2022-2023 BK everything thread

[Poindexter]

Good to hear on the longevity of the stove, but how's this work with your work schedule? You work 3x 12 hour days, meaning maybe 13 - 14 hours(?) away from the home, but you said you can rip full loads in 4 hours at WOT. This is what always kept me from doing it, even though my house sometimes calls for it. I just kept plugging away at 12-hour reload cycles, when I was working away from home, dicated by my availability for being there to reload. The central heating had to pick up any slack.

The nice thing about three 12s is I do have four off. So yes, on work days I run the stove as high as I dare looking for a hot reload on my return. Today I am home with outdoor temps hovering around -20 dF. I loaded up around 0900, running WOT with the deck fans off. I am going to reload around 1500, probably stay near WOT with the deck fans off and then load up around 2100 for the night.

I will have to keep a close eye on the weather forecast. If the outside temp really is going to drop another 10-15 degrees overnight I will choose a lower throttle setting than I would get away with if the temp was going to remain stable at -20. I would prefer to not have to orchestrate a cold start tomorrow morning between 0500 alarm and 0610 rolling.

I do very much appreciate your independent (and confirming) observation that running the deck fans increases the convective coefficient. I find with the deck fans running I get more heat faster into my home, but burn time/ reload time suffers accordingly.

 

[Highbeam]

I do very much appreciate your independent (and confirming) observation that running the deck fans increases the convective coefficient. I find with the deck fans running I get more heat faster into my home, but burn time/ reload time suffers accordingly.

Same with the princess. I thought everyone knew this?

 

[Judge80]

I got the old Minnesota creosote stain on the window.

 

[Ashful]

Same with the princess. I thought everyone knew this?

I guess I didn’t really know it, as I’ve never tried running either stove without the fans, excepting a few power outages when I was probably running them at higher settings anyway.

All of my posted burn times and observations are with fans running, albeit on a very low setting, just above a motor stall.

 

[Highbeam]

I guess I didn’t really know it, as I’ve never tried running either stove without the fans, excepting a few power outages when I was probably running them at higher settings anyway.

All of my posted burn times and observations are with fans running, albeit on a very low setting, just above a motor stall.

And you still hit 36 hours? That’s great.

Did you adjust the low speed extra low to get it “just above a motor stall”? I feel like the princess fans are really ripping along at low.

Partly due to your input I only run the favs when distant rooms could benefit from the additional convection output. The hot air seems to travel a bit better than the radiation. We’re in a teens coldsnap (cold for us anyway) this week so I might get to try some experiments.

 

[Ashful]

And you still hit 36 hours? That’s great.

Did you adjust the low speed extra low to get it “just above a motor stall”? I feel like the princess fans are really ripping along at low.

Partly due to your input I only run the favs when distant rooms could benefit from the additional convection output. The hot air seems to travel a bit better than the radiation. We’re in a teens coldsnap (cold for us anyway) this week so I might get to try some experiments.

More typical for me is ~30 hours, but do recall shooting for and posting some longer burn times when the stoves were new and I was experimenting more. I usually run with it set to give me a good reload at 24 hours, but if it gets too warm half way thru the burn (i.e. following morning), I will turn down farther. That's how I typically land at 30 hours.

There's a trim pot you can adjust for your fan low setting. I only know this because when I got my stoves, I noticed one fan could be turned down to a stall, while the other was still ripping on what seemed "medium speed" at it's lowest setting. After talking with a factory tech or BKVP, I learned about the trim pot, and set the fans on both stoves so they could be turned down to just a hair above stall.

After that, I learned the "stall" setting actually varies a bit with temperature or how long it's been since you cleaned the fans, so I keep my knob turned about 1/4 turn up from that position, which is still in the "pretty low" whisper-quiet region.

If you do try to adjust, find a plastic "TV tuner" type screwdriver. I did short one of my fans to the cage and destroyed the rheostat the first time I adjusted them, as you're inserting the screwdriver thru a small gap in the fan shroud, and the rheostat screw must be hot (or at least was on one of mine).

 

[BKVP]

Burning down my noals!

 

[Ashful]

I've been burning thru a lot of white oak recently, and I'm still not used to the burn time. I've burned miles and miles of red oak the last few years, it was almost all I burned for a few years, but this white oak both smells better when loading AND lasts substantially longer. I haven't really looked thru the sheds to see how much is there, but I just brought my second wagon load of it from the wood sheds up to the house this morning.

 

[BKVP]

Is white oak higher or lower in specific gravity? If your white oak is more dense, you may be actually putting more lbs hence Btu's into a full load. Have you weighed a full load vs full load by species?

 

[Ashful]

Is white oak higher or lower in specific gravity? If your white oak is more dense, you may be actually putting more lbs hence Btu's into a full load. Have you weighed a full load vs full load by species?

I've never weighed it, not sure how I'd easily get an accurate measure of volume on split and dried wood, to make any scientific comparison. But according to all the online charts, white oak has about 10% more BTU than white oak. Seems like the difference is more than that to me, but I may be comparing my first shed-dried 4-year white oak to dozens of cords of uncovered pallet-stacked 2-3 year red oak, as well.

 

[moresnow]

View attachment 305535
Burning down my noals!

My morning ritual with the Red Oak I am flooded with this year. Very time consuming. I need more Pine accelerant

 

[Ashful]

My morning ritual with the Red Oak I am flooded with this year. Very time consuming. I need more Pine accelerant

Rake to front, throw one split E/W on top, run on high. I used to do this after work each day, when I was running all red oak. Takes less than an hour.

 

[Nealm66]

This will be interesting to see how this stuff does. I can’t imagine trying to burn this in any other stove with much success

 

[Ashful]

This will be interesting to see how this stuff does. I can’t imagine trying to burn this in any other stove with much success

View attachment 305820

The rocks, or the wood?

 

[Nealm66]

This place is crazy with rocks. Leftovers from a glacier run. There’s one area with big boulders I won’t even take the log skidder, going to setup a Mickey Moused highlead.

 

[Larch]

-30°c(-22f) all of last night and I still managed a 14 hour burn with my ke40 with a non tetris load of larch and house at 21°c steady temperature. I'm sure glad I switched my sirocco 30.2 for the king. I could of got at least another hour if I stuffed it full🙂

 

[Highbeam]

-30°c(-22f) all of last night and I still managed a 14 hour burn with my ke40 with a non tetris load of larch and house at 21°c steady temperature. I'm sure glad I switched my sirocco 30.2 for the king. I could of got at least another hour if I stuffed it full🙂

Nice. I’m finding it hard to stuff very full on the hot reloads with all of the leftover half burn chunks. Can only get one row of new splits in before I run out of height on my princess. That king box’s height would sure be convenient.

 

[MNtreewood]

This sub-zero temperature drop in the weather is really keeping my glass clean now. Prior weeks it was just a hole in the center to peer thru.

 

[Nealm66]

Lol

 

[BKVP]

This sub-zero temperature drop in the weather is really keeping my glass clean now. Prior weeks it was just a hole in the center to peer thru.

View attachment 305937

Brrrr.

 

[Nealm66]

I cut and stacked about 5 yards of slab wood between today and yesterday. Even with the tractor and the dump trailer it was grueling with all those little pieces.

 

[Ashful]

I'm looking forward to the freeze up. My last fill of the wood wagon was only a half load, as the ground was too soft to pull it full (4000 lb.) from the wood lot up to the house. I think I'm going to come up short on making it to the day after Christmas, so if the freeze hits us soon and hard enough today, I might sneak a wagon load up to the house on Saturday afternoon.

Still warm as of this moment, but expected to drop around noon.

 

[BKVP]

I'm looking forward to the freeze up. My last fill of the wood wagon was only a half load, as the ground was too soft to pull it full (4000 lb.) from the wood lot up to the house. I think I'm going to come up short on making it to the day after Christmas, so if the freeze hits us soon and hard enough today, I might sneak a wagon load up to the house on Saturday afternoon.

Still warm as of this moment, but expected to drop around noon.

You got kids? Or neighbor's kids? Just have them pack it up to the house for you!!

Merry Christmas all!

 

[Tron]

13F this morning in central MS. Very unusual. But the BK is easily up to it, not even running wide open.

 

[BKVP]

Our rep in Huntsville Alabama called to say it's 3F in Alabama! Good for stove sales.....