Awright. some background.
I am not new to wood heat. I am living in a house my father built, in which he had originally installed a RSF-65 wood stove, and an electric Forced air furnace. I have lived with wood heat for pretty much a primary heat source for about 20 years total, in three different houses, in two Provinces, both here in BC, and in North/Central Alberta.
There is a intake duct above the wood stove location, with a thermo switch, which kicks in the fan on the furnace, to distribute heat about the house.
After my father died, the house was rented out for a period of several years. The original stove was adequately destroyed by the various renters. I began renting the house, when I was retired out of the Military. I have been in here for nearly five years now.
When I moved in here, we were able to source a nearly unused RSF-45 (35? In any case, the very small RSF steel box wood stove) and had it inspected. Despite it only taking at most about a 13 inch long stick of wood, it threw pretty good heat. Burn times were not long, but loading it up at bedtime usually resulted in enough of a fire left to start off another load of wood in the morning.
The family decided that with the rising costs of electricity, a new stove was due.
We settled for a Blaze King King model. It was the largest wood burning appliance that the store was able to provide us.
To be clear, I was looking for a plain steel box with a large capacity firebox, able to be loaded with a large qty of large firewood.
This stove looked like it would do, but so far, has been a disappointment in almost every way.
The wood I am burning is Douglas Fir, cut from standing dead trees. Dry as can be, breaks like glass, and beautiful firewood. We don't cut green wood for firewood. Green wood gets cut to go on a logging truck!
I am stuck using the chimney that is here, a 7x8 ceramic flue, in cinder blocks, rising from the basement floor level through the main floor and the upstairs, and out through the roof through the middle of the house, more or less 3 stories plus roof level clearance. I looked up the flue with a hand mirror a day or two back, and have a clean line of sight all the way to the top with no significant build-up.
My installation consists of a steel 8 to 7 tapered reducer, about a 12 inch rise from the top of that to two 45 degree bends, and a horizontal run of about another 12 inches to the thimble on the wall. Yeah, I know that the manual suggests 36 inches of rise, but that is where the thimble is. The actual straight rise is 20 inches from the top of the stove, to the mid side of the first 45.
All I have heard out of my wife since the stove was lit a few weeks back (between Christmas and New Years) is "Is there any wood in the stove?"
Here's a couple of my beefs.
First, I could really care a lot less about how long it will burn for when damped way down. I didn't buy it for low output heat, I bought it for HEAT! My hope was to be able to run at roughly half the max as a general setting, crank it down at night, up to max to provide for a warm-up or to heat when it is bloody cold out. So much for that.
I am really sick of the stench of creosote smoke in my house. When the door is opened, and wood placed on the hot coals, that first piece of wood flares and the wide shallow door pukes out wads of smoke until it is closed. Needless to say, loading the stove with MORE than one piece of wood at a time, WAS sort of what I had in mind.
I firmly believe that the guy that decided to hang the cat housing and it's hardware, down lower than the top of the door, deserves a solid shot in the gonads with a splitting maul.
Withe the front to back burn, as well as the loss of that height inside, which I believe also contributes to the puking smoke issue, wood loaded into the box tends to sit at an angle. I have a lovely new burn scar on my arm as a result of fighting with a block of firewood which wedged between that below it, and the hanging down structure. Annoying doesn't begin to cover my feelings on that. I very much feel that the stove door should be clear from it's top level, straight to the back of the stove. I really frikken HATE having to kneel down to see inside the stove to see in to load the wood in it.
But the crux of the matter, is that the stove never really seems to kick much heat at all. I have been running the stove pretty much with the adjuster cranked wide open, since I started the fire burning. Typically, I have lowered that setting down no more than about the three quarters point, and of late, less than that at night. And it's not really all that cold out right now.
One gent suggested that the reason I was not feeling the heat, was that I had not sprung for the fan units. I did not spring for the fan units, because I expected the heat to be distributed through my house by the furnace fans. This stove did not trip the thermo switch, like the smaller one was able, even with the switch adjusted, the heat output seems meager.
Now, if I reload the stove with small split sticks of wood, every few hours, it seems to heat almost OK. Not really what I bought this for. The original RSF-65 stove took a large qty of large wood. It burned from the bottom, and when you opened the door to load it, esp with the bypass pulled out, the stove was quite capable of sucking in any smoke from the sawdust or chips that might land on the door. It also allowed me to top load fresh wood pretty much any time, without having to stand around and wait in between step, as the instructions require for this one.
So, have I got a dud, is this typical, or do I have other problems? I have not yet bought a moisture meter, I do not have a manometer to check my flue draw. I don't even use paper to start the fire, let alone burn garbage, I have some fatwood, and split dry kindling off my firewood for that.
Temperatures on the catalyst have been just short of the top of the scale on the supplied gauge in the top of the stove.
My initial concerns with this stove were that the cat would be subject to damage from pitchy wood, as some of the old veteran trees that have died standing, had roots that pumped huge volumes of pitch up in to them prior to fully dying off. Well, that is no longer my number on concern. I just want some HEAT output!
So. Input would be appreciated, especially from Blaze King.
I am considering dumping this at a loss in the coming spring and seeing what else is better suited and available out there, so I would be pretty happy to hear suggestions. I need one that can pass an inspection, for the insurance purposes, else I would have simply bough a new made RSF-65 non-EPA stove and quietly installed it myself and got on with my life.
I would very much like to hear suggestions as to what other stoves there are out there that might better suit my needs. I am not after something to look pretty in the parlour. I am after a heating appliance, with which to heat my house. Ugly, is OK! Heat! I want to actually have to set the temperature on the stove, not simply run it flat out as a supplement to my furnace.
Thanks for your consideration.
Cheers
Trev
