If your place is tight enough you can heat it with a candle.
Agreed, it's nice to have a bunch of lower-output woods on hand, Red Maple, Black Cherry etc. Another feature is that they start quicker in a cold stove. You don't want to be trying to start a load of Black Locust or White Oak with a couple chunks of SuperCedar. Red Oak is a good middle of the pack wood for all-around utility.

stove is correct size for the house - anything bigger would roast us out. and yes we do have lots of blankets - we intentionally keep it cold in the bedroom for better sleeps and most nights my wife wants to open the bloody bedroom window regardless of how cold out it is! And 17*C was good enough during the day because nobody was home, so we were just trying to keep the house from freezing into a popsicle, but still have the fire going when home at the end of the day. So, given the winter, the 17*C and the wood that was still in the stove when i got home, mission accomplished!

 

[begreen]

stove is correct size for the house - anything bigger would roast us out. and yes we do have lots of blankets - we intentionally keep it cold in the bedroom for better sleeps and most nights my wife wants to open the bloody bedroom window regardless of how cold out it is! And 17*C was good enough during the day because nobody was home, so we were just trying to keep the house from freezing into a popsicle, but still have the fire going when home at the end of the day. So, given the winter, the 17*C and the wood that was still in the stove when i got home, mission accomplished!

This is a thermostatic stove that is supposed to be able to run low and slow so the firebox size and wood load size is supposed to be less important. Are you not able to run low and slow? When you get home can you turn up the stove to bring the house up to say 20º pretty quickly?

 

[Highbeam]

In the northern climates where the BKs have visible flames for most of the burn and the shoulder season is brief perhaps the differences between cats and non cats become closer

Being cold outside is only part of the reason that you might need the higher output of a cranked up BK. The other part, even more important, is the rate at which heat leaks from your home. Even in Alaska, if you build a normal sized house well enough, you can run the BK at the low settings and gain the advantages of very long burn times at low outputs.

 

[Woody Stover]

Or move the bed next to the stove as you do.

I think he already tried that but found it is better to huddle together with the others

I think for the next several days i'm either going to be sleeping on the couch to catch the fire before it goes out on shorter, higher burns, or else give in and let the furnace kick on.

EPA testing is done with a fixed amount of crib wood and by strict protocols. This standardized testing does not reflect cordwood burning, nor does it reflect maximum heat output.

Yeah, I guess the 'maximum heat output' would be how many total BTUs the stove could extract from a load, which would require running the stove at the burn rate that gets its maximum efficiency, and would also be a function of how big the box is and how many BTUs of wood you could stuff in there.
The max BTU/hr. ratings on the EPA chart..I guess they would be gathered from the multiple sensors they put on the body of the stove. Not sure if those are all the result of the highest of the four burn rate runs.
From what I read of Method 28 just now, the high burn rate run is conducted with the air wide open. Nobody does that. That would probably not be efficient at all at extracting heat from the load, and probably worse on cat stoves where all the volatiles would be blowing through the cat unburned. The BK thermo might limit BTU out when the air was wide open, if it automatically closed the air some. You'd have to think that the baffles in the BK box would limit the amount of heat that can radiate from the coals to the walls of the stove, so that may be part of it as well.
Then when you go to the stove websites, the confusion proliferates. Some list the max outputs in BTU, not BTU/hr. Then the BK site says the King puts out "51,582 BTU's/h constant output for 12 hours." How does that translate to the EPA BTU/hr. numbers for the Buck 91 (51200) vs. the King (39800?) I never ran a King but I'd be willing to bet a substantial amount of White Oak that the 91 would thrash the King in output/hr, although the King might beat the 91 in total heat per load since the Buck only has about 3 cu.ft. usable, and the trapezoidal fire box which makes stuffing it more of a challenge. All that said, Woodstock's stove pages list the EPA numbers, so that lends even more credence to them. Did I mention I'm a Woodstock fanboy? You didn't think I pulled the name "Woody" out of thin air, didya?
Bottom line, all I can say for sure is that for the four stoves I've run, the EPA numbers translate pretty well to the amount of heat the stoves put into my house. I'm sure there are some anomalies on the EPA list but based on what I've seen, the EPA numbers might be the best way we have of comparing how stoves will heat in actual use. Of course there are other factors to consider such as radiant vs. convective heat etc.

stove is correct size for the house - anything bigger would roast us out.

These guys are saying that the Princess and King run pretty low as well, and I believe them.

we intentionally keep it cold in the bedroom for better sleeps and most nights my wife wants to open the bloody bedroom window regardless of how cold out it is!

You kinda talk like that Eyesocket guy, yet you also use the term "bloody." Lemme guess, your dad is British and your mom is French. As far as the open window, I might be handing my wife the pup tent/sleeping bag and telling her, "have at it." I'm still wearing my wool shorty socks in the bed for when she gets up and I lose her heat from the down comforter cocoon envelope. Of course, I'm an old man so YMMV.

17*C was good enough during the day because nobody was home, so we were just trying to keep the house from freezing into a popsicle, but still have the fire going when home at the end of the day.

How long does it take to toss in more wood, then get room temp up from 17* to a comfortable temp?

 

[lsucet]

How long does it take to toss in more wood, then get room temp up from 17* to a comfortable temp?

It can take the whole life and a whole mill factory on a keystone.

 

[Diabel]

It can take the whole life and a whole mill factory on a keystone.

Nice

In my opinion, the keystone is the nicest of all the Woodstock lines....I like it a lot.


There are some very questionable WS units, in terms of visual look (again only my opinion).

 

[ratsrepus]

A good Indian friend of mine once told me, (Hendry, you crazy white man, Indian build small fire and sit real close, you build huge fire and sit far away). I couldn't argue with him cause he was right plus he was 6 ft 10 and weighed 450 lbs.

 

[lsucet]

A good Indian friend of mine once told me, (Hendry, you crazy white man, Indian build small fire and sit real close, you build huge fire and sit far away). I couldn't argue with him cause he was right plus he was 6 ft 10 and weighed 450 lbs.

Are you saying there is different kind of fires, the one that keep you warm and the one that will burn you if you dont agree? It is obvious which one you prefer.

 

[ratsrepus]

Are you saying there is different kind of fires, the one that keep you warm and the one that will burn you if you dont agree? It is obvious which one you prefer.

yep just loaded the stove, why do you ask

 

[Diabel]

I don’t know about them small fires...

Go big or go home.... as they say in America!

A good Indian friend of mine once told me, (Hendry, you crazy white man, Indian build small fire and sit real close, you build huge fire and sit far away). I couldn't argue with him cause he was right plus he was 6 ft 10 and weighed 450 lbs.

 

[Woody Stover]

It can take the whole life and a whole mill factory on a keystone.

EPA Princess output, 12000-35600. Keystone output, 8500-35000. Lower low end and damn near the same top end. Read 'em and weep.

In my opinion, the keystone is the nicest of all the Woodstock lines....I like it a lot.

Sweet rig, I'll tell ya, but your 2550 is apparently a notch above in output. The Fireview should be about equal, if you can stand the look, and don't mind shoveling ash. We're spoiled on the ash grates, though..no way we're goin' back now..

There are some very questionable WS units, in terms of visual look (again only my opinion).

Those hybrids ain't pretty, and my AS is gonna look like hell when I cut the legs off..steel box sitting on the floor. My only hope is that my SIL can faux-paint it to look cool, somehow. I'll let her come up with an idea. She is a master ar-teest, so maybe..

I don’t know about them small fires...Go big or go home.... as they say in America!

If only we could somehow harness the energy of the burning rain forests.
OK, enough of this..back to the BK banter.

 

[lsucet]

EPA Princess output, 12000-35600. Keystone output, 8500-35000. Lower low end and damn near the same top end. Read 'em and weep.

Well it will take us both the same effort.

 

[chemie]

I’m probably “pine trash talker numero uno” here, and it comes down to one thing: time. The amount of wood I burn per year is never enough to completely heat my home, and is dictated by only one thing: time.

1. Time to harvest new wood, and drag it home.
2. Time to split and stack, which used to be my primary limiter.
3. Time to load multiple stoves, multiple times per day.

So, when you want to maximize capability while minimizing time, you need to find the fuel that packs the most BTU per hour of investment. I can split and stack BTU’s in oak at a rate almost twice that of pine. This is why I always say I’ll never waste a minute on pine, but others have different factors controlling what and why they burn.

I can add storage space as another limiting factor to be picky for choosing type of firewood.

 

[Bullyboy]

Went out with family for dinner and drinks last night so I loaded the stove early yesterday knowing that we had warnings of a severe cold front rolling in overnight. Loaded at 4 pm yesterday and at 4:30 set the thermostat to the usual 3oclock setting. Didn't even look at the stove last night when the wife carried me to bed. The pics are our temps this morning. I know that every situation is different but I keep hearing how BK's are only different than any other stove in shoulder season. I'm not sure that many other types of stoves would give me these inside temps after 15+ hrs and at least another 4 or 5 in the tank. Gotta love it.

 

[Ashful]

This is a thermostatic stove that is supposed to be able to run low and slow so the firebox size and wood load size is supposed to be less important. Are you not able to run low and slow? When you get home can you turn up the stove to bring the house up to say 20º pretty quickly?

This is correct. @MissMac, if you have the space for it, there is very little reason to not go big on a cat stove. With their ability to turn way, way down, the size of the firebox becomes more just a measure of fuel tank capacity than anything else. Your stove dealer may have talked about roasting you out of the house with a too-large stove, but that does not apply very well to BK, they are unique in this regard.

I’ve seen a few posts on the forum lately, complaining about the repetitive posts bragging about BK burn times, and I can get that. But what those people seem to be missing is exactly what I am describing above. Super long burn times are a fun thing to play with, but their real value is exactly what my paragraph above states: it removes most of the dependency of matching the size of a stove with a narrower range of output capability to your heating needs.

This applies to many cat stoves, not just BK. As Woody has already pointed out in past threads, some of the Woodstock stoves have rated output ranges even wider than BK, but shifted higher into the range. If you need big heat, and don’t mind the looks of Woodstock, they are another great option.

 

[Ashful]

View attachment 238611

I don’t know about them small fires...

Go big or go home.... as they say in America!

Yeah, these recent posts around this forum, about feeding a few scraps at a time don’t make any sense at all to me. Pack that thing to the gills, and set your thermostat, accordingly. Maximum efficiency is achieved when you don’t open that door for 30 hours, not when you throw a few new scraps in every 60 - 120 minutes.

 

[jatoxico]

Yeah, these recent posts around this forum, about feeding a few scraps at a time don’t make any sense at all to me. Pack that thing to the gills, and set your thermostat, accordingly. Maximum efficiency is achieved when you don’t open that door for 30 hours, not when you throw a few new scraps in every 60 - 120 minutes.

Well...conceptually not sure what the mystery is. The idea about feeding a stove continuously once it's up to temp is probably most appropriately applied to poor tubers like me but, even with a good cat if you could keep it active and never have start up smoke, that would be most efficient.

If you have smoke at start up while you wait 20 minutes to get to temp you're wasting some fuel and not heating even if it is once every 30 hrs. So was presented as more of a theoretical discussion than purely practical but it does apply when you have a smallish fire-boxed tube stove like me.

 

[MissMac]

This is a thermostatic stove that is supposed to be able to run low and slow so the firebox size and wood load size is supposed to be less important. Are you not able to run low and slow? When you get home can you turn up the stove to bring the house up to say 20º pretty quickly?

Yes i can dial down the stove down low, but i choose not to run it on the lowest setting that i can when it’s minus 40*C outside. When i get home, i do turn it up to bring the house temp up. Usually turn up the fan too, which helps get the temp back up quickly.

 

[MissMac]

I think he already tried that but found it is better to huddle together with the others

Yeah, I guess the 'maximum heat output' would be how many total BTUs the stove could extract from a load, which would require running the stove at the burn rate that gets its maximum efficiency, and would also be a function of how big the box is and how many BTUs of wood you could stuff in there.
The max BTU/hr. ratings on the EPA chart..I guess they would be gathered from the multiple sensors they put on the body of the stove. Not sure if those are all the result of the highest of the four burn rate runs.
From what I read of Method 28 just now, the high burn rate run is conducted with the air wide open. Nobody does that. That would probably not be efficient at all at extracting heat from the load, and probably worse on cat stoves where all the volatiles would be blowing through the cat unburned. The BK thermo might limit BTU out when the air was wide open, if it automatically closed the air some. You'd have to think that the baffles in the BK box would limit the amount of heat that can radiate from the coals to the walls of the stove, so that may be part of it as well.
Then when you go to the stove websites, the confusion proliferates. Some list the max outputs in BTU, not BTU/hr. Then the BK site says the King puts out "51,582 BTU's/h constant output for 12 hours." How does that translate to the EPA BTU/hr. numbers for the Buck 91 (51200) vs. the King (39800?) I never ran a King but I'd be willing to bet a substantial amount of White Oak that the 91 would thrash the King in output/hr, although the King might beat the 91 in total heat per load since the Buck only has about 3 cu.ft. usable, and the trapezoidal fire box which makes stuffing it more of a challenge. All that said, Woodstock's stove pages list the EPA numbers, so that lends even more credence to them. Did I mention I'm a Woodstock fanboy? You didn't think I pulled the name "Woody" out of thin air, didya?
Bottom line, all I can say for sure is that for the four stoves I've run, the EPA numbers translate pretty well to the amount of heat the stoves put into my house. I'm sure there are some anomalies on the EPA list but based on what I've seen, the EPA numbers might be the best way we have of comparing how stoves will heat in actual use. Of course there are other factors to consider such as radiant vs. convective heat etc.
These guys are saying that the Princess and King run pretty low as well, and I believe them. You kinda talk like that Eyesocket guy, yet you also use the term "bloody." Lemme guess, your dad is British and your mom is French. As far as the open window, I might be handing my wife the pup tent/sleeping bag and telling her, "have at it." I'm still wearing my wool shorty socks in the bed for when she gets up and I lose her heat from the down comforter cocoon envelope. Of course, I'm an old man so YMMV. How long does it take to toss in more wood, then get room temp up from 17* to a comfortable temp?

I run my stove wide open sometimes, so there is somebody out there who does it.

There’s always some wood left over when i get home, so i crank the stove and turn up the fan. Brings living area temp up within the hour.

Also, my stove sits in the middle of our main living area, and is a nice fit. I think a physically larger stove would have looked too overbearing in this smaller space. Plus, it took a while to convince my wife that this one wasn’t too big.

 

[MissMac]

This is correct. @MissMac, if you have the space for it, there is very little reason to not go big on a cat stove. With their ability to turn way, way down, the size of the firebox becomes more just a measure of fuel tank capacity than anything else. Your stove dealer may have talked about roasting you out of the house with a too-large stove, but that does not apply very well to BK, they are unique in this regard.

I’ve seen a few posts on the forum lately, complaining about the repetitive posts bragging about BK burn times, and I can get that. But what those people seem to be missing is exactly what I am describing above. Super long burn times are a fun thing to play with, but their real value is exactly what my paragraph above states: it removes most of the dependency of matching the size of a stove with a narrower range of output capability to your heating needs.

This applies to many cat stoves, not just BK. As Woody has already pointed out in past threads, some of the Woodstock stoves have rated output ranges even wider than BK, but shifted higher into the range. If you need big heat, and don’t mind the looks of Woodstock, they are another great option.

ya sorry, i might not have used my words very well in my other post. Nobody talked me into any stove - i was hell bent on what i wanted, and in fact the installer was questioning why a BK at all. For sure i get that the size of the BK is less relevant because of it’s burning properties, but i suppose what I meant was that when i chose the stove, a number of things were considered. The physical size of the stove in relation to the room it’s in (anything larger would look out of place), the look (for my wife, who wasn’t keen on a stove to begin with), getting the biggest fuel tank while balancing a and b, but also i wanted to get a stove that i could run on high setting when it’s super cold or to clean up the box without it being so outrageously overheated. One of the things i read while researching and i’m pretty sure some of the guys on here have pointed out is that if you oversized your stove requirement, then you don’t ever want to run it on high, which means its oversized for what you want to do with it. I understand what you’re all saying, but i guess what i’m saying is that i picked the right stove to fit in our house that we like and it does a darn good job as far as i’m concerned in this frigid northern Ontario winter. I don’t think that the target audience for BKs are people who consistently deal with weather in the -20 to -40*C range to do long 24 hour burns? More for you southern folk with a bit more moderate temps. Or am i wrong in this point? Also, for the record, my house is drafty. I have a dozen windows that are crap and leak like sieves. Two of them don’t even close properly. And before someone says it, i’m broke. There is no money in this house to replace windows, reinsulate walls etc. But there is a plethora of wood up here...

 

[dh1989]

I decided to do a 15 minute timed full throttle glass cleaning burn off on this morning's reload of oak and ash. Returned to clean glass and 895F stove top temperature measured with IR thermometer. Flue probe showed 800F. I think that's a new record for this stove. I didn't notice anything glowing other than the cat shield although there were some nice creaking popping metal noises on the cool down.

 

[kf6hap]

One of the things i read while researching and i’m pretty sure some of the guys on here have pointed out is that if you oversized your stove requirement, then you don’t ever want to run it on high, which means its oversized for what you want to do with it.

Unlike some stoves that might rage out control and have the unit glowing dull red, BKs have a built in BTU limiter: the thermostat. It is set up at the factory to prevent the stove from overheating. This being the case, I don't know why you would never want to run a BK on high. Any stove run wide open is going to give you some serious BTUs. The BK thermostat is really a BTU output controller to be set and forgotten about until BTU needs change.

I don’t think that the target audience for BKs are people who consistently deal with weather in the -20 to -40*C range to do long 24 hour burns?

Well, BKs are good sellers in Alaska and -remember- they are made in good old Canada. The looong burn times apply to lower settings. My Ashford 30 stove is oversized tor the ~950 square feet the Ashford 20 would have been a better BTU "fit" but both have phenomenal turn down. Opting for the larger stove increases burn time and wood burning efficiency as it has a much larger heat exchanger. More heat goes into the house rather than up the flue.

 

[Mnpellet]

Loving this stove more everyday. I bought a wireless thermostat to turn the fan on and off and so far haven’t needed it much but worked good last night.

 

[MissMac]

Unlike some stoves that might rage out control and have the unit glowing dull red, BKs have a built in BTU limiter: the thermostat. It is set up at the factory to prevent the stove from overheating. This being the case, I don't know why you would never want to run a BK on high. Any stove run wide open is going to give you some serious BTUs. The BK thermostat is really a BTU output controller to be set and forgotten about until BTU needs change.



Well, BK are good sellers in Alaska and -remember- they are made in good old Canada. The looong burn times apply to lower settings. My Ashford 30 stove is oversized tor the ~950 square feet the Ashford 20 would have been a better BTU "fit" but both have phenomenal turn down. Opting for the larger stove increases burn time and wood burning efficiency as it has a much larger heat exchanger. More heat goes into the house rather than up the flue.

Ya sorry, you misunderstood me. Yes, run it on high. I meant that if you bought a stove that cranked out so much heat on high that you avoided running it wide open, then maybe your stove is oversized. I run my stove on high lots.