2019-20 Blaze King Performance Thread Part 1 (Everything BK)

[Kwehme09]

What are folks ash cleanout strategies for their BK? I have the pedestal base from my Sirocco, but never use it because I rarely do a full cleanout and don't think I can get the little hatch in the firebox closed well without doing a TOTAL cleanout. Thoughts?

 

[webby3650]

Or even other cat stoves. Besides the thermostat, those heat shields on the inside of the BKs keep the thin box from getting too hot and warping

The parlor model doesn’t have outside shielding of any kind, it gets hot enough to burn the wooden bypass handle off of it. I’ve seen it several times with no other damage to the stove. It’s simply a preference of convection or radiant style stoves. The side shields and interior shields do not prevent heat from making it into the room, it’s just not radiating straight through the sides. To me the ultra is the best of both worlds.

 

[webby3650]

What are folks ash cleanout strategies for their BK? I have the pedestal base from my Sirocco, but never use it because I rarely do a full cleanout and don't think I can get the little hatch in the firebox closed well without doing a TOTAL cleanout. Thoughts?

Ohh man, you’re missing out then. It’s really nice.
I push all the coals and ash to the back, pull the plug and rake as much ash as I can while leaving the coals behind. Then I leave the hot coals and ash in the pan to cool until a few weeks later when I repeat the process. An ash hoe works very well for this. When you drop the plug back in, just make sure there’s no chucks of coal sitting in the rim, drop the plug and scatter the remaining coals and ash out on the floor.

 

[BKVP]

The entire Btu point of discussion is frustrating. Let's be very clear that Btu calculations involve a great number of variables. When a stove is tested for EPA compliance, using the Method 28 crib fuel method (now 28R), the total input of fuel is based upon firebox volume. I have posted this before, but based upon FBV, you can have all 4 x 4's or 2 x 4's or a combination. That results in various fuel load densities within the same basic size stoves! Never mind that a lab could measure a stoves FBV differently than usable space. Then there is the tail. Not the dog type, but long extended burns that some stoves get. This is what consumers hope for, but it results in lower "printed" Btu's!

When all the math is done, they divide the end result by the duration of the burn! That is how printed Btu's are very misleading. Also, the new ASTM cord wood test method throws an entire different wrench into the workings. The cord wood method high burn allows for 40% more fuel volume in the high burn than the crib fuel test method. And whereas, in the crib method the end of the run is when the scale reads zero (meaning you burned the entire load), the cord wood test is over when the scale has 10% of fuel load remaining.

If you do not have a test lab, familiarization with the formulas, a dilution tunnel etc., understand that biomass fuels have a fixed number of Btu's in a pound. Short burn times let you print big numbers when in reality, there is very little difference in high end Btu's if you know all the factors that influence what you get to put on a brochure!

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.....

 

[Woody Stover]

And can you imagine the clearances and hearth pad requirements....

I think that mighta been what webby was saying here..

Of course the whole stove isn’t 800. If it were, it would be pretty hard to fit into most homes.

 

[Ashful]

We all know, this has been beat to death. Of course the whole stove isn’t 800. If it were, it would be pretty hard to fit into most homes. If it were, the burn times would match that of the nearly uncontrollable and often unpredictable high output noncats. Controlled heat, that’s more my style and the others that follow this BK thread.

Geez guys... Woody and I were just having some fun, poking jabs at each other. Didn’t mean to kick off the bi-annual “BK can do anything” debate. It’s too early in the season for that!

 

[Ashful]

The parlor model doesn’t have outside shielding of any kind, it gets hot enough to burn the wooden bypass handle off of it. I’ve seen it several times with no other damage to the stove. It’s simply a preference of convection or radiant style stoves. The side shields and interior shields do not prevent heat from making it into the room, it’s just not radiating straight through the sides. To me the ultra is the best of both worlds.

I came from owning several Jotuls with a grate floor to the BK’s with their ash plug system, and I wasn’t really a fan of it at first. In fact, I’m still not. You lose too many coals down the hole, while trying to plow ash into it. But I have a solution.

I bought a 3-7/8" diameter cast iron floor drain grate (https://www.mcmaster.com/2413K1), removed every second bar from that with my die grinder, and now I just drop that into the hole when it’s time to plow ash. I’m able to rake the ash and coals across this grate, allowing the ash to fall into the pan while keeping my coals in the stove. It works brilliantly.

When done, simply use the plug lifter tool that comes with your stove to lift the hot little floor drain grate out, and set it on your hearth to cool while re-installing the plug.

If BK wants to start selling these, or supplying a similar thing with their stoves, it would go a long way toward helping the users with this chore. I’d only expect a $1 royalty for each unit sold. [emoji14]

 

[pjohnson]

I’ll start the my BK can do anything debate I’ve got a King ultra in a small cabin in northern wisconsin temps in 20’s to low 30’s, had to leave for a few days so fill the stove up to minimize the electric backup heat. Filled it full with good solid oak Friday morning, 48 hours later was still maintaining 74 degrees in cabin after 60 hours temp dropped to 70. Temp slowly went down to 55 after 3 and half days. No electric heat, absolutely love this stove.

 

[webby3650]

I came from owning several Jotuls with a grate floor to the BK’s with their ash plug system, and I wasn’t really a fan of it at first. In fact, I’m still not. You lose too many coals down the hole, while trying to plow ash into it. But I have a solution.

I bought a 3-7/8" diameter cast iron floor drain grate (https://www.mcmaster.com/2413K1), removed every second bar from that with my die grinder, and now I just drop that into the hole when it’s time to plow ash. I’m able to rake the ash and coals across this grate, allowing the ash to fall into the pan while keeping my coals in the stove. It works brilliantly.

When done, simply use the plug lifter tool that comes with your stove to lift the hot little floor drain grate out, and set it on your hearth to cool while re-installing the plug.

If BK wants to start selling these, or supplying a similar thing with their stoves, it would go a long way toward helping the users with this chore. I’d only expect a $1 royalty for each unit sold. [emoji14]

With the shallow belly I could see coal retention being a concern, I remember that with my Ashford as well. The Princess is so deep I don’t really give it too much thought, and never bother to clean it all the way out. There’s more than enough coals hiding in there.

 

[webby3650]

I came from owning several Jotuls with a grate floor to the BK’s with their ash plug system

My Mansfield was an older model, but ashes wouldn’t even fall through the grate. I had to literally scrub the ashes through it, so I had to just shovel it out. I hated it.
What I don’t like about grated floors is that if you don’t keep up with it, when you do remove the pan, ash falls down below and has to be cleaned out. I like being in control of when and how much ash falls through.

 

[Ashful]

My Mansfield was an older model, but ashes wouldn’t even fall through the grate. I had to literally scrub the ashes through it, so I had to just shovel it out. I hated it.
What I don’t like about grated floors is that if you don’t keep up with it, when you do remove the pan, ash falls down below and has to be cleaned out. I like being in control of when and how much ash falls through.

That was never an issue with the Jotuls. Those Norwegians must’ve put some R&D money into finding the optimum grate spacing, because ash just fell thru when I raked, but never while the pan was removed. It was a beautiful system.

However, there was a potentially fatal flaw. The ash pan door was only about 5” high but 20” wide. I could easily see someone snapping it off its hinges, if they used it as a crutch to stand after withdrawing the pan, or tripped on it. That could be disastrous after loading the stove with fresh fuel, which is why I always did my cleaning BEFORE loading. Also, you need to keep that door gasket in good shape, or else your stove becomes a forge, with that configuration.

 

[Woody Stover]

The parlor model doesn’t have outside shielding of any kind

I'm talking about the shielding inside the box..I think BKVP may have at one point called them "baffles?"

Blaze King Sirroco 30 Overfires when thermostate is above med/high.

Hi everyone. I hope someone can help me here. I just bought a sirocco 30 this year and have been trying to learn how to use it the past few weeks. It's awesome getting 24 hour burns with even heat. But I have a few problems. I know your supposed to burn your fuel on high for 20 or 30 minutes to...

www.hearth.com

long extended burns that some stoves get. This is what consumers hope for, but it results in lower "printed" Btu's!
When all the math is done, they divide the end result by the duration of the burn! That is how printed Btu's are very misleading.

Not all consumers want a long, low burn all of the time. Sometimes we want to raise house temp as quickly as possible. As bholler has pointed out, the BK he runs doesn't put out the high BTU/hr. and raise room temp like his Regency can. It seems to me that the baffles inside the firebox blocks the radiant flame heat to the walls of the stove, and that the further you open the air on a BK, the higher percentage of heat you are going to flush up the chimney, opposed to what you would get into the room from a stove where the radiant flame heat can directly heat the sides of the firebox. I believe that the baffles are one of the design features that allow the BKs to burn so low and slow. I ain't no rocket or stove scientist though, and besides, I almost never have a big blaze going in the box, trying to recover house temp. Others who are away from home longer, or heat a cold vacation cabin, may wish to do that. We are pretty much around when we need to be so that room temp doesn't vary a whole lot, except in brutal cold and wind, when I'll run some flame in the box to heat up the sides of the stove and get that stone radiating, cooking us in our recliners like a couple convenience-store hot dogs in the rotisserie.

Geez guys... Woody and I were just having some fun, poking jabs at each other. Didn’t mean to kick off the bi-annual “BK can do anything” debate. It’s too early in the season for that!

Right on, bro, we gotta pace ourselves and peak at the right time.

I came from owning several Jotuls with a grate floor to the BK’s with their ash plug system, and I wasn’t really a fan of it at first. In fact, I’m still not. You lose too many coals down the hole, while trying to plow ash into it. But I have a solution.
I bought a 3-7/8" diameter cast iron floor drain grate (https://www.mcmaster.com/2413K1), removed every second bar from that with my die grinder, and now I just drop that into the hole when it’s time to plow ash. I’m able to rake the ash and coals across this grate, allowing the ash to fall into the pan while keeping my coals in the stove. It works brilliantly.
When done, simply use the plug lifter tool that comes with your stove to lift the hot little floor drain grate out, and set it on your hearth to cool while re-installing the plug.
If BK wants to start selling these, or supplying a similar thing with their stoves, it would go a long way toward helping the users with this chore. I’d only expect a $1 royalty for each unit sold.

You ought to be working there, maybe you can get that R&D team on the right track.
I've said it before and I'll say it now, there ain't no perfect stove. You have to make a list of your priorities, then pick the stove that most closely matches those. And as you get more experience, your priorities could always change. It's all part of the grand adventure that is heating with wood.

 

[MTASH]

I came from owning several Jotuls with a grate floor to the BK’s with their ash plug system, and I wasn’t really a fan of it at first. In fact, I’m still not. You lose too many coals down the hole, while trying to plow ash into it. But I have a solution.

I bought a 3-7/8" diameter cast iron floor drain grate (https://www.mcmaster.com/2413K1), removed every second bar from that with my die grinder, and now I just drop that into the hole when it’s time to plow ash. I’m able to rake the ash and coals across this grate, allowing the ash to fall into the pan while keeping my coals in the stove. It works brilliantly.

When done, simply use the plug lifter tool that comes with your stove to lift the hot little floor drain grate out, and set it on your hearth to cool while re-installing the plug.

If BK wants to start selling these, or supplying a similar thing with their stoves, it would go a long way toward helping the users with this chore. I’d only expect a $1 royalty for each unit sold. [emoji14]

Great idea, you sold me on it! Or I might scrounge around in my scrap metal heap and see if I have a piece of heavy expanded metal to cut my own grate.

 

[Woody Stover]

What I don’t like about grated floors is that if you don’t keep up with it, when you do remove the pan, ash falls down below and has to be cleaned out. I like being in control of when and how much ash falls through.

That was never an issue with the Jotuls. Those Norwegians must’ve put some R&D money into finding the optimum grate spacing, because ash just fell thru when I raked, but never while the pan was removed. It was a beautiful system....I always did my cleaning BEFORE loading

Same with the Keystone; Ash doesn't fall through until you run a poker through the ash. You can let it get as deep as you want. But webby may be saying that if you let the pan get too full, some ash will be scraped off the top of the pile as you pull the pan, depositing it on the floor of the ash housing. You develop a knack of knowing when the pan is full, but not too full or you could look in there with a flashlight if you had to. If it is heaped, you can wiggle the pan to level it, and it doesn't spill. I've only had to remove ash from the floor of the housing a couple times when I was learning the stove, but not since then. There's also a 1/4" hole in the ash pan housing feeding air to the coals through the grate. You can let the ash build up and minimize that air, or you can scrape the ash through the grate in selected areas of the load that you want to burn faster. I recall reading that one of the Ws steel stoves wasn't the optimal spacing but I think it was on a beta or early model and they probably fixed it. Webby will need to stumble onto deals on an IS and AS, and report back.

 

[webby3650]

Webby will need to stumble onto deals on an IS and AS, and report back

You know I’m always looking!

 

[webby3650]

That was never an issue with the Jotuls. Those Norwegians must’ve put some R&D money into finding the optimum grate spacing, because ash just fell thru when I raked, but never while the pan was removed. It was a beautiful system.

However, there was a potentially fatal flaw. The ash pan door was only about 5” high but 20” wide. I could easily see someone snapping it off its hinges, if they used it as a crutch to stand after withdrawing the pan, or tripped on it. That could be disastrous after loading the stove with fresh fuel, which is why I always did my cleaning BEFORE loading. Also, you need to keep that door gasket in good shape, or else your stove becomes a forge, with that configuration.

I’ve had 2 Jotul 500’s and a 600 all with grated floors. They worked good, and could cause big problems for an unobservant operator. It was just messier than I like. I’ve had several other stoves with grated floors too, only the Hearthstone was designed so poorly that no ash would fall through it. Doesn’t even seem possible.

 

[Kwehme09]

Ohh man, you’re missing out then. It’s really nice.
I push all the coals and ash to the back, pull the plug and rake as much ash as I can while leaving the coals behind. Then I leave the hot coals and ash in the pan to cool until a few weeks later when I repeat the process. An ash hoe works very well for this. When you drop the plug back in, just make sure there’s no chucks of coal sitting in the rim, drop the plug and scatter the remaining coals and ash out on the floor.

Maybe Ill give it another try. My worry was always that ash in the rim would lead to a bad air seal.

 

[Ashful]

Great idea, you sold me on it! Or I might scrounge around in my scrap metal heap and see if I have a piece of heavy expanded metal to cut my own grate.

Note that the grate I posted is just the right thickness that, when dropped into the hole for the ash plug, ends up resting on the metal lip for the plug and sitting perfectly flush with the firebrick floor. Expanded metal can work, but it’s going to sit down in the hole more, with coals falling into that depression and making it tougher to plow cleanly across the top.

You want something with thickness similar to the top part of the ash plug, roughly 3/8” thick.

 

[bholler]

The entire Btu point of discussion is frustrating. Let's be very clear that Btu calculations involve a great number of variables. When a stove is tested for EPA compliance, using the Method 28 crib fuel method (now 28R), the total input of fuel is based upon firebox volume. I have posted this before, but based upon FBV, you can have all 4 x 4's or 2 x 4's or a combination. That results in various fuel load densities within the same basic size stoves! Never mind that a lab could measure a stoves FBV differently than usable space. Then there is the tail. Not the dog type, but long extended burns that some stoves get. This is what consumers hope for, but it results in lower "printed" Btu's!

When all the math is done, they divide the end result by the duration of the burn! That is how printed Btu's are very misleading. Also, the new ASTM cord wood test method throws an entire different wrench into the workings. The cord wood method high burn allows for 40% more fuel volume in the high burn than the crib fuel test method. And whereas, in the crib method the end of the run is when the scale reads zero (meaning you burned the entire load), the cord wood test is over when the scale has 10% of fuel load remaining.

If you do not have a test lab, familiarization with the formulas, a dilution tunnel etc., understand that biomass fuels have a fixed number of Btu's in a pound. Short burn times let you print big numbers when in reality, there is very little difference in high end Btu's if you know all the factors that influence what you get to put on a brochure!

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.....

I am not talking about lab results. I am talking about the ability of 2 different stoves in the same house running through the same chimney using the same type and condition of wood to heat that house. When the temps drop into the low 20s I ran both stoves on 8 hour load cycles and the house was warmer with the regency. And I was able to keep the oil furnace off with the regency untill single digits with the regency while I had to turn it on in the low teens with the princess. And that was after adding 12" of attic insulation in the summer between the switch.

 

[bholler]

All that being said the princess does put out more even heat and is much easier to run from the upper 30s up.

 

[BKVP]

The burn rate (Btu production) is different between the two models you cited...based on the hourly analogy.

If you still have both models, you could run each at the exact same burn rate (if you have a scale for doing so) so the lbs per hour consumption is the same.

Both stoves are great heaters!

 

[Woody Stover]

Maybe Ill give it another try. My worry was always that ash in the rim would lead to a bad air seal.

On my SIL's T5, instead of a plug there is a plate that hinges on a rod, covering the bottom of the ash dump opening. I can jiggle the rod a little to clear the ash from the plate. Then there's also a slot or something that the plate slides into, so you have positive feedback that the ash dump absolutely is closed and can't leak air. It's a pretty good system, but the dump opening could be bigger. The Buck 91 had a hinged top lid and the opening was slightly bigger than 3"x5". I could close it, then tap it with a poker and hear when it was metal on metal and cleanly sealing the opening. I had a short L-shaped poker that I could stick down the dump to distribute the ash in the pan so it wasn't in a pile below the dump opening.
You may be able to jiggle that plug around in the BK and maybe it will clear the ash for a positive seal. I like the Buck and T5 systems for the fact that there's no plug to mess with, just a hinged cover.
Hey, look what came up when I googled BKVP. I had no idea!

 

[BKVP]

On my SIL's T5, instead of a plug there is a plate that hinges on a rod, covering the bottom of the ash dump opening. I can jiggle the rod a little to clear the ash from the plate. Then there's also a slot or something that the plate slides into, so you have positive feedback that the ash dump absolutely is closed and can't leak air. It's a pretty good system, but the dump opening could be bigger. The Buck 91 had a hinged top lid and the opening was slightly bigger than 3"x5". I could close it, then tap it with a poker and hear when it was metal on metal and cleanly sealing the opening. I had a short L-shaped poker that I could stick down the dump to distribute the ash in the pan so it wasn't in a pile below the dump opening.
You may be able to jiggle that plug around in the BK and maybe it will clear the ash for a positive seal. I like the Buck and T5 systems for the fact that there's no plug to mess with, just a hinged cover.
Hey, look what came up when I googled BKVP. I had no idea!
View attachment 251753

Dude that isn't me! The Woodstock link is correct, the team there are good friends of mine!

 

[Woody Stover]

The Woodstock link is correct, the team there are good friends of mine!

You're still keeping the King too, right?

 

[bholler]

The burn rate (Btu production) is different between the two models you cited...based on the hourly analogy.

If you still have both models, you could run each at the exact same burn rate (if you have a scale for doing so) so the lbs per hour consumption is the same.

Both stoves are great heaters!

Ok they are similarly sized fireboxes with the princess being a little bigger. I ran them both on wood from the same load of pole wood. I had to reload at similar times. So how is that not an accurate comparison?