Looking for recommendations to replace damaged blazeking

[EastGarry29]

So you guys have been extremely helpful. Most likely this sounds like it’s the fault of both no having dampers and possibly user error (cat being on too long - definitely happened being out of the house for so long during the week - and possibly the door being slightly loose?).

We’ve got 4 wood stove stores in our immediate area. I’ll make sure to be talking to them about installing dampers and even testing the chimney. Figure if we talk to all four stores, we can get all opinions before making a decision as to what the next steps are.

Definitely can’t replace our 6” with an 8” pipe, but installing 2 dampers would be easy enough, accessibility-wise to the chimney through the house. Then we can put in whatever stove we end up replacing the BK with.

 

[weatherguy]

The blaze king had a pretty easy set up to adjust the door. You're supposed to do the dollar bill test, you put half the bill in and close the door, if you can easily pull the bill out it needs adjusting.

 

[rdust]

Yikes, that poor lady got toasted!

Honestly good gaskets and bypass closed I think you can run wide open even with a chimney that tall and not have that happen.

I’ve always thought a PE Summit would be fun to try if I ever went back to a non cat.

 

[showrguy]

He said he got it good and hit before locking it down. Do you suppose this stove spent too much time in bypass?

The parts that are heavily eroded/corroded are mild steel. That red color might be rust or just a weird camera flash.

I have no clue, but if this was a reoccurring issue we'd a sure as hell seen a post and pictures like this before !

A week or so ago a guy posted in the BK thread about how unhappy he was about his crumbled CAT, Turns out, he crushed it with a wrench !!

 

[moresnow]

Not trying to ruffle any feathers but. Sure be nice to figure out what took place.
Any chance the stove was operated for long periods of time, and regularly, with the bypass door open? About the only other thing I thought of that may overheat that bad. Some folks have questioned whether it is ok to run them this way. Nope.
Not sure we've hardly heard of setups that needed inline dampers with a BK? Suppose its possible.

 

[EastGarry29]

Not trying to ruffle any feathers but. Sure be nice to figure out what took place.
Any chance the stove was operated for long periods of time, and regularly, with the bypass door open? About the only other thing I thought of that may overheat that bad. Some folks have questioned whether it is ok to run them this way. Nope.
Not sure we've hardly heard of setups that needed inline dampers with a BK? Suppose its possible.

You're not ruffling any feathers - we want to figure out what went wrong too. If it was our user error, then so be it - but we need to correct it, whatever it ends up being.

We rarely ran it with the bypass open. I would say occasionally we would be a bit late closing it, but not enough to over heat the stove. Usually we would have the fan blowing once the stove was hot anyway. Definitely there were situations where the bypass was closed and the fire was too cold (when we were away at work).

 

[moresnow]

You're not ruffling any feathers - we want to figure out what went wrong too. If it was our user error, then so be it - but we need to correct it, whatever it ends up being.

We rarely ran it with the bypass open. I would say occasionally we would be a bit late closing it, but not enough to over heat the stove. Usually we would have the fan blowing once the stove was hot anyway. Definitely there were situations where the bypass was closed and the fire was too cold (when we were away at work).

Your damage does not appear to be from closing the bypass a bit late. We would all have the same in that case Its a common mistake that is brought up occasionally. Ever go long periods of time without a rain cap? Scary toxic acid rain zone

 

[EastGarry29]

Your damage does not appear to be from closing the bypass a bit late. We would all have the same in that case Its a common mistake that is brought up occasionally. Ever go long periods of time without a rain cap? Scary toxic acid rain zone

Lol well, we do live in Ontario so possibly...... But I don't think we've had any acid rain since the 90's

We've always had the rain cap. We did have a problem in the spring of 2016 after having 180 km/h wind gusts take off a large part of our shingles on the roof. We replaced the roof with a steel roof, but the seal around the chimney pipe was off and we got rain in at the base of the pipe at the roof line. It was fixed quickly and the rain didn't get into the stove (just dripped onto the top of it).

If it is not the damper, I'm guessing we let the door get too loose. It was looser last year (than the crazy tight, have to work to close it door the first year), but I think we both assumed it was just "settling in."

 

[showrguy]

Lol well, we do live in Ontario so possibly...... But I don't think we've had any acid rain since the 90's

We've always had the rain cap. We did have a problem in the spring of 2016 after having 180 km/h wind gusts take off a large part of our shingles on the roof. We replaced the roof with a steel roof, but the seal around the chimney pipe was off and we got rain in at the base of the pipe at the roof line. It was fixed quickly and the rain didn't get into the stove (just dripped onto the top of it).

If it is not the damper, I'm guessing we let the door get too loose. It was looser last year (than the crazy tight, have to work to close it door the first year), but I think we both assumed it was just "settling in."

You can still check the door gasket with a dollar bill, unless it's been sitting outside and totally rusted up, then it would'nt be very accurate..

 

[NW Pa Burner]

I've got the Osburn 2400, it does put out good heat and has a large firebox but burn times aren't as good as a cat stove and if you're gone 11 hours a day you'll have coals for an easy relight but wont be putting out much heat at that time. Also, with your tall chimney and likely strong draft the non-cat stove secondarys aren't controllable which will shorten your burn time too.

With all that said and 3 years of firewood ready, I still like the simplicity of the non-cat stove although not as efficient and shorter more extreme burn cycles.

 

[Highbeam]

Since you’re gone 11+ hours per day, probably like to sleep through the night, and have a relatively small place that you want to heat full time with wood then you make a great cat stove candidate. If bk is not an option then your next best is the Woodstock ideal steel model stove. It’s steel, pretty cheap, and offers a similar range of outputs as the princess. Some users report 24 hour burns but even 18 would be sufficient for you.

Right now, after 6 seasons burning my princess, if I needed a new one and bk had gone out of business then the IS is what I’d buy.

Long burn times are important and indicate a flexible stove with a wide range of available outputs.

 

[EastGarry29]

A few people have now suggested the Woodstock stoves now, but the company don't have dealers - just their factory it looks like. Up here in Canada I guess we'd need to ship it? I'd think shipping a 500+lb stove 900km might be pricey.. Has anyone else done it and would be willing to tell me the cost?

 

[Highbeam]

A few people have now suggested the Woodstock stoves now, but the company don't have dealers - just their factory it looks like. Up here in Canada I guess we'd need to ship it? I'd think shipping a 500+lb stove 900km might be pricey.. Has anyone else done it and would be willing to tell me the cost?

No matter what, all stoves get shipped to your house one way or another! The lower price for the Woodstock offsets the shipping in most cases.

My noncat nc30 from Virginia was shipped right into my garage from Virginia even though I ordered it at Home Depot.

Depending on your skills, you may need to hire a stove installer to actually remove the bk and place the Woodstock on your hearth.

Even the Woodstock will have draft maximums so you’ll need to deal with flue dampers. The good news is that you can call Woodstock and they will advise you unlike most other brands that require you to talk to your dealer. Those dealers, as you found, can be morons.

 

[ratsrepus]

Strange on the fact that BKVP hasn't chimed in yet. Id love to see his opinion. ILL bet i can guess what it is

 

[bholler]

So you guys have been extremely helpful. Most likely this sounds like it’s the fault of both no having dampers and possibly user error (cat being on too long - definitely happened being out of the house for so long during the week - and possibly the door being slightly loose?).

We’ve got 4 wood stove stores in our immediate area. I’ll make sure to be talking to them about installing dampers and even testing the chimney. Figure if we talk to all four stores, we can get all opinions before making a decision as to what the next steps are.

Definitely can’t replace our 6” with an 8” pipe, but installing 2 dampers would be easy enough, accessibility-wise to the chimney through the house. Then we can put in whatever stove we end up replacing the BK with.

Since you’re gone 11+ hours per day, probably like to sleep through the night, and have a relatively small place that you want to heat full time with wood then you make a great cat stove candidate. If bk is not an option then your next best is the Woodstock ideal steel model stove. It’s steel, pretty cheap, and offers a similar range of outputs as the princess. Some users report 24 hour burns but even 18 would be sufficient for you.

Right now, after 6 seasons burning my princess, if I needed a new one and bk had gone out of business then the IS is what I’d buy.

Long burn times are important and indicate a flexible stove with a wide range of available outputs.

A big non cat would work just fine as well.

 

[NVHunter]

I paid $2300 for my Woodstock Ideal Steel, and freight was 300 or 400 I think more for the 2600 mile trip from New England to Reno, Nevada.

I love the stove and it's currently burning as I write this. Had it for 3 years now and it's a great heater for my 2300 square foot 2 story house from the daylight basement.

Definitely a stove to look at in my opinion.

 

[jetsam]

Lol well, we do live in Ontario so possibly...... But I don't think we've had any acid rain since the 90's

We've always had the rain cap. We did have a problem in the spring of 2016 after having 180 km/h wind gusts take off a large part of our shingles on the roof. We replaced the roof with a steel roof, but the seal around the chimney pipe was off and we got rain in at the base of the pipe at the roof line. It was fixed quickly and the rain didn't get into the stove (just dripped onto the top of it).

If it is not the damper, I'm guessing we let the door get too loose. It was looser last year (than the crazy tight, have to work to close it door the first year), but I think we both assumed it was just "settling in."

To overfire a BK, you kind of have to bypass its built in air control. A very leaky door gasket is just that kind of bypas, and super strong draft would make it worse.

Running a properly working BK hard with the bypass open shouldn't overfire it. The stove even runs cooler with the bypass open because the cat isn't reburning gasses. You can melt the bypass retainers that way, but it won't overfire the stove.

You'll need to be on top of gasket integrity and maximum allowable draft on whatever new stove you end up with, or it's likely to suffer a similar fate.

 

[Highbeam]

Running a properly working BK hard with the bypass open shouldn't overfire it.

Might not overtemp the entirety of the firebox but you can damage the welded in, critical, internal parts of the stove. Bypass gasket retainers are melt away like a fusible link.

 

[jetsam]

Might not overtemp the entirety of the firebox but you can damage the welded in, critical, internal parts of the stove. Bypass gasket retainers are melt away like a fusible link.

I've heard that but I question how easy it is to do, due to a couple incidents I've had where someone in the house completely forgot to close the bypass, resulting in no obvious damage to the stove.

 

[begreen]

A few people have now suggested the Woodstock stoves now, but the company don't have dealers - just their factory it looks like. Up here in Canada I guess we'd need to ship it? I'd think shipping a 500+lb stove 900km might be pricey.. Has anyone else done it and would be willing to tell me the cost?

Call Woodstock for a quote.

 

[Highbeam]

I've heard that but I question how easy it is to do, due to a couple incidents I've had where someone in the house completely forgot to close the bypass, resulting in no obvious damage to the stove.

It happens. I've never had an incident but mine (on the cat side of the bypass opening) had melted anyway. One of the reasons I hesitate to spend too much time at max output setting. There was a design change in recent years that results in a lower likelihood of retainer failure.

Never buy a used BK without inspecting those retainers.

 

[vwmike]

A few people have now suggested the Woodstock stoves now, but the company don't have dealers - just their factory it looks like. Up here in Canada I guess we'd need to ship it? I'd think shipping a 500+lb stove 900km might be pricey.. Has anyone else done it and would be willing to tell me the cost?

I was super interested in a Woodstock stove until I realized they're not tested or approved for Canadian installations. When I contacted them they said as long as it passed the wett inspection my insurance company should be fine with it but I wasn't willing to gamble on it.

 

[mellow]

You can see what the MF Fire guys say, but I am guessing it will be along the same lines as Woodstock that all bets are off in CA install, but they do say they ship to Canada.

https://mffire.com/