What happens when fanboys combine with the many BK tech support issues. Prolly needs its own forum.
Help for a new BK Chinook 30 owner please...
- Thread starter Burninator007
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Woodstocks also have a cat. Some owners started bombarding every thread pushing their stoves. That helped no one and they were asked to stop, which they didn, so they were asked to leave. The problem is not the stove, but the owners which try to build tribes. That is not helpful.
There are still tons of people who don't want cats. And bk is a fairly small player in the market compared to some others. This forum is not really representative of woodburners in general
Count me as a cat stove owner that doesn’t want a cat but tolerates it until the manufacturers of noncats figure out a way to burn low and slow!
Well, as we discussed in another thread, you could burn a non-cat stove low and slow, but efficiency and emissions would be horrible. I don't think non-cat-manufacturers can beat the laws of physics.
Love mine, btw. We currently have what everybody else wouldn't even call should er season (60's) but the BK is on low and putting out just enough of heat to keep the living room comfortable and prevent the furnace from kicking in.
Love mine, btw. We currently have what everybody else wouldn't even call should er season (60's) but the BK is on low and putting out just enough of heat to keep the living room comfortable and prevent the furnace from kicking in.
Yep, the only way around it with a non-cat is to burn smaller loads while still maintaining a burn rate that stays clean. But if it's warmer out, you can ride a small amount of coals for a long time and room temps will fall very slowly since your house isn't losing heat very fast.
You probably don't have very good insulation and air-sealing, way down there in Dixie, but if you weatherized a bit you could run a non-cat even more effectively than you could now. Heck, even here where it's colder, in a cabin with no wall insulation, settled attic blown-in insulation and quite a few air leaks, room temp varies only a couple of degrees between 12-hr. loads on high 40s/high 20s days.
I don't mind the added expense of a cat stove, though. I can load more wood, cut the air to a cat-only burn for lower output, and control room temp that way.
I put a non-cat at my SIL's house, and she's having much the same experience; Two small loads a day, five or six 4-6" splits, and her house is very cozy in this type of weather.
Now, I don't have a lot of options in good non-cat stoves that will rear-vent into the masonry fireplace. I might try to find a used Castine or other non-cat, to replace my current backup stove, a VC Dutchwest cat. It's sweet though since both flue exits are now the same height, and a stove swap is easy.
That helps the zealots trying to push BK. It wouldn't be good for them if every "smoking BK" complaint had it's own thread, where newbie stove buyers could more easily find them with the search function. Better to have them buried in the massive BK "performance" thread where the newbs don't see them, since their eyes glaze over and they nod off after the first few pages.
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Among some things I don't understand is why some people (especially around here) think that insulation is not necessary here. Quite the contrary. What the northern states have in temperature difference between outside and a comfortable indoor temperature, we have it the opposite way in summer. And a good insulation helps either way to keep your costs down.
I think its because of the temperature differential. In summer when its 100 outside and your keeping your house at 75 its still only a 25 degree differential. During winter up north there temperature can be below zero. Much larger differentials.
Solar radiation intensifies that, our (uninsulated attic) goes well over 100 in summer. And we do have that from March to September ;-)
I once found a scientific page listing the deltas for different US cities (like temperature delta to 20C/70F over the course of a typical year resulting in energy use to maintain comfortable indoor temperatures, like a heating/cooling index) but can't find that anymore.
Edit: there it is. Admittedly, the northern midwest states need to heat a lot more than the southern states need to cool.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/degree-days.php
I once found a scientific page listing the deltas for different US cities (like temperature delta to 20C/70F over the course of a typical year resulting in energy use to maintain comfortable indoor temperatures, like a heating/cooling index) but can't find that anymore.
Edit: there it is. Admittedly, the northern midwest states need to heat a lot more than the southern states need to cool.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/degree-days.php
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Of course not. Much like any car enthusiast forum is not representative of the general US driving population.
Plus, you'll likely get a worse impression of a certain product (be it a car or a stove) than it actually is, because mostly those people write on forums that have problems. Those who do not (and are happy with their product) often are not even members. So it shifts perspective a little bit.
Mech e
Feeling the Heat
This forum is much better than others I have frequented. Car forums are notorious for spreading inaccurate information. An owner complaining about a model's reliability neglects to inform you that he or she thinks the gas and brake pedals are binary, and the oil pressure light tells you it's time to change the oil. Here at least, good questions are asked and photos posted to help us sort out fact from fiction.
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