It was finally cold enough this weekend to fire up our new BK Chinook 20

[privatejoker75]

We finally decided to replace our highly inefficient Heatrola Estate with a new stove. After much googling and searching we decided on the BK Chinook 20. Wife loved the styling, i loved the efficiency. We bought it over the summer and it's been staring at me ever since, just waiting for some crisp temps

Well, last friday I fired it up for the first time. Immediately I noticed smoke coming out of the collar where the stove pipe goes in. A few months ago another person here said he had a similar problem...too much weld on the inside of the collar. Sure enough that was my issue too. It seems weird to me that something engineered so meticulously has something like that slip through QA but I digress. I got my dremel out and in 1 minute the weld was even and the stovepipe fit tight as it should.

Other than that initial misstep, this thing has been mind blowing.

Keep in mind our old stove was highly inefficient. 1 full load of wood (average size box) would burn for 2 hours tops. That meant waking up to a freezing house every morning and lighting a new fire. Meanwhile, I haven't had to restart a fire since friday with this new stove. The burn times are absolutely incredible, even using pine for most of it. I still can't break the habit of checking the fire every few hours yet but i'm getting there. In all in this is a life-changing purchase for us, I had no idea it could be so dramatically different than our old stove. hats off to BK for such a great product.

edit: old pic, you can see how the stove pipe didn't fit all of the way down. Thanks to Highbeam for pointing that out in my old thread and saving me some trouble

 

[Tenn Dave]

Congratulations on that nice efficient piece of equipment ! It's good for you and good for the environment. A win-win. Enjoy a nice warm winter.

 

[Woody Stover]

Wow, that sounds great, especially after having to load every two hours. Nice-looking stove.

Temp in here has dipped below 70 and it's really tempting to fire up, but at a bull session around the outside fire, I predicted that our first fire would be on 10/15; I have to try to make it look like I nailed it. If we can make it through tonight's mid-forties, warmer temps are on the way.

 

[BKInsert]

Beautiful stove and more important supper long burn hours as you found out... I was too in disbelief and it took me a few months to get used to this engineering marvel... Just think about how much wood you will save in a season.

 

[weatherguy]

Did you get in on that winter storm? Where's the pic of that baby burning?

 

[privatejoker75]

Wow, that sounds great, especially after having to load every two hours. Nice-looking stove.

Temp in here has dipped below 70 and it's really tempting to fire up, but at a bull session around the outside fire, I predicted that our first fire would be on 10/15; I have to try to make it look like I nailed it. If we can make it through tonight's mid-forties, warmer temps are on the way.

We dropped to mid 20s overnight a few days ago, 2 weeks ago it was lows in the 60s so it was a big swing. Normally the beginning of October is our first burn so we're right on schedule.

Beautiful stove and more important supper long burn hours as you found out... I was too in disbelief and it took me a few months to get used to this engineering marvel... Just think about how much wood you will save in a season.

Oh it's crazy. Old stove used about a wheelbarrow of wood per day. I'm not even halfway through that amount of wood in 4 days

Did you get in on that winter storm? Where's the pic of that baby burning?

No storms yet. Last year we didn't get snow until december. This year it's already at 4000' and dropping. We're like 2000' here.

Too much glare for pics right now....not much to see anyway No flames/barely any visible embers

 

[weatherguy]

We dropped to mid 20s overnight a few days ago, 2 weeks ago it was lows in the 60s so it was a big swing. Normally the beginning of October is our first burn so we're right on schedule.


Oh it's crazy. Old stove used about a wheelbarrow of wood per day. I'm not even halfway through that amount of wood in 4 days


No storms yet. Last year we didn't get snow until december. This year it's already at 4000' and dropping. We're like 2000' here.

Too much glare for pics right now....not much to see anyway No flames/barely any visible embers

I hear ya, mine looks like it's not being used except for the heat pouring out of it warming up the house

 

[BKInsert]

Did you get in on that winter storm? Where's the pic of that baby burning?

Not sure if you are asking me? If you mean last winter storm then yes, was pretty bad, between the hurricane and the winter storm we lost so many trees. The only good thing is I have enough hard wood for probably 3 seasons...The picture was taken in my den.