I couldn't get less than 8 hours in my princess if I tried, and I did try when it was frigid I'd try to get as much heat as I could by turning up the tstat as it burned down.
Contemplating a Blaze King Princess Insert - Help us think it through
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Thanks for that information, but I do have a question. Why would you not have had the thermostat higher for the duration of the burn? I understand that there's still a cycle with a Blaze King, but would it have been too hot or overfiring in some way? I'm really trying to understand this.
If I was in your situation, I'd make the switch. I've heated primarily with wood for almost 20 years. The combination of deep firebox and crazy long burn times makes my BK a joy to run. The amount of wood I burn has decreased dramatically too, saving me time, work, and money. I've been away from my house for 48 hours and been able to come back and just throw more wood in the stove without relighting. I wouldn't have believed it if anyone told me that, but it's true. The only downside is that my chimney cap screen gets a lot of creosote on it after a full winter of burning- something that never happened to me with any other stove. Its a trade-off I gladly make. My flue itself is always very clean, just the cap screen gets a black deposit on it.
It would over fire, I know some say that's impossible but I didn't want the cat gauge past the 1800 Mark. I guess it would have been ok but I didn't want to take the chance. I have a really strong draft and I think I could have got longer burn times in shoulder season with a damper but it was an insert so it would have taken some imagination.
When it's cold (<30F), I usually run the stove on medium low with no fans when I go to work, and pack it full. I usually don't know exactly when I am coming home, and I know that the house will cool off a little on a cold day, but the stove will still be burning when I get back. If I am back after 11 or 14 hours, it's all the same. I could run it hotter and maintain the house temp better, but if I was running fans and higher thermostat settings, I'd be looking at low coals or maybe even lighting a fire when I got back.
When I get home I want to heat things up, so I toss a few splits on top of the coals and crank the thermostat and fans, which heats the house up rapidly; then it's time for another long overnight burn. (In shoulder season, it's just one 24 hour load a lot of the time.)
But yes, I think I could get through a full 2.5 CF of wood in 4 hours burning high with high fans. I guess I've never timed it, but that seems within reason. It would have to be exceptionally cold for that to happen, though.
It depends on the outside temperature. Most of the year, the PI is appropriately sized for my application, so I load it once or twice a day, set the thermostat, and don't worry about anything else. (If I had a King with a 5 cf firebox, I would use this exact plan all year regardless of weather.)
In freezing and colder weather, the PI is undersized to be a solo heater for the lengths of time I need it to, so I compromise. I run the stove room up to 75+, pack 'er full, and set the thermostat for a 14+ hour burn. On a sunny calm 32 degree day, I'll expect the stove room to be 70 when I come back; on a day like yesterday when it was exceptionally cold and windy, I'll expect a little less, and run a short hot load to warm things back up.
I only use the fan for catch-up work, never for long burns. (12 hours is about the longest burn you could expect with the fan on low, and shorter is likelier.)
One thing about BKs that doesn't get discussed a lot- it is frigging convenient to be able to do hot partial reloads whenever you feel like it without babysitting and worrying about an overfire. Stick some wood in there and set the thermostat and go do your thing.That one little thing has really helped the PI be my only heater, as opposed to its intended role of occasional backup heater. (
I grew up with open fireplaces and old pre-EPA stoves, and had no idea that 8+ hour burns were possible until I came to hearth.com to find out what stoves were like in this decade...).
I really don't measure temperatures outside of the stove room. I think it usually runs around 5 degrees cooler in the furthest upstairs room (our bedroom; I sometimes close the door to cool it down at night), maybe 15 cooler in the furthest downstairs room.
We really only use a few rooms in the house; I'd probably be using fans to push cold air around (and complaining about downstairs temperatures being hard to raise) if the whole house was occupied.
Thanks once again, Jetsam. That sounds reasonable. We do use fans to push cold air around (into the baby's room or the preschooler's room since they need naps and quiet time during the day), and there is a temperature differential.
Will you describe your overnight procedure for me, please? I'm particularly interested in how constant the temperature remains by morning. We load up before bed, run the temperature way up because that's what happens when we load full. By morning we have good coals and the blowers are usually still on, but the room temperature has gone from being in the eighties to the lower seventies or even upper sixties. The upstairs will use some natural gas.
We aren't opposed to using our furnace to balance things out since we are heating two occupied floors, but we were hoping that a Princess Insert would stretch the overnight heating more efficiently so that we wouldn't have such big swings. Anyone have any insight for me on that?
Thanks for jumping in here. I think I have read some old post of yours that made me investigate Blaze King a little more. If I remember you did a comparison to an Avalon Olympic.
If you have the time, I'd love to hear about how you use the blowers if you need to distribute heat and how that works overnight in cold times. Thanks so much.
Thanks!
We would have a similar installation it sounds. Our Lopi has a great draft, too, and we have to watch it. It likes to run hot. We aren't looking for more peak heat, though. We'd like it to be more even, and that's the draw of the Blaze King.
I had a great conversation with a Blaze King owner and dealer from my hometown. We travel down there because my mother still lives there. He's willing to be our support for parts and warranty. He would travel to us, if necessary, (for a mileage fee). I feel more encouraged on that end of things. He was also able to talk me through the blower/burn time issue a bit for our climate.
I'm so appreciative of the people on this forum answering my questions.
I should also perhaps mention here that the negative pressure may not be such an issue as we were thinking. Another of our projects for the year, because of some slightly high radon levels at times, is looking into installing an ERV/HRV. I don't know so much about that, but that should be able to help with negative pressure, right?
Yep- my last stove was the Avalon Olympic. I liked that stove just fine, I liked my Vermont Castings Dutchwest also while I was heating with it. But they were nothing like the BK. Other than not having the light show my Olympic had, and needing to be more careful with how dry my wood is, there is nothing I miss from those stoves.
I am in Maryland, fairly mild climate compared to most. I rarely use the blowers- only if it is brutally cold outside. I just don't need them. I'm lucky that my house has big openings between the stove room and the rest of the house and that the layout is pretty square. I've never needed to worry about heat distribution- just need to keep the doors open.
More even heating is something you sort of forget about after owning the BK for a while. The heat from my stove is very, very even for a good 8-10 hours if it's fully loaded. After that it's a sloooooow taper down for another 8-10 hours. If you look at the first few posts from people with new BK's, you often see the "OMG I can't believe it's still putting out heat X hours later." My first burn was just a few pieces of scrap wood and it seemed to burn forever.
Heck, for half price,even I might consider a BK...let the chuckling continue.
It also might end up at one of my in-laws', since I'm an 'ash-grate guy.' 
From what you are saying, it sounds like a lower burn would be useful for not cooking you downstairs while still getting more even heat upstairs, in more moderate weather anyway, which you have a lot of in VA. When it gets cold out you're gonna have to open 'er up a bit to get more heat upstairs, and the downstairs may get a bit warm. You gotta live with a few trade-offs when heating with wood.
I wouldn't expect a huge drop in wood use, but I'd think you'd notice some improvement. From what I've read, the BKs are able to light off the cat quickly, so you should burn less wood at the beginning of the load (as well as less wood at the beginning just because you can run lower.) You can also play with top-down starts (especially with the Lopi) to try to get less wood burning at the beginning of the load.
It sounds like he's sometimes trying to get a little more heat out of the coals at the end of the burn, or bridging over to when he wants to do a full load? Not sure...thought maybe the BK thermostat would open and keep the stove temp up in the coaling stage, but maybe it doesn't open enough to do that?
I'm not sure about the HRV but from your description of running the Lopi, it doesn't sound like draft is going to be a problem. As was stated, you have nothing to lose by trying the BK; You can bail later if it doesn't work out, and maybe even make money off the deal or at least defray install costs...
That's helpful information for us since we're in Virginia. I expect the layout of our house would require more use of the blowers so that would shorten our times.
When I showed my husband the price from the dealer, we actually joked about picking up their display model, too, just to resell it for a profit. Not really our thing, though, but it is a great price, which is why we're actually considering it. We could sell the Lopi later and recoup much of the cost.
Thanks for all the input from folks on this. I appreciate hearing your thoughts and was especially grateful for hearing from Blaze King fans who weren't pushing for the switch. Thanks.
jetsam
Minister of Fire
This is getting really personal!
As pertains to the stove, it depends on the temperature. If it's going to be 45 overnight and 60 tomorrow, my primary stove-related activity is browsing the internet because I'm on 24 hour reloads.
If it's going to be cold, I feed it a little when I get home, and turn it up and put the fan on if the stove room's below 70-75. Then right before bed, I pack it full and either turn the fan off or (if it's very cold) leave it on low. I don't like having the fan on for long unattended burns due to the risk of blowing the cat out (which costs you a lot of heat output) or, worse yet, running the fire down to embers. (I do have a stash of dry pine for such an emergency.)
As you can probably see, several of my burning behaviors are shaped by wet wood, and wouldn't apply as much to you- for instance you wouldn't need to be so phobic about letting the fire go out, and you'd have a wider 'safe' low burn range. (The thermostat opens and closes itself a certain amount to hit the desired temp, but if it gets behind on a low burn AND your wood's suboptimal, it may not be able to catch up, cat goes out, burn efficiency suffers greatly.)
I don't have a schedule because I can open the stove anytime to stick a little more wood in; while I do plan ahead to say 'I am going to be gone for 14 hours, let me pack this baby full', I am freed from saying, 'Okay, I started a load 4 hours ago, so I either need to stay up 4 more hours or wake up to load the stove in the middle of the night...'. This is a sweet bonus of the magic thermostat. (It is also counterindicated by the user's manual, which is a sure sign that it is awesome.)
Your limitations will be firebox size and desired burn time. Forget big temperature spikes. If the stove is undersized for the job, you may have temperature dips. The cure for that is a bigger firebox or shorter burns. Most BK owners who use it for primary heat wind up wishing for a King for the 5 CF firebox, I think. King owners have been known to talk about their 48 hour burns and wish for 72....
I can't guarantee that 2.5 CF is enough firebox to be the only heat on your schedule, but I can say that a BK has the ability to iron the spikes out of your temperature. Magic thermostat, baby.
Thanks for continuing to answer my question, Jetsam. At this point we're down to studying the owner's manual and really focusing on comparing the answers we've gotten here to what our highest priorities are.
We're several years senior to you in burning an EPA (albeit non-cat) stove, so we do have dry wood (we started our collection even before our stove so that was helpful). We have suffered at times with wet wood. That's one real blessing of having a natural gas furnace. Our highest bills were the first winter we moved in before we insulated, air sealed, improved doors, replaced windows, and they didn't even come close to the cost of an oil boiler, so if we run out of wood, we won't push really wet wood through the stove. At the same time, we love to use the stove because it increases our comfortable living space, and it's so much cozier than a heating vent. (Don't tell those anti-pine people, but a few years ago when we got to wet wood in our stacks that we had thought would be dry, we traded 3/4 cord of our unseasoned oak for a cord of dry pine to get us through.) I know you love your Princess now, but I think you'll be like a newlywed again when you've got some really good dry wood in your stacks in coming years.
2.5 CF is larger than our current firebox, so there's some hope there. That "magic" thermostat sounds appealing.
Thanks again for all your replies.
