Dissapointed in New Blaze King King

[trevj]

Load your stove with the logs going from front to back like everyone else instead of left to right so you dont have to reach to the far back of the stove and burn your arm on the bypass/cat housing. Smoke on reload is obviously a draft issue or the bypass isn't opened.

Left to right? How are you supposed to get a decent bloody load of wood into a stove if you load it sideways? Geez loiuse! Nope!
Stove is loaded front to back. Burn came about because I went and shoved a block of wood in, without being on my hands and knees like a supplicant, and it wedged against the hanging down ceiling goodies in the firebox, and the wood that was below it.
Stove was puking smoke due to the flare of the fresh wood on hot coals, and I was moving really fast at the time as a result. Hit my arm on the top of the door frame as I was wrestling the wood out of the wedged position. Didn't burn my arm ON the cat housing. Burned my arm because the cat housing hangs down lower than the door top line.

And I still think two inches of steel around the perimeter, to raise the crap on the ceiling of the stove ABOVE the level of the top of the door, would be really reasonable thing to do. Design-wise, the cat install looks to me like an afterthought, added to an older design to update it. Never having seen a Blaze King before, that is just my thoughts. Was the King model around before the cat was installed? Dunno? Would love to have a firebox about 6 or 8 inches longer, too.
But I digress...

Cheers
Trev

 

[Squisher]

Certainly trees lying on the ground, may never cure and just rot. That's why logs are decked for ease of moving and so they aren't lying in direct contact with the ground.

 

[Squisher]

And totally not trying to derail your thread but I'd try to get my hands on a moisture meter and check on a fresh split at room temperature as was described earlier. Just to be sure. Yours is a process of elimination at this point. Because it's not the stoves fault, unless it's defective in some way. It's something with the setup or the wood.

And the rsf that you had would be much more tolerant of higher moisture wood than that new king.

Did your rsf have a barometric damper on the pipe?

Any chance of some pictures of the new stove and connecting pipe?

There was a mention by Begreen of cracking a nearby basement window to see if things improve. I'd try that.

 

[Squisher]

I had not heard or seen an RSF-65 before. This line of Ardent stoves look like highly radiant large heaters. The RSF-65 had a 5 cu ft firebox. Starting with the RSF-85 they are wood furnaces. I haven't been able to find info on the RSF-45 but see they did make a 2 cu ft wood/coal heater that had a sophisticated downdraft design. Did your stove look like this?

View attachment 193378

Rsf wood furnaces are popular in these parts. I've cleaned a number of them. Valley comforts are common too and I wonder if/why that wasn't looked at as an option?

 

[husky345 vermont resolute]

There are many many people here burning epa approved stoves and heating their houses with them. Your setup is far from perfect the pipe is to small and the chimney is uninsulated clay lined. Don't blame the stove or the epa yet. Let the guys here who really know bk's or the vp of the company try to help you out.

I have a clay lined chimney and it works fine on my drolet. It throws tonnes of heat.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Squisher]

No one(I think) has any issue with burning in a appropriately sized clay lined masonry chimney.

But just saying your setup works doesn't help the OP sort his issues at all.

I too burned in clay lined masonry chimneys for a long long time. They can and do work fine. Off the top of my head I can think of atleast two BK kings that I've cleaned this season that dump into masonry chimneys and the customers are happy with the performance/heat out of them.

 

[bholler]

I have a clay lined chimney and it works fine on my drolet. It throws tonnes of heat.

yes like squisher said there is nothing inherently wrong with clay lined chimneys but an appropriatly sized and insulated stainless lined chimney will work better.

 

[black smoke signals]

Good Dealers have Qualified STOVE installers and Chimney inspectors that will inspect your house with a price tag.The Dealers who sell out the door price end up at hearth.com with tons of questions! Got to be a headache for BK .

 

[Attaboy]

I have just been reading this long thread and have detected several things / anomalies which bother me, they are as follows:

- A 8'' stove flue reduced and choked to 7''

- 8 x 7 square cinder block chimney with ceramic flue. Not sure what a ceramic flue is but doubt that is possible because of the high expense of ceramic, I suspect this may be some kind of a clay tile / liner inside a cinder block chimney .

- All things being equal this chimney ( height 3 storey's plus roof ) located in the middle of the house must be 30 feet high or more and unless it has sustained some interior tile or cinder block damage it should draft like crazy, unless there is the possibility that cold air is getting in to it somehow .

- Flue pipe set up definitely not as per Blaze King stove installation recommendations.

- Who installed the stove and flue ?

- Suspects his wood is dry but no measurement of moisture level performed.

- No stove top and flue heat measurements at various intervals and stages.

- In 50 years of heating I know from experience that stoves themselves unless damaged somehow do not emit creosote odours, chimney's emit odours.

- Smoke backpuffing from a stove in to a room this generally occurs because of lack of proper chimney draft or because the stove air control was not fully opened previously and the door is then opened too quickly sending the smoke back through the easiest exit path, the room.

I suspect the OP may have a combination of problems happening together that affect the total performance of his stove.

Of course it goes without saying that the firewood moisture level has already tested at 20% and less moisture content.

I refuse to believe that a responsible competent stove retailer would allow, suggest or even less install a 8'' to 7'' choker in to a cinder block chimney, if it is so they should not be in business and a complaint should be lodged with the proper authorities in order to put them out of business.

Therefore if this could possibly be the case if I were the OP I would then start by confronting the stove dealer with this 8'' to 7'' reducer they approved.

Something could be wrong with the chimney, just because you see light with a mirror and it looks good does not mean that the chimney is not damaged somewhere on its 30 foot full length, I would start by having it fully inspected and tested by someone that is competent and certified to do this. If all is well and good with the chimney itself there is only the flue itself remaining, the flue fitting in to the cinder block chimney and general flue installation.

Easy-Peasy, just proceed by elimination as I do not believe for one second that the Blaze King is at fault here and I am not a Blaze King product owner. Now the lack of fans installed on the blaze king is a definite detriment on that type of stove.

 

[trevj]

Maybe if you just let us know what answer you want we can end the thread. It's not the wood, it's not the chimney, it's not that it's in an uninsulated basement, so it must be the stove. I'd run out and buy a new one.

Y'know, I'd really like to hear from y'all about that there point on the uninsulated basement. It keeps coming up like it's some sort of bogeyman, and I will reiterate this.

It was warm before. It isn't now.
The area is part of the heated living space in this house.
With my dinky little stove, fed with ~12 inch pieces of wood of lesser quality (IMO) than what I am using now, I was able to keep the house warm enough to keep my wife from complaining. Yeah it was a chore. Leading to the want of a BIG stove to put out BIG heat!

The wood stove is placed under a hood which feeds directly to my central heating system as intake air. The furnace fan is used to distribute the heat from the stove, throughout the house. The system was originally designed and built to have this alternate heat source, with a thermo switch mounted in the system to kick the fans on, when the heat rises from the stove. Or, it was supposed to. THAT i why I did not consider buying the circ fans system for the stove. I did not want the immediate area heated, it should be getting that as a side effect of it's proximity to the stove. I wished for the heat to find it's way in to the duct via the hood over the stove,that it would be distributed about the entire house, as had been the norm even with the much smaller stove I had removed (the small RSF model).

I believe the wood is as dry as any, if not better than, that I have ever used in the previous stoves. But we pretty much beat that to death and arrived at a reasonable solution, which is, 'we'll see what the moisture meter says'.

I was assured by the seller that the stove would work with the chimney as it is. The seller provided me with the reducer, when I discussed the existing chimney and piping with him. So that boils down, IMO, to a matter that has affected MY trust of Blaze King's dealer. That is worth being open and public about, IMO.

Yeah. New stove. After spending $4k of my family's money on a wood stove, I am dissatisfied with it and looking at having to go through this process again. Which does not please me all that much. I tried to find the best solution, went to the Dealer and was sold this stove with the assurances it was going to meet or exceed my wants. Not so much. To be really clear, I shopped for capability, not price.

I am annoyed by the design decision that put the Cat housing lower down than the top of the door, as I have expressed. Now, I dunno what you think of that, but I am of the opinion that this qualifies as "Feedback" from a customer. As I stated in my original post, I wouldn't mind actually hearing what thoughts the fellow from Blaze King itself, has to say, either on the forum, or in private.

Despite the preponderance of cheery and sunshiny reviews, it does appear, that this particular model and make, is possibly not going to be suitable for my wants, so I am saying so, looking for possible solutions to what is happening, and trying to ascertain whether the issue is me and my expectations, a basic misunderstanding of the operations of this stove, the physical infrastructure, or if I was fed a line of poo and shuffled out the door by a sales dude, rather than being told straight out that they didn't have what I was actually looking for.

Howzat?

So, whether you have a vested interest in the Brand, or are just playing the Fan-Boy role, I dunno. I have been given some pretty good leads to follow up on, and will come back with numbers regarding the Moisture Content as well as the Manometer readings, as soon as I am able.

Cheers
Trev

 

[begreen]

An insulated basement will suck out about a third of the heat generated by the stove.

A hood over a stove is against code in the US, not sure how CA mechanical code works. In the US the return intake must be at least 10 ft away from the stove.

You had a non-cat batch heater that pushed hard would probably get up to 800F stove top. That stove's design heated up the entire stove body thoroughly. This dramatically improved radiant heat surface for good peak heating performance.

The BK stove gets hot on the top over the cat more than on the sides. Base on reported temperature it is sub-performing. Guess is due to poor draft being out of spec, but that will need a test to verify. Recommended draft is .05 in. w.c. operated on high. Too little draft results in a sluggish fire and smoke spillage into the room when the stove door is opened. The dealer should provide this testing as the stove was installed in violation of the manual's requirement.
The chimney connector must be 8” diameter, 24 MSG Black/Blue steel.

 

[showrguy]

Following..

 

[Attaboy]

A hood over a stove is against code in the US, not sure how CA mechanical code works. In the US the return intake must be at least 10 ft away from the stove.

The chimney connector must be 8” diameter, 24 MSG Black/Blue steel.

A hood over a stove is not accepted or per code here either and even more so if it is connected or interacting with a central heating system of any kind.

An insurance inspector would shut that down here if the owner wanted to remain insured. This setup has probably never been seen or reviewed by a building inspector or by a fire dept. prevention inspector. In my area anyway the fire dept. is extremely strict on stove and fireplace installations, operation and inspection, they severely frown on any mickey mousing of any kind.

 

[bholler]

- 8 x 7 square cinder block chimney with ceramic flue. Not sure what a ceramic flue is but doubt that is possible because of the high expense of ceramic, I suspect this may be some kind of a clay tile / liner inside a cinder block chimney .

Clay tiles are a type of ceramic

I refuse to believe that a responsible competent stove retailer would allow, suggest or even less install a 8'' to 7'' choker in to a cinder block chimney, if it is so they should not be in business and a complaint should be lodged with the proper authorities in order to put them out of business.

It is done all the time not that it makes it right but we see stoves sold by shops and some even installed by shops into chimneys that should absolutely not be used.

 

[trevj]

I had not heard or seen an RSF-65 before. This line of Ardent stoves look like highly radiant large heaters. The RSF-65 had a 5 cu ft firebox. Starting with the RSF-85 they are wood furnaces. I haven't been able to find info on the RSF-45 but see they did make a 2 cu ft wood/coal heater that had a sophisticated downdraft design. Did your stove look like this?

View attachment 193378

No, my RSF45 that I replaced looked like a RSF65 that had been cut in half lengthwise. Well, not as tall, either. Basic, boring, square box of a stove with a decent sized solid front door. But only just over 12 inches front to back at floor level, and only barely able to take a 13 inch chunk of wood above the door lower edge.

Temperature control (because someone asked) was a bimetalic strip controlled damper that controlled the intake air flow. The other control on it was the bypass, which was a large flapper plate across the top, back end, of the stove, which allowed the smoke to exit directly up the chimney, when it was open.

Nothing fancier than that, no barometric anything, and no dampers in the system above the stove.

The RSF45 has not been made in a long time, I think. Nor did they make a pile of them.

AFAIK (based on their own propaganda, so, FWIW) RSF was one of the leaders in using the thermostatically controlled dampers on the inlet air for controlling output. Funny enough, the sales guy that sold me the BK, was waving his BBQ lighter around on the demo model of the exact system on the BK, as if I was supposed to be amazed by the magic of movement from heat.

Ardent Energy seems to have gone pretty hard at the market for 'pretty ' stoves and got pretty near out of the larger heater appliances. Because of the EPA requirements (I was told, repeatedly) here in BC, they will not inspect or sign off a stove install any more, unless it is in compliance with the EPA specs.
Else I would have driven to Alberta where I know of a dealer, and saved a substantial amount of money. (had been quoted $2500 for a new made RSF65, and seen prices listed as low as $2100)

Someone asked who did the install? I did. We drove over to the dealer in Kamloops, picked up the stove a wee bit before Christmas, submitted our plea, I mean application for the install, and when we got the paperwork back, I went ahead with the installation.

I will clarify, I do not just see light when looking up the chimney. I see that the chimney is essentially clean, all the way up. Visually seeing the sides here.

I have some stock to feed, and a run to town, as well as I am pretty short of good wood, and need to cut some more, which a moisture meter will be a good tool to use upon...

Cheers
Trev

 

[begreen]

It would be worth checking the chimney from the top down, especially if there is a screen on top. Most accumulation will occur in the topmost part of the chimney.

 

[trevj]

A hood over a stove is not accepted or per code here either and even more so if it is connected or interacting with a central heating system of any kind.

An insurance inspector would shut that down here if the owner wanted to remain insured. This setup has probably never been seen or reviewed by a building inspector or by a fire dept. prevention inspector. In my area anyway the fire dept. is extremely strict on stove and fireplace installations, operation and inspection, they severely frown on any mickey mousing of any kind.

Interesting. Maybe the building inspector that signed off the last install will have something to say about that. Will ask, as I am still sometimes in contact. Will ask the next one in too, as they have not yet scheduled our inspection, as they are only in our area twice a month, and booked up pretty well in advance.

This assembly was part of the original installation in this house, and was signed off at the time (1987, IIRC).

Cheers
Trev

 

[Squisher]

This type of install is strictly forbidden by the national building code. And could be part of your reason for smoke spillage. Make sure you have good smoke and co alarms.

Cutting a opening into a return air duct can create sufficient negative pressure in the furnace room to overcome chimney draf and cause smoke spill from the stove. The risk is greatest as a fire dies out that draft could be overcome, sucking co into your central heating system and distributing it throughout the house, most likely while asleep.

No building inspector or installer should pass the install you described.

 

[Highbeam]

I am pretty short of good wood, and need to cut some more,

Yeah, cutting wood to use right away. You'll need a properly used moisture meter reading to convince anyone that this is dry wood.

So even if the draft strength in that 7" pipe is as specified, the stove requires an 8" pipe. So the suck strength on the 7" must be proportionally larger I would think. Is that how it works? With 30' of chimney above this stove I am feeling less inclined to worry about weak draft when running hot. Maybe too much draft!

Has the paint burned off of the 7" single wall? And are you measuring surface temperature of that 7" single wall. Would be really curious if the tall chimney was sucking the heat right up the stack.

 

[BuckyBeaver524]

Y'know, I'd really like to hear from y'all about that there point on the uninsulated basement. It keeps coming up like it's some sort of bogeyman, and I will reiterate this.

It was warm before. It isn't now.
The area is part of the heated living space in this house.
With my dinky little stove, fed with ~12 inch pieces of wood of lesser quality (IMO) than what I am using now, I was able to keep the house warm enough to keep my wife from complaining. Yeah it was a chore. Leading to the want of a BIG stove to put out BIG heat!

The wood stove is placed under a hood which feeds directly to my central heating system as intake air. The furnace fan is used to distribute the heat from the stove, throughout the house. The system was originally designed and built to have this alternate heat source, with a thermo switch mounted in the system to kick the fans on, when the heat rises from the stove. Or, it was supposed to. THAT i why I did not consider buying the circ fans system for the stove. I did not want the immediate area heated, it should be getting that as a side effect of it's proximity to the stove. I wished for the heat to find it's way in to the duct via the hood over the stove,that it would be distributed about the entire house, as had been the norm even with the much smaller stove I had removed (the small RSF model).

I believe the wood is as dry as any, if not better than, that I have ever used in the previous stoves. But we pretty much beat that to death and arrived at a reasonable solution, which is, 'we'll see what the moisture meter says'.

I was assured by the seller that the stove would work with the chimney as it is. The seller provided me with the reducer, when I discussed the existing chimney and piping with him. So that boils down, IMO, to a matter that has affected MY trust of Blaze King's dealer. That is worth being open and public about, IMO.

Yeah. New stove. After spending $4k of my family's money on a wood stove, I am dissatisfied with it and looking at having to go through this process again. Which does not please me all that much. I tried to find the best solution, went to the Dealer and was sold this stove with the assurances it was going to meet or exceed my wants. Not so much. To be really clear, I shopped for capability, not price.

I am annoyed by the design decision that put the Cat housing lower down than the top of the door, as I have expressed. Now, I dunno what you think of that, but I am of the opinion that this qualifies as "Feedback" from a customer. As I stated in my original post, I wouldn't mind actually hearing what thoughts the fellow from Blaze King itself, has to say, either on the forum, or in private.

Despite the preponderance of cheery and sunshiny reviews, it does appear, that this particular model and make, is possibly not going to be suitable for my wants, so I am saying so, looking for possible solutions to what is happening, and trying to ascertain whether the issue is me and my expectations, a basic misunderstanding of the operations of this stove, the physical infrastructure, or if I was fed a line of poo and shuffled out the door by a sales dude, rather than being told straight out that they didn't have what I was actually looking for.

Howzat?

So, whether you have a vested interest in the Brand, or are just playing the Fan-Boy role, I dunno. I have been given some pretty good leads to follow up on, and will come back with numbers regarding the Moisture Content as well as the Manometer readings, as soon as I am able.

Cheers
Trev

Trev, there are a bunch of fanboys on this site, and some will never admit to a shortcoming with their Brand of choice. Stick around long enough and you will get to know who they are. But I urge you not to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are many folks (including some fanboys) who are very knowledgeable and sincerely want to help, and may even save your home or your life.

 

[Attaboy]

Interesting. Maybe the building inspector that signed off the last install will have something to say about that. Will ask, as I am still sometimes in contact. Will ask the next one in too, as they have not yet scheduled our inspection, as they are only in our area twice a month, and booked up pretty well in advance.

This assembly was part of the original installation in this house, and was signed off at the time (1987, IIRC).

Cheers
Trev

Your type of setup did go on here back in the 60's and 70's, it no longer is and is not permitted now under the national or provincial building code since the 90's. Back then oil, gas and electrical costs were skyrocketing and people where trying anything to minimize their heating costs and wanted to recuperate all the heat they could to later find out they were dangerously circulating carbon monoxide and dirty air through their homes or buildings and some fires were caused by these installations.

During the last 15 years here if you change insurance companies your new insurer after signing you up will insist on an appointment and house visit by their inspector, because it is against code he would not accept this type of setup and would leave you with a list of items to fix, repair or change that will need to be done in the next 15 -30 days, you then receive a call back from the insurance company going over this and advising you that the very serious problems if any listed if left unattended and not corrected are grounds for contract termination and coverage refusal. They do normally work with you to resolve every issue and will allow more time when you cooperate and are of goodwill.

Because I also know several firefighters I learned that they would definitely no longer accept such installations either, they would advise the city in a written report for further follow-up, in many municipalities and townships only they have authority to enforce certain by-laws, codes.

Most of these mickey mouse system installations back then were done without consent, permits and approvals from various municipal dept.'s and removal is easily enforced because of lack of it, my brother was a city councillor for many years and I was told that even if an approval had been granted in writing many years back by law municipalities in this province have the authority to rescind them for anything related to fire and safety issues which is a dam good thing.

Not everything is grandfathered. The national building code and provincial building codes are revised on a regular basis to improve what is already in place and to add new materials, equipment and techniques to better reflect the changing needs.

I am certain things can not be that different in British Columbia.

 

[trevj]

This type of install is strictly forbidden by the national building code. And could be part of your reason for smoke spillage. Make sure you have good smoke and co alarms.

Cutting a opening into a return air duct can create sufficient negative pressure in the furnace room to overcome chimney draf and cause smoke spill from the stove. The risk is greatest as a fire dies out that draft could be overcome, sucking co into your central heating system and distributing it throughout the house, most likely while asleep.

No building inspector or installer should pass the install you described.

Have both detectors, they are reasonably new ( a couple years old) they get new batteries annually, and are located at various levels about the living area.

Y'know, I would think Furnace/blower/suction/pressures was a possible problem, except for that the furnace blower isn't running all the time. I gotta say here, that I am not seeing a lot of things that are being dragged into this, that seem very relevant.

I am NOT getting smoke SUCKED into the house at any time or point. The smoke comes with the flare-up of the fresh loaded wood. By the time I get the second stick of wood in on the coals, the flare up results in a billow of smoke out the door. that is, I will reiterate for those with reading or just believing difficulties, with the bypass lever pulled to full open, and the temperature control set to full hot, and having cracked the door slowly, to allow what draft will, to build up. by the time I have several pieces of flaring wood laid across the coals, it is worse, as the smoke is billowing around the near end, and straight up, out the door.

Can't tell ya a thing about code at this point. it'll feature in my conversations with the inspector. It was part of the original install of the heating system in this house, which was from the beginning, set up to use wood heat as a supplement to the electric furnace, and distribute the air about the house with the furnace blower.

Point taken about the possibility of sucking air down the chimney on a cold fire. I do not doubt it could be a problem on a modern, well built and reasonably airtight house, but I don't really figure this one fits that category.

Cheers
Trev

 

[Squisher]

Try cracking a window. If your house is old and leaky like you say. It could already have negative pressure issues in the basement that the BK is showing sensitivity to. For instance if your attic is very drafty it can be a better chimney than the chimney almost.

 

[trevj]

Numbers for the numbers guys.

New Moisture Meter today.

I had a couple pieces of the afore-mentioned 'good' tree, they were eighths split off a round that would have been right around 17 inches in diameter.

They have both been sitting in my woodbox to be split down into kindling if needed, and have been indoors for several days (4 or more), so seemed a good place to start.

I get readings that come out at 20.4 percent. Hows them apples? Could be dryer, but that is essentially the standing tree moisture content.

Now, that was the stuff that had been indoors a while. For giggles, I just walked out and pulled a block of the same off the pile, and split it, measured it immediately and came up with 21.4 to 21.6 percent on the inside face of the pieces.

Per the owners manual, page 24, they state max 20 percent, and on page 25 they state that the efficiency testing was done with wood which was between 19 and 25 percent.

Fifty bucks I'll never see again, but they had one, and I wanted one, and now we have an actual number.



Cheers
Trev

 

[Squisher]

I can read your frustration as I would be too, dropping that money and not staying warm. But comprehend too yourself when people here tell you that 625 flat out is cool for a king king overtop of the cat. Something isn't right and people are just trying to help you out. We've seen no pictures of the actual setup so everyone is guessing online from your descriptions.

Measure draft, measure wood moisture, try cracking the window. Answers to these questions will help if you are serious about wanting to sort the issue.

And the type of install you described of a hood over a freestanding stove leading into the return air of your forced air electrical furnace is not allowed, in the WETT manual it just references the national building code and has quite a stern warning about these type of setups. I paraphrased it quite a bit, I'm still poking around the bc building code for further reference.