You know Woody has been slumming the BK threads for some time, now. Nothing new. He thrives on stirring the pot.
The BK threads have never failed to deliver plenty of entertainment over the years; Always lots of drama.
I don't aim to "stir the pot." I
will, however, say what I think occasionally, based on what I have read here, and what I've seen of the Woodstocks, in an attempt to provide a little balance for a few newbs who might not be inclined to do much research. I doubt it's had much, if any, effect. In the end, everyone will make their own choice, then live with it.
Why sling mud, if you can't provide details?
Oh, all right, at the risk of getting a few people all riled up again, which I really don't care to do, I'll mention just a couple....but you will have to go find the rest yourself. It would take me
forever to list all of them. You shoulda done that
before you bought; It's too late now.
They put the thermostats on backwards (or installed faulty thermostats?) so that it worked opposite of what was intended. Really?
How long did it take them to figure that out, a year or more? Sheesh.
How about this thing with their new insert, with the thermostat getting stuck wide open? Or the ash drop on one model that misses the ash pan? Is this their idea of R & D?
Seems they just put the stuff out there, and try to fix the problems later. I don't know about you, but I'd expect a little more for my $3000.
Already mentioned by Highbeam, putting the glass gasket retainer bolts under the door gasket? Besides the difficulty some people had getting a good seal there, you also have to change the door gasket when you replace the glass gasket? Hey, I'm no stove engineer, but damn near
anyone could have figured out that this design was a dud. They ought to just send everyone a new, re-designed door after an embarrassment like that, instead of a "fix" consisting of a few bolts. Didn't they also re-design the door latch recently? Not sure which stoves that was on.
I don't know about anyone else, but for me, this kind of stuff wouldn't inspire a lot of confidence in their ability or desire to produce a quality stove.
From what I've seen, I just don't think they are built to go the distance, and that folks are going to be buying a lot of expensive parts to keep these things going. Time will tell. There are plenty of new guinea pigs that have jumped onboard over the last several years, on this board at least.
Because simply he wants one.
Uhhh....no.
I didn't believe the "hype" before I bought mine in 2011...after selling my 2 year old Lopi Endeavor. After burning the stove for a week I understood/believed all the hype. It's a repeatable process that's damn near the same load after load. It's never tried to "run away" on me and has always done exactly what I expect it to do.
People who have only burned non-cats often seem wowed by how easy it is to run a cat, and by how predictable they are. I'm sure I'd be impressed by the low, long burn of a BK if I tried one, and the thermostat should remove the need to set the air a little differently to cruise different types of wood at the output you want. But after running cat stoves for years, even ones without a thermostat, I'm not gonna be amazed and astounded by predictability like the non-cat folk.