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

[chemie]

I forgot which model of stove you have, but if is the ceramic cat, I doubt it's clogged. If it is SS cat, it can be possible. Looks like SS cat has the tendency of clogging regardless chimney length. A family member crossing the street has an Ashford on around 17' of chimney with two 45s and it got clogged last winter.
Never hurts to have a spare just in case but if it is ceramic, a good vacuuming will do it without have to remove it. It is hard to believe that in only one year it went bad but everything is possible.

It is AF 25 insert. I have done a good vacuuming with a strong vacuum ( Rainbow) when the season ended but I am not sure if it worked or not. I am tempted to use a strong hair dryer ( dyson) to blow air into cat but I am thinking it may hurt the cells of the cat.

 

[Tegbert]

It is AF 25 insert. I have done a good vacuuming with a strong vacuum ( Rainbow) when the season ended but I am not sure if it worked or not. I am tempted to use a strong hair dryer ( dyson) to blow air into cat but I am thinking it may hurt the cells of the cat.

It should be a steel cat. If you open the bypass and stick you phone or camera up there you can see most of the combustor that is what I have done.


Lopi Rockport
Blaze King Ashford 25

 

[MTASH]

Interesting... is the smell thing only found with the ashford or are the other models with the same firebox equally likely to have it? If it is so rare and easily fixed I would have loved to get my hands on one of those deep discounted models!

On a side note, I figured this would be a good place to ask this since it is mostly blaze king owners reading this thread. What is the shortest flue height you guys have heard a blaze king princess/ashford type stove running (well) on? I could have sworn I had looked at an older pdf manual that stated 12' minimum but I just noticed all the new ones say 15 feet from flue collar on stove. I am installing in a single story ranch with a fairly shallow pitch roof. My chimney install I went quite a bit higher than the roof code to make sure it would draft well but I still will only have about 12' of flue from stove top. I know it's not a deal breaker i can always add another section of pipe if it doesn't draft well enough but just looking for some insight and weighing all the options. I was originally looking at tube burners because I didn't want the added expense of replacing a cat every so often, but after lurking here long enough and doing some reading I have decided a cat stove really sounds better for us. Thanks in advance for any feedback you guys might have

My chimney is 13'-6" from floor to cap, so effectively I have about 10'-11' of stack. It's an exterior masonry chimney w/7"x11" flue, so is oversized for this application, and about the worst combination possible. My Ashford ran fine last season, but does get finicky to light and hot load when the outdoor temps are above 30F or so.

This fall I'm going to add a liner and add a 3'-4' extension at the top.

 

[Highbeam]

We really should be talking hours for expected cat life. My 9 month long burn season will burn up a cat twice as fast as a more average 5 month season. Heck, the far more typical burner that only burns on weekends during those 5 months might get 10 freaking years!

The symptoms of a really dead cat are obvious. You will know if you are paying attention at all. It has a fast death spiral. There is a pretty long period where the cat works good enough but at obviously reduced efficiency and then bam, you have to run on medium just to stay warm.

None of my dead cats were broken or crumbled. The first one had a crack or two which is normal. I have two moisture meters!

Oh, you definitely want to buy a used car from me. I will admit that I prefer to maintain my equipment in top shape. Cats are cheap and smoke is ugly, wasteful, and avoidable.

 

[BKVP]

But what percentage are bad because of thermal shock? That is commonly what we see.

Good question. You of course see them from a list of 90+ manufacturers that made cat stoves in the 80's and 90's. You have a breadth of experience. For our unit with vertically integrated cats (starting 1997) or view of thermal shocked units is minimal.

Also, and this is key, you won't see the visual effect of thermal shock on the metal substrate cats. Unfortunately, if a cat stove design permits the cat to get above 1600F routinely, the wash coat will flatten out, decrease surface area and ultimately fail.

We won't see that in the metal substrate units, but they still are compromised.

 

[BKVP]

I don't understand how a thicker door gasket would help. I'm actually really glad to see this post since there was a very lengthy thread about an Ashford that allegedly released a smell. I honestly don't know how any stove can emit an odor originating from the firebox without opening the door, with the exception of a back puff or flash back. Furthermore it should never be the smell of creosote unless their cat isn't working or the fire is smoldering in a non cat. I just don't understand how a box under positive pressure could leak creosote vapor into a house, especially given this poster even had a draft guage on the stack. It does seem that marginal firewood is the culprit at times.

This is very pedantic and only to satisfy my own curiosity.

You are hitting the nail on the head! None of the few consumers involved ever saw smoke. Just smelled it. Not at a specific time, but sometimes it was just present. So could there have been a delayed ignition of gases and the unit back puffed? Perhaps. That lends the the entire point of the units not have an issue when reinstalled into other applications. One user contacted us to say they had new siding put on their house. The contractor showed them with a flashlight a 1/16" gap that existed between the brick of the exterior wall fireplace and the structure. (Yes we know about clearances to combustibles) He said he thought he had a skunk living under his house because at times the smell was very strong.

In the end, at times odors from outside were coming into the home by way of that gap...and ever since the work was down and the house was sealed, no more skunk smell...or wood smoke smell either.

Every application is unique!

 

[Ashful]

You’d do well to encourage these posters to follow up their threads here, with the resolution. Those threads may have given the Ashford a reputation it never deserved, if they were indeed mostly resolved.

Me? I’m still in love with mine. Even the ash pans.

... and to @chemie, don’t blow anything into the stove! You won’t believe how quickly it will make a mess of your house. I found the best method for cleaning my plugged SteelCats in-place was a soft pipe cleaner, but spending $8 on 3 feet of interam gasket is even better. Just pull the thing, clean it, wrap it in a new gasket and masking tape, and slide it back in. Buy 10 feet of gasket, so you have some spare, in case you want to do an impromptu cleaning, mid-season.

 

[chemie]

... and to @chemie, don’t blow anything into the stove! You won’t believe how quickly it will make a mess of your house. I found the best method for cleaning my plugged SteelCats in-place was a soft pipe cleaner, but spending $8 on 3 feet of interam gasket is even better. Just pull the thing, clean it, wrap it in a new gasket and masking tape, and slide it back in. Buy 10 feet of gasket, so you have some spare, in case you want to do an impromptu cleaning, mid-season.

I searched for Youtube videos to see if there is any showing replacement of cat gasket before I attempt something I cannot do. A few
Videos I saw is on standing stoves not inserts.
My Ashord insert has a kind of cage where the cat is installed.
I took some pics. There are some debris on the visible parts. Can one tell if it seems clogged from the limited view?

I also just saw that one side of the bypass door is a bit sinking. I tried to push it back to align it but didn’t work.

 

[lsucet]

I searched for Youtube videos to see if there is any showing replacement of cat gasket before I attempt something I cannot do. A few
Videos I saw is on standing stoves not inserts.
My Ashord insert has a kind of cage where the cat is installed.
I took some pics. There are some debris on the visible parts. Can one tell if it seems clogged from the limited view?
View attachment 247288 View attachment 247289 View attachment 247290 View attachment 247291 View attachment 247292 View attachment 247293 View attachment 247294

It looks clogged for sure.

 

[showrguy]

I searched for Youtube videos to see if there is any showing replacement of cat gasket before I attempt something I cannot do. A few
Videos I saw is on standing stoves not inserts.
My Ashord insert has a kind of cage where the cat is installed.
I took some pics. There are some debris on the visible parts. Can one tell if it seems clogged from the limited view?
View attachment 247288 View attachment 247289 View attachment 247290 View attachment 247291 View attachment 247292 View attachment 247293 View attachment 247294

Eww, yuk,,
What are you burning in that thing ??

 

[chemie]

Eww, yuk,,
What are you burning in that thing ??

Last year I mostly used 4 years seasoned Oak that I got from someone. Through the end of the season I mixed it not so perfectly dried Black Locust with MC around 25 %. At the very end of the season, there are a few occasions that I used some not so perfectly seasoned mulberry and Japanese Pagoda (?) that I found on Craigslist. That was near the end of the season that I am thinking from your reaction made the cat “yucky” .
Should I be worried?

 

[ratsrepus]

checked with family farm home which is a much better tractor supply, and picked up a pallet of enviro bricks, or green heat what ever you want to call them, $229 for a pallet, (ton)

 

[ratsrepus]

Eww, yuk,,
What are you burning in that thing ??

man thats one plugged cat

 

[Ashful]

That grille in front with the holes is just the flame shield, on the Ashford 30 it just lifts out. Yours is probably similar. Once you have it out, grab the “ears” on either side of the cat, and slide it out, it will be snug but it will come.

Vacuum both faces several times with shop vac, until you can look thru it into the light and see all is clear. Then get yourself some 2” x 1/16” interam gasket ($2 per foot), wrap it around the cat starting at one corner and ending at the same corner. Trim to length, and then wrap masking tape around the gasket to hold it in place. Slide it back into its hole, and re-install the flame shield, the tape will burn off during first use,

 

[chemie]

That grille in front with the holes is just the flame shield, on the Ashford 30 it just lifts out. Yours is probably similar. Once you have it out, grab the “ears” on either side of the cat, and slide it out, it will be snug but it will come.

Vacuum both faces several times with shop vac, until you can look thru it into the light and see all is clear. Then get yourself some 2” x 1/16” interam gasket ($2 per foot), wrap it around the cat starting at one corner and ending at the same corner. Trim to length, and then wrap masking tape around the gasket to hold it in place. Slide it back into its hole, and re-install the flame shield, the tape will burn off during first use,

I really feel dumb now. When I saw the nuts there I thought I had to go through more complicated process. I just lifted the flame shield.

Do you guys lift the shield and vacuum it (from front) regularly during the season?

 

[chemie]

I just vacuumed it from the front with Dyson. This is how it looks. I still see tiny deposits in the cells but nothing like they are clogged fully. Of course I dont know how is the other end.
Is this much of deposit a sign of clogged cat? Or it looks normal now? Do you guys bacuum your cat regularly during the season?
After removing the shield I realized that the top part of the cat looks like out of shape and there is a gap. It looks like the cat as if had a weight on it causing it to sink resulting with squeezed middle cells. Is this normal?

 

[Diabel]

Someone once told me that a BK stove cannot be over fired. Chemie just posted proof of a classic over fire case.

 

[kennyp2339]

@chemie you have some pretty serious warpage going on there, from the center out starting at the bottom (metal turned red) to the top, very high over fire temps, prob from excessive draft since the t-stat should not allow the whole firebox to get red hot, this was my theory last year with my unit on having to strong of a draft and the heat getting sucked right out of the box before the t-stat could react.. yours seems much worse then mine.

 

[BKVP]

Someone once told me that a BK stove cannot be over fired. Chemie just posted proof of a classic over fire case.

Not true...the cat he has does not have a center support like later versions. He did not over fire his stove. Chemise PM me and we'll take care of that cat...

 

[Diabel]

Not true...the cat he has does not have a center support like later versions. He did not over fire his stove. Chemise PM me and we'll take care of that cat...

Phew
That is good to hear.
I am just overly sensitive due to running a VC stove for many years and always being aware of overfire situations.

 

[ratsrepus]

Not true...the cat he has does not have a center support like later versions. He did not over fire his stove. Chemise PM me and we'll take care of that cat...

what would cause the cat to sag like that?

 

[Ashful]

Do you guys bacuum your cat regularly during the season?

Back when I was having the clogging problems on my one Ashford, I was having to pop off that flame shield and vacuum the face of the cat a few times each season. It was not possible to really do a good job of it in the A30, because there is not clear access to the cat, but I was able to get most of it. At least once each season I’d plug it bad enough that I’d have to pull it and really get in there and get everything clean.

Since switching to the ceramic cat and adding the key damper, I am back to just vacuuming some dust off the face of the cat once or twice per season, no more clogging issues. I made both changes in such close succession that I can’t claim to know which had the bigger effect, but I suspect it was the key damper. I run a steelcat in a second A30 on a shorter pipe, with no issues whatsoever.

 

[Highbeam]

what would cause the cat to sag like that?

Getting too hot and not having a center support as the newer models do!

Might want to check the bypass gasket retainers for failure too.

 

[ratsrepus]

anyone know where you can buy a large roll of the 2 inch gasket material. I think its better to completely remove the cat and clean it form both sides, therefore requiring new gaskets.

 

[BKVP]

what would cause the cat to sag like that?

I have posted here before and shared many times the "power" of iteram combustor gasket. I had a custom pair of headers built for my Chevelle. (Which I sold 3 weeks ago) Due to the design and 540 BBC, one pipe on each side ran outside the frame rail. Where all four on each side came back together there was a collector. The header pipe slid over the collector. It was 3/16" aluminum. A pipe clamp used in irrigation pipe was used to hold it all together. I saw build up showing a leak, took it and part a wrapped it with interam.

I started it up, no leak and went for a drive. 30 minutes later heard and felt large bang! Interam expanded...broke very heavy clamp and split the aluminum.