I am the proud owner of a new-to-me Blaze King Princess. This is my first time using a Cat stove and I'm figuring it out, but boy what a learning curve. My first fire I was just experimenting with a few logs. The cat probe got into the active zone and I shut it down but the cat never glowed and the stove didn't really get up to temp. I also turned the blower on and the stove didn't like that. The probe dropped out of the active zone and things seemed to be cooling down. The fire was out in about 3 hours. A little disappointing but not a huge deal.
The second fire, I really loaded it up and got things running quickly. I closed the bypass as soon as the probe read active but the stove soon got to 900 degree stove top temp and got that over-fired-stove smell. I backed things off (and got the fire extinguisher ready) and the temp settled down to about 600. I dropped the tstat down to about 2 and got a 12 hour burn. Much better than the last time, but still not as long as I'm looking for from this legendary long burner.
This morning, I loaded things up again, got the fire going, closed the bypass and then dropped the tstat much sooner than I did last night. The stove is running well with the tstat at 2 but the flames were a little to active for what I would think would get me that long burn. I know a lot of people on this forum run their BKs at 1.5 so I tried that. I got some reburn flames on the roof of the firebox for a while but those went out and now I just have white logs. No fire, no coals, nothing.
My question is, am I doing something wrong? The cat is glowing bright red and the probe is well into the active zone (about half) but falling. The tstat is set to about 1.75. If I jump it up to 2 I'll get some flames back but the stove has only been running for about 4 hours and I've already burned half the wood in the firebox.
The blower is on. I've never had a stove with a blower before - do stoves not really like them?
General info:
-BK Princess circa 2012. Dollar test shows the door gasket is good
-Wood is a mix of hardwoods and around 20%, though I admit some of the wood is a little higher and there's a hissing when these pieces make their way into the stove
-Insulated liner running up through an old chimney three stories tall, maybe 30'? That's just a guess. The stove drafts well, as did the one I swapped out for the BK.
-The Tstat nob is a little funky. It will rotate almost 180* past the lowest setting before it finally stops. Not sure if this is normal or might need attention.
-The previous owner installed a new steel Cat last year. Visual inspection shows no plugs and it looks pretty good.
Any advice from all you BK masters would be very much appreciated!