Used Blazeking Princess Ultra - What to Look For

[jetsam]

Next time the stove is cool, I'd vaccum out the cat and the shelf behind the cat.

Sounds like she's working nicely though!

If the cat is glowing, the cat gasket is not in terrible shape. If you don't see any smoke outside, the cat gasket is probably in good shape.

 

[kennyp2339]

Have not swapped the door gasket out yet

Ahhh gotcha, well the good thing is, is that the door can be adjusted very easily. Good luck with her, you will see once you find your burning spots that this stove turns into the worlds most boring stove

 

[Highbeam]

Flue probe is right at the mark between good and too cool, maybe a hair under. Do you still need to try and keep that up in orange zone with a cat stove? I'd say its at about 275-300 currently

Whoa, I disagree with kenny, you do need to keep flue temps up in the normal range to prevent condensation of water and tar in your chimney. The cat does not eliminate the components of smoke that cause creosote, even burning at medium or lower outputs you will see accumulations in your flue. With flue temps low enough to get condensation these accumulations can be gooey tar which is much harder to clean than crunchy, dry, creosote.

You must maintain flue temps high enough to keep your entire chimney above condensation temperature. This is true for all stoves.

I have found that 400 internal with a probe is a low burn rate but high enough to prevent condensation everywhere except the cap of my class a chimney.

 

[kennyp2339]

Whoa, I disagree with kenny

lol, I get your thinking, but my thought process is really just keep the cat active, as long as its active it should be burning most particulates.
Now everyone is different, and I sweep twice a year, burning low and slow I get only 1 coffee can of creosote at each cleaning. My chimney is class a insulated and 90% of it is inside (in a chase) so I prob don't have flue cooling issues like others.

 

[Highbeam]

Negative, the unit will be hard pressed to keep the flue warm, that's why BK says to install with dvl pipe.
As for the smell, try to increase the t stat slightly, it may keep the fire burning hotter, giving you better draft. Also the door gasket, after putting the new one on, did you test all area's with a dollar bill?

In my experience it is very easy to keep flue temperatures in the normal range (above 400) for the full 24 burn cycle. Only when you flirt with trying the ultra low settings do you need to worry about maintaining sufficient flue temps to prevent condensation.

 

[kennyp2339]

True, I could see that, but then your cancelling out the long burn times the stove was designed to do, imo different things work for different people.
Now I burn low and slow, before my bk I ran a US 2500, in the basement, same chimney, same wood, and my flue was a lot more dirtier with creosote. I would monitor my flue temps while running that stove. Its because of that stove that I learned to clean my chimney twice a year, each cleaning would be 2-3 coffee cans of crap, that all went away with the BK.

 

[Highbeam]

lol, I get your thinking, but my thought process is really just keep the cat active, as long as its active it should be burning most particulates.
Now everyone is different, and I sweep twice a year, burning low and slow I get only 1 coffee can of creosote at each cleaning. My chimney is class a insulated and 90% of it is inside (in a chase) so I prob don't have flue cooling issues like others.

Keeping an active cat is important but just one of the minimums. I flirted in the very dangerous zone of burning as low as possible to barely keep an active cat using super dry wood. I had flue temps as low as 250 internal, lots of visible steam, and very rapid accumulation of gooey tar on my cap and the top foot or so of pipe. The tar was dripping down and landing on my storm collar. The steam was not odorless, smelled bad. Excellent burn times though, clean and hot cat, complete combustion in the firebox but such a nasty and very dangerous mess in the chimney.

The cat does not eat all of the junk that causes creosote. If anybody wants to maintain ultra low burn rates (the zone of active cat but with condensing flue temps) you've been warned. Check your entire flue regularly and ask yourself if you want to clean tar or sweep crunchy creosote. The rate of accumulation in this zone can be very high.

 

[kennyp2339]

Keeping an active cat is important but just one of the minimums

I think we are having different experiences also due to predominant fuel types, out west your more of a soft wood cat, out east we're hard wood guys. I think that because our fuel is denser once its heated up we have long sustained burns which inadvertently burn hotter.
Last year I burned about a cord of dry 15% white pine, I did notice how it burned much dirtier, so in essence it was more important to burn hotter.
With my sugar maple, oak, and cherry I have cleaner results burning low and slow, now I do burn hot every few days, mainly to keep the fire box clean, I don't think it has any effect on the chimney though.