New BK insert owner in training

[MNtreewood]

Well last spring we decided to put the BK princess insert into our upstairs fireplace being we like heating with wood in a Drolet stove down in the basement. Huge operational difference between the two, which I figured it would be. I find the name amusing because so far our stove seems to operate safest more as a "char" king with next to no flame. I'm starting to get the hang of the air control with its lag. Its only been in the 40's daytime 30's night and I'm finding its borderline to warm still to run the stove 24hr. So I light up after dinner ever evening and the burn does last into the late morning. Seems to burn right down to the fluffy ash with no charcoal so far with popple & red maple. Outside the burn appears to be clean haven't seen any smoke from the chimney-just the invisible heat waves right around the cap, however the stove glass is black and dirty with the firebricks staying off white like before the stove was ever used?

Any other insert owners notice the temp probe climbs very fast to right off the gauge quickly? Seems like running the blower on hi does affect the gauge some. I don't need that much heat so I prefer to run the blower on low, but the probe runs real high and running the air control way down near the bottom really makes the glass dirty. Not sure which side to err on-any advice?

 

[Patapsco Mike]

Low and slow burns in my BK Princess result in dirty glass no matter how dry my wood is. Just the cost of having a smoldering fire going (while letting the cat work it's magic). Don't sweat it.

You are getting super-long low burns with no smoke out the stack. Very few stoves are capable of pulling that trick off, so just enjoy it. When it's cold out, and you are running it harder, the glass will stay a lot cleaner.

Welcome to the club.

 

[rdust]

Mine isn't an insert but maybe it operates similar since the firebox is the same. f I keep my blowers on low and the T stat on one my cat temp is about 3/4 of the way up. Without the blowers on it'll just about peg the gauge on the high line. My glass gets dirty in the lower corners, I think once I can burn the stove hotter that will clean up some. This has also improved as I'm getting used to the stove, I've only had a handful of fires in it so far. When I turn my down to just over 2 I lose the flames. I love that I don't have flames chewing up my wood, this thing truly amazes me with how long it burns. Half load of silver maple and still having a bunch of wood left 12 hours is just silly to me.

 

[SolarAndWood]

The bottom corners of my glass are dirty until December. To me, it is a small price to pay for 24/7 burning. If you give it a good hot burn at the beginning of the cycle, you will minimize it. Fewer burn cycles, i.e. full loads, also seems to help.

 

[MNtreewood]

Good feedback. Just didn't want to start out wrong. Can't wait to see what it does with colder temps and some white oak later this winter.

 

[weatherguy]

It will zoom up to temp without the blower, I always have my blower on because I need to but I lost electricity one day and I had to turn the tstat way down to keep it from over heating.