BK Princess too small or King too large, I must be Goldilocks

[tarzan]

@tarzan : We have here a thread in which someone fought bears barehanded as part of a remodeling project.

We are going to need you to either step up with a better story, or be dethroned as Hearth's manliest....

Living and working in southern West Virginia I actually do have a few good bear stories but messing with a momma bear and her cubs ain’t one of them!!

Besides that, MTY is in Idaho so the bears he evicted could have been Grizzly! Completely different beasts than the black bear we have here.

I suppose there’s only one thing left to do.....I’ll mail the Hearth.com manly man trophy to MTY, which is short for Man of The Year!

 

[MTY]

Living and working in southern West Virginia I actually do have a few good bear stories but messing with a momma bear and her cubs ain’t one of them!!

Besides that, MTY is in Idaho so the bears he evicted could have been Grizzly! Completely different beasts than the black bear we have here.

I suppose there’s only one thing left to do.....I’ll mail the Hearth.com manly man trophy to MTY, which is short for Man of The Year!

I am not sure I deserve the trophy. I had a distinct advantage over the bear. I had years of practice dealing with this sort of situation. I had been married.

 

[Rickb]

You have to post some pics of this place... Sounds very cool!

 

[Rich L]

I have been burning wood for 40 some odd years. From barrel stoves, trash burners, parlor stoves, the earliest
Earthstoves, a Fisher and currently a BK King. I am heating 2700' with an additional stove (Hearthstone) in the master bedroom. The Hearthstone usually is lit one week a year, but not at all this year.

I really like the BK, but am building a new place that is well insulated. It has a lot of glass, but there is R60 in the ceiling. This place is two floors, one of which is a basement. The new stove is going in living room. The floor it is on is 1700'. I am not concerned about heating the basement.

I am vacilating between the Princess and the King for this place. I want enough heat, but do not want to be driven out.

I have no near neighbors, and a week long power outage is always a possibility, so a good stove and a gravity fed water system are necessary.

I absolutely love the Hearthstone, but Earthstove got me hooked on the thermostat.

Princess or King? And a reason to back that up please. TIA

Which Hearthstone do you have ?

 

[MTY]

Which Hearthstone do you have ?

It is a Homestead. Manufactured 6/09. I drove over to Missoula to pick it up about August of that year.

 

[Rich L]

It is a Homestead. Manufactured 6/09. I drove over to Missoula to pick it up about August of that year.

Ya we'er happy with our two hearthstones.I mean your in Idaho which I think gets much colder than where I am.Man if I were you I'd go big and that would be the King.When the power goes you'll want that heat.When it's not that cold just don't crank it all the way up.As you see we go from big to bigger when it comes to our stoves.

 

[MTY]

Ya we'er happy with our two hearthstones.I mean your in Idaho which I think gets much colder than where I am.Man if I were you I'd go big and that would be the King.When the power goes you'll want that heat.When it's not that cold just don't crank it all the way up.As you see we go from big to bigger when it comes to our stoves.

I do have a bit of the Tim the Toolman complex. We are currently living in what is known as the banana belt of Idaho. I can see snow on the ridges above me, but things are pretty snow free along the river. Temps have been in the mid to low twenties the last week or so. They are expected to go up about 10 degrees by the end of the week.

The new place is at a little higher elevation than the current place. The snow load is 40 pounds there, and here is where some of the Toolman complex comes in. I spec'd the trusses for a 60 pound snow load.

I am pretty well zeroed in on another King.

 

[allan5oh]

My parents have a 1300 sq ft bungalow north east of where you live, in Manitoba. When we were deciding on King vs. Princess I made a call to BK. The gentleman stated either stove would likely work well, but the problem with a King in a smaller well insulated house is the reload process, you want to run it WOT for a while after reloads especially in colder climates to prevent icing. With a larger output stove this may just be too much heat.

We went with the princess and we're fine with it. I bet in your climate and a well built home you will be happy with a Princess. Honestly I think either stove will work just fine.

 

[Nateums]

You should just do a manual J calculation.

If the siding isn't on yet, there is an enormous benefit to rigid foam board on the exterior walls.

 

[pjohnson]

The low btu output of the king is only a couple thousand btu’s more then the princesses. I love the large firebox of the king. I can load it up when I leave my cabin come back 30 40 hours or more and still has good bed of coals and cabin warm enough to keep electric heat from coming on. Once I came home after 60 hours and was still enough coals to throw a few splits in and relight it. Hard to clean the darn thing have to wait three days for it to go out and cool off.

 

[MTY]

You should just do a manual J calculation.

If the siding isn't on yet, there is an enormous benefit to rigid foam board on the exterior walls.

I had thought about this, but decided not to do it for two reasons. First, the siding is going to be metal board and batting. Too deeply set of a screw would buckle the tin as it depressed the foam. Secondly, the J channel for the edges would extend beyond the window frame.

 

[Nateums]

I had thought about this, but decided not to do it for two reasons. First, the siding is going to be metal board and batting. Too deeply set of a screw would buckle the tin as it depressed the foam. Secondly, the J channel for the edges would extend beyond the window frame.

It does add a fair amount of labor and cost. You basically have install a rain screen when you are using foam board. The advantage is that 2" of foam will roughly double the effective R-value of a 2x6 wall.