2022-2023 BK everything thread

[stoveliker]

-I thought I had always seen BK users say “rake the coals to the front” on a reload. But I find if I rake them all to the front it makes it difficult to get a full load of wood in. If I rake them all to one side, spread evenly front to back, the stove both loads better, and burns more steady. Do others do this?

I do spread them out sometimes, especially if I want a full load in. Or I rake them to the front and take a bottom layer of splits that's 1-2" shorter. (That'll stop soon as I now cut my own rounds...)

-for the summer, do many people open the bypass and crack the front door, in order to reduce gasket compression? Or is that not necessary? If I do that I’m going to have to seal my chimney somehow because the summer time reverse airflow stinks.

My stove is in the basement, so aesthetics are not that important for me.
I take the telescoping section out, cap both open ends (on the stove and on the chimney), I open the bypass, but I keep the door closed. I also put a plug in the air inlet in the back.
This way I avoid reverse airflow (caps) and create a closed fire box. In there I put damprid in its quart-sized container, so I keep the stove dry on the inside.

Baby-ing my stove But it's worth it

 

[Ashful]

-I thought I had always seen BK users say “rake the coals to the front” on a reload. But I find if I rake them all to the front it makes it difficult to get a full load of wood in. If I rake them all to one side, spread evenly front to back, the stove both loads better, and burns more steady. Do others do this?

I usually clean my stoves on Saturday morning, which means emptying ash and vacuuming up around them. For the first day or two following this, there's little enough ash in the stove that I just spread the coals out evenly across the floor. But getting out more than 2-3 days after emptying ash, there's usually enough ash that I pile the ash in the back and the live coals in front, making a level bed between these two materials.

This is most easily done with an "ash rake", which is really a plow and not a rake at all, plowing from front to back along the floor. This plowing action compresses dead ash toward the rear, and causes the live coals to naturally rise to the top. Then I somewhat gingerly rake these live coals forward, level the whole thing, and load.

-for the summer, do many people open the bypass and crack the front door, in order to reduce gasket compression? Or is that not necessary? If I do that I’m going to have to seal my chimney somehow because the summer time reverse airflow stinks.

Stick a bit of fiberglass insulation in the chimney, and place a note in the stove to remind you (or any of your successors) that it's there, before re-lighting in the fall. Don't use a cotton towel, or anything else that will hold moisture against the pipe, if you can avoid it.

I leave the bypass closed, but not cammed tight. I leave the door closed and latched. This will be my 9th summer with my pair of BK's, and the original gaskets are still working fine.

 

[Diabel]

I often wonder why bk designed the fire box in such way that the slanted pieces of metal just above the fire bricks are perfect ash and gunk collectors and are almost impossible to reach/clean correctly.

 

[kennyp2339]

Hitting my end of season soon, lit the stove for the 1st time last night in over a week, still have hot coals in it, this week suppose to warm to mid 70's by Friday, so I'll do a partial load tonight and then let the stove die out, hopefully done for the season, but I'll leave the 1/3 of wood left in the rack alone for now and just go about my business, time to get the lawn in shape with some thatching, reload the woodshed and get the flower beds cleaned out, all in all I would guess that I only burnt 2 full cords this winter, my lightest winter ever, just never got cold, and if the cold came, it was gone within 2 days.

 

[TheElementalCashew]

shop vac to suck out the ash from the cracks and then to suck up on a brick.

I can't believe you guys are already shutting down. We're still in the 30s most nights.

I'm still burning most nights, kind of as-needed depending on the weather. We have some abnormally warm weather forecasted for this week, but after that the nights are back in the upper twenties/low thirties again.

 

[Highbeam]

I'm still burning most nights, kind of as-needed depending on the weather. We have some abnormally warm weather forecasted for this week, but after that the nights are back in the upper twenties/low thirties again.

30s by night, 40s by day. Even snow forecast for Wednesday. Honestly a lot like most of the winter. We just don’t get those higher daytime highs or any sun to warm up the home like those to the east.

I am trying to use the mini split when doesn’t get too cold overnight which is really stretching the wood pile this year. It’s fun and very effective but 70 in the whole house doesn’t feel as good as 76 in the stove room.

 

[begreen]

I have noticed the same behavior. I try and time it so first thing in the morning is reload time which is when I want to warm the house back up and take advantage of the stove getting a little warm at the beginning of the load. It was 21 degrees last night and won't even make 32 today. With the house high ceilings, I'm finding I get about 14-15 hours on a full load and about 11-12 hours on a 3/4 load. That's with the thermostat at 4 to 4.5 and then wide open for the last hour or two of the burn. I turned the propane furnace off a week ago and other than a slightly to cool bedroom, it's working out great.

I get what you’re asking and have noticed that even with the thermostat trying to avoid it, the stove temp goes down near the end of the load unless you turn it up. Isn’t that what the thermostat is supposed to do? Well, it’s not perfect. Works the other way too where it gets a little warm at the beginning of the load. The bulk of the burn is nicely regulated.

I use this behavior to my advantage by letting the house cool a bit to absorb the extra output from the next fresh load.

It's common and how we run our non-cat stove too. We like it cooler for sleeping so I try to time it so the stove is at about 250º in the morning and the living room temp has dropped to around 68º. This works nicely with a strong morning push of heat to bring the room back up to 72º and then gliding for the next 10 - 12 hrs. Once the house has warmed up it takes progressively less heat so this works out well. If it's very cold out then the cycle drops to 8hrs.

 

[stoveliker]

And my living floor is perfectly stable because of the heat buffer in the basement where the stove is
That is, when I burn, because my last fire this season was last weekend... 61 F and sunny now, sunroom 83, so the sliding doors open. Minisplit even off.
Friday 77 F and sunny.

 

[begreen]

Highbeam and I are having a chilly spring. It will be back in the 30s at night this week.

 

[Highbeam]

Highbeam and I are having a chilly spring. It will be back in the 30s at night this week.

Frosty roofs again today, maybe hit 50 in the heat of the day. This isn't abnormal though, heating season usually runs through June.

The hopps are way out of the ground and the garlic is happy too. Spring is just not as warm here as it is out east.

 

[begreen]

It's definitely been a cooler year so far. This Feb-Apr has been 10º below average here. Our garlic is tall too, but I only have lettuce, peas and broccoli out so far. The soil is too cold and wet for anything else. Comparing photos of the garden and trees in the yard to 2020, we are at least 2 weeks behind. The long-range forecast from NOAA says we'll continue below average through the month. Hope we don't have another Juneuary.

 

[kennyp2339]

Stove's back on, 48 damp, raw, north wind w/ about 3" of rain coming the next 2 days

 

[Ashful]

Stove's back on, 48 damp, raw, north wind w/ about 3" of rain coming the next 2 days

Loaded this morning, and will probably load again before bed, tonight. I've been running a load almost every night, since that quick warm spell ended.

 

[moresnow]

39 this AM. 30's overnight for the next 4 days. Re-fired late yesterday afternoon after 72 hrs of a cold stove.
Just watched the weather for for N. Wi. Wow! Big snow...

 

[dafattkidd]

Small fire for me this morning also. I welcomed the cold rain I was hoping for one more morning spent by the fire this year

 

[Diabel]

Small fire for me this morning also. I welcomed the cold rain I was hoping for one more morning spent by the fire this year View attachment 312322

That is one clean glass!

 

[Dieselhead]

I’ve had about 6 fires since I said I was having my last. These cool damp days force me to do it.

 

[Ashful]

I've had 6 fires just this week! Unusually cold cinco de Mayo. Didn't even feel right un-corking the tequilla.

 

[begreen]

I've had 6 fires just this week! Unusually cold cinco de Mayo. Didn't even feel right un-corking the tequilla.

If it's good tequila anejo, drink shots.

 

[kennyp2339]

About the same, just 3 fires this week, Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday... hopefully we're good now lol, its weird lighting the stove and looking out the window and seeing the tree's leafed out and new flowers coming up, grass also took off like a weed from all the rain, I'm hesitant to reload the woodshed, didnt even burn half my one bay yet, but I dont want to load it and then need more wood, already took the garage rack out and cleaned things up in the garage.

 

[Ashful]

If it's good tequila anejo, drink shots.

1800 Tequila Anejo. Nothing exotic or special, but pretty good, no matter how you take it.

Had a fire on Saturday night, but skipped Sunday. Down to maybe 2-3 stove's worth left in my wagon, before I need to refill. Might just call it a season rather than refilling the wagon, when those last few loads are used.

 

[Diabel]

No fire since last Fri. Heading back to the city tomorrow. Moved some of the wood piles today to make room for a proper wood shed. Not surprised. Any wood that was under sheet metal roofing was perfectly dry. Any wood that was under a tarp was not so good (some dry some not so much). Hate tarps.

 

[Jedi]

A few days ago I cleaned my Ashford 25 insert with one of those stove sweeping kits from Amazon. This stove is still new, bought and installed in February this year, so I used it about 2-3 months. Wood was dry, with the exception of a few pieces that would sizzle a bit. Does the black powdery residue from the cleaning look normal for a cleaning? Anything else I should do besides this brush on the liner?

 

[stoveliker]

Did you burn a load (or at least a half load) on full blast as your last fire? That crisps up any creosote on the walls (behind the steel radiation shields on the sides!) allowing you to brush that out much easier. Want to avoid a creosote box in humid summer air, imo.

Take the flame guard off and vacuum the cat (don't take it out unless you have a new piece of gasket).
I don't know how you could vacuum behind the cat in an insert (I take the pipe off and get in there, but with an insert you may have to go thru the hole in which the cast is located).

 

[Jedi]

Did you burn a load (or at least a half load) on full blast as your last fire? That crisps up any creosote on the walls (behind the steel radiation shields on the sides!) allowing you to brush that out much easier. Want to avoid a creosote box in humid summer air, imo.

Take the flame guard off and vacuum the cat (don't take it out unless you have a new piece of gasket).
I don't know how you could vacuum behind the cat in an insert (I take the pipe off and get in there, but with an insert you may have to go thru the hole in which the cast is located).

If I'm not mistaken, my last fire was a short/small hot fire to take off the morning chill. Thanks for the vacuum tip for the cat.