Blaze King princess OR Ideal Steel??

[Rich L]

I think the differences can be based on each individual situation. I used to run just on stove before and after the house was up to temp i just use radiation from the stove. when using the fan sometimes is just on low for awhile and is rare the time i use them if the house is at temp. with both stoves going there is no reason to use the fans at all unless the house is to cold to bring it back quick. when outrage like the other days when wind was blowing and power was out for almost 4 hrs, it makes no differences to me cause i am on propane for cooking and water heater. I think everything depends.

I've seen it written that the Blaze king doesn't distribute the heat to well when the fans not working.In my neck of the woods the power would be out for days and sometimes weeks.So a stove that can generate the heat even with no fan is very important since many only have oil as a back up which needs electricity to run the furnace.

 

[lsucet]

I've seen it written that the Blaze king doesn't distribute the heat to well when the fans not working.In my neck of the woods the power would be out for days and sometimes weeks.So a stove that can generate the heat even with no fan is very important since many only have oil as a back up which needs electricity to run the furnace.

Well that will be start another debate. all what i can say is i started burning the BK in my house before i start any remodeling and went from tube stoves to BK. In my situation i don't missed them at all. BK did the same that previous, heat the house. in fact it does better than the other power plants stove i used to run and keeping a most steady temp across the house including without the use of the fans, but the fans play a big role on any stove, not just on BK. Many here says they don't need the stove fans but for heat distribution they use ceiling fans, box fans etc.

 

[Highbeam]

I've seen it written that the Blaze king doesn't distribute the heat to well when the fans not working.In my neck of the woods the power would be out for days and sometimes weeks.So a stove that can generate the heat even with no fan is very important since many only have oil as a back up which needs electricity to run the furnace.

I have the fans and almost never use them. They are optional and the stove easily heats my 1963 home without them well into the single digit temperatures.

 

[Ashful]

I've seen it written that the Blaze king doesn't distribute the heat to well when the fans not working.

That may have come from a misinterpretation of a statement I’ve made. I have two BKs installed in large stone fireplaces, and being tucked back into a fireplace, the fans really make a big difference, in my installation. However, that’s not an issue of the stoves being made by BK, it’s an issue of how I have them installed.

The IS would be even worse in my particular installation, as it’s massive radiant heat would be soaked up by the stone surrounding it in five sides. Again, a function of the installation, it’s still a great stove, by all accounts.

 

[kellnoon]

Want to purchase a new one but cant decide which one! I like the idea of the thermostat on the Princess but the ideal steel has a bigger box and has a higher btu rate but at the same time the princess can burn for at least 40hrs on low but 12 to 14hrs on the Ideal steel. Great stoves and the ideal steel can heat up to 2200sqft and the Princess 2500sqft....Anyone can guide me or any thoughts, thanks..

We had an ideal steel installed last month. WE love it! We also really enjoyed working with Woodstock. Our home is just over 3,000 sq ft in Vermont. The nights have been cold lately. Our upstairs bedroom is much warmer now then it was when we were relying on just our boiler. The stove is placed in the main level of our house and heats the whole main level and the upstairs.

 

[illini81]

The issue here is that, if you put the same BTU’s into two fire boxes, and release them over identical time at nearly identical efficiency, the overall heat output must be the same. This is simple physics, basic conservation of energy stuff, there is no magic to be had.

Differences in materials, firebox temperatures, etc. are irrelevant. Or put more accurately, they’re the secret in the sauce that gives us that final efficiency number. Similar efficiency x similar wood load x similar burn time... should = similar BTU rating. The fact that one is vastly different than the other indicates there is some difference in the test method.

I could be totally wrong here, but I'm not sure you can make it this simple. Your statement assumes that the rated efficiency is constant across the many modes of burning, but I doubt that's the case. The rated efficiencies that I found are 82% for the IS and 81% for the princess - very comparable. However, who knows what the efficiency curve is? I'm just making up numbers here, but perhaps the IS has an efficiency of 85% at max burn, aided by secondary combustion, and the princess has an efficiency of 75% at max burn. That would account for the qualitative differences that bholler and sigruts are reporting.

 

[Ashful]

I could be totally wrong here, but I'm not sure you can make it this simple. Your statement assumes that the rated efficiency is constant across the many modes of burning, but I doubt that's the case. The rated efficiencies that I found are 82% for the IS and 81% for the princess - very comparable. However, who knows what the efficiency curve is? I'm just making up numbers here, but perhaps the IS has an efficiency of 85% at max burn, aided by secondary combustion, and the princess has an efficiency of 75% at max burn. That would account for the qualitative differences that bholler and sigruts are reporting.

You are correct, each stove’s efficiency varies with burn rate, but these two being compared seem to stay pretty neck-and-neck all the way through. Here are their Low Heat Value (LHV) and High Heat Value (HHV) rated efficiencies:

Rate IS Princess
LHV 88% 88%
HHV 82% 81%

I should learn more about how that HHV value is collected, to understand if it really translates well to the above example of ripping thru a full load in 5 hours. It is possible the EPA-defined “HHV” is not real-world, and that might explain the difference bholler is trying to describe.

 

[Highbeam]

We’re not talking about a 10% difference in max output. It’s way huge, like almost 100% more output for the IS. (I didn’t look it up for this post but recall 30k vs 60k).

I was running my princess hard last night playing catch up. It burns clean even when cat and flue temps are way up.

 

[illini81]

We’re not talking about a 10% difference in max output. It’s way huge, like almost 100% more output for the IS. (I didn’t look it up for this post but recall 30k vs 60k).

I was running my princess hard last night playing catch up. It burns clean even when cat and flue temps are way up.

Yeah, I was just making up numbers. Maybe it's 90% vs 65%. Again, I'm not saying that it is 90 vs 65, but just that it could be, theoretically, which would explain the qualitative differences that several forum members have reported.

 

[illini81]

You are correct, each stove’s efficiency varies with burn rate, but these two being compared seem to stay pretty neck-and-neck all the way through. Here are their Low Heat Value (LHV) and High Heat Value (HHV) rated efficiencies:

Rate IS Princess
LHV 88% 88%
HHV 82% 81%

I should learn more about how that HHV value is collected, to understand if it really translates well to the above example of ripping thru a full load in 5 hours. It is possible the EPA-defined “HHV” is not real-world, and that might explain the difference bholler is trying to describe.

By "seem to stay pretty neck-and-neck all the way through", I'm not sure if you're implying that LHV and HHV are two points on the efficiency curve, one at a point when the stove is producing a "low" amount of heat and one at a point when the stove is producing a "high" amount of heat. If that is what you mean, I don't think that is what they represent. I think they are two different animals that differ based upon what is included in the calculation of efficiency.

https://www.kumastoves.com/content/page/EPA

After reading a bit about stove efficiencies this AM. I'm even more convinced that what bholler and sigruts report can't be discounted simply by saying "physics doesn't support it". A stove efficiency number is a single number that represents BTUS out divided by BTUS in. Since only a single number (or sometimes two - LHV and HHV) is given, it can only represent a single mode of burning (type of fuel, size of load, amount of air introduced, fan speed, etc). I think it is very likely that the efficiency of any stove is going to vary pretty widely, based on changes to these variables, as well as others.

So I think it could very well be true that two stoves that have comparable rated efficiencies could have real world efficiencies that vary significantly at different points in the burn, especially if they use completely different combustion technologies.

 

[AlbergSteve]

I've seen it written that the Blaze king doesn't distribute the heat to well when the fans not working.In my neck of the woods the power would be out for days and sometimes weeks.So a stove that can generate the heat even with no fan is very important since many only have oil as a back up which needs electricity to run the furnace.

Don't believe everything you read, even here. I'm heating 2400' on one level with an Ashford and no fans. At -10C, the coldest part of the house is still 19C.

 

[begreen]

Yes, this is correct. But I’m talking even more base-level physics, here. If we agree both stoves can burn down 3 cu ft of oak in the same 5 hours, and both have similar efficiency, then both must put the same amount of heat into the house over that time.

You are implying that the Princess won’t go thru the wood as fast, due to the thermostat, which would explain the difference in rated high output. But somewhere, several posts ago, some Princess owner said it would.

There are too many assumptions. Can a BK P go through a full load of wood in 3-5 hrs? Can an IS? What is meant by 'go through a full load'. Is the measurement weighted volume remaining, stove temp (that will vary with design), just visual? I know that pushing my 3 cu ft hard I would still have a very large coal bed after 5hrs. with a >500º stove top, so all this seems somewhat speculative. I recall most BK owners saying the were getting 8-10hrs reload times when the weather was severely cold so guessing what happens in in 3-5 hrs seems like just a guess.

What most likely explains the discrepancy between the reported top end output between the stoves is probably different testing methods. Perhaps one is EPA and the other is cordwood?

 

[moresnow]

Wonder if he got his answer? He tapped out 58 posts back

 

[jetsam]

You are correct, each stove’s efficiency varies with burn rate, but these two being compared seem to stay pretty neck-and-neck all the way through. Here are their Low Heat Value (LHV) and High Heat Value (HHV) rated efficiencies:

Rate IS Princess
LHV 88% 88%
HHV 82% 81%

I should learn more about how that HHV value is collected, to understand if it really translates well to the above example of ripping thru a full load in 5 hours. It is possible the EPA-defined “HHV” is not real-world, and that might explain the difference bholler is trying to describe.

I liked this explanation on calculating BTU output from bkvp.

 

[illini81]

I liked this explanation on calculating BTU output from bkvp.

Right, but again, his explanation assumes that the efficiency (68% HHV in his example) can be captured with a single, static number, rather than being a curve that changes based upon the mode of operation of the stove. He uses that same 68% efficiency to calculate average BTUS per hr for a high burn and average BTUS per hr for a low burn. My hypothesis is that the efficiency actually varies, depending on the mode of burning. I'm not saying he's wrong - maybe that assumption is really good, and a stove's efficiency only varies +/- 1%, no matter how you burn. But it would make more sense to me that it varies pretty significantly, since there are so many variables...

 

[jetsam]

Right, but again, his explanation assumes that the efficiency (68% HHV in his example) can be captured with a single, static number, rather than being a curve that changes based upon the mode of operation of the stove. He uses that same 68% efficiency to calculate average BTUS per hr for a high burn and average BTUS per hr for a low burn. My hypothesis is that the efficiency actually varies, depending on the mode of burning. I'm not saying he's wrong - maybe that assumption is really good, and a stove's efficiency only varies +/- 1%, no matter how you burn. But it would make more sense to me that it varies pretty significantly, since there are so many variables...

There is a standardized testing methodology, but real world efficiency is going to vary. I think the standardized efficiencies are useful for comparing this stove to that stove, but not for actually figuring real-world BTU output.

 

[Ashful]

There is a standardized testing methodology, but real world efficiency is going to vary. I think the standardized efficiencies are useful for comparing this stove to that stove, but not for actually figuring real-world BTU output.

Exactly. Let’s also not forget that these standardized test methods aren’t just completely pulled out of one’s arse, a lot of research and testing likely went into developing standard test methods that attempt to reasonably approximate real-world performance.

 

[begreen]

Exactly. Let’s also not forget that these standardized test methods aren’t just completely pulled out of one’s arse, a lot of research and testing likely went into developing standard test methods that attempt to reasonably approximate real-world performance.

EPA stove testing approximates real world burning for some, but not for many others, just like EPA automotive testing. For example, how many people burn doug fir crib wood back east? Stove testing and certification is already a very costly process. They are trying to get the testing to be more representative of real world burning, but it has to be done within the constraints of practical time and costs.

 

[Highbeam]

EPA stove testing approximates real world burning for some, but not for many others, just like EPA automotive testing. For example, how many people burn doug fir crib wood back east? Stove testing and certification is already a very costly process. They are trying to get the testing to be more representative of real world burning, but it has to be done within the constraints of practical time and costs.

And repeatability if that’s a word!

 

[begreen]

Yes. Testing does not account for real world issues like wet wood burning, the ambiguities of user air control settings, flue height, etc.. That would be too extensive and expensive. Instead they choose a reproducible test with fixed parameters that can be done on any stove in a reasonable number of tests and hours of testing.