The truth about BK's

My stove holds 'ALOT' of wood. That is a pretty honest 4 cu ft, sometimes 100 lbs or more. It will burn thru it in 12-48 hours, depending on how fast I want it to. Given my current state of draftiness and mediocre insulation, I likely burn thru it faster than many.

Will a PH burn that same amount of wood and keep us comfortable? Don't know, don't care. It's what I have, and I'm happy. I am not going to slam anything else, and say my stove is better than your stove, because I really don't care. I will offer objective answers to anything anyone wants to know about a BKK, but I don't know much about anything else. I'm still learning about the PE.

 

Which does worry me nearly as much as the thought that the Princess doesn't get me the burn times I'm looking for since it is technically smaller than the Defiant.

 

With the 8" liner already in place at my MIL's, the 91 was a no-brainer when it came up on cl for $1000.
I don't yet have the stove set up to run really low, but I've tweaked the air wash to cut more right side air into the stove when the air is closed. I still need to totally cut the air coming in through the ash dump, but I've got it reduced to the point where it's not a problem. Even as it is, the stove will burn long. It'll go 12 hrs. on a load of mid-heat wood and still have the stove meter over 250, pumping out good heat. On the better woods like Red Oak and Sugar Maple, I have to make sure I don't put too much wood in or it won't be ready to reload after 12 hrs. I just took some Pignut Hickory and Black Locust over there so when I have a chance to let the stove burn for 16 hrs, I'll load up with that stuff. Based on what I've seen so far, I bet it will be cranking out decent heat at 16 hrs on the primo wood. Once I get the final tweaks on the air coming in, even longer? We get a lot of shoulder-type weather here so I want to be able to run it a bit lower yet, when I need to. I'll mess with that this spring, when we get some extended breaks from burning.

That said, if I were running three stoves, I would want to keep the amount of work to an absolute minimum. The BK thermostatic control would be very attractive to stretch out the burns. The welded steel box would reduce maintenance. I wouldn't want to be shoveling ash out of three stoves either, so I would be looking for a grate-type ash handling system. The 3.5 x 5.5" ash dump on the Buck is pretty decent but I'm spoiled on the Keystone's system....easy as pie, and no ash ever misses the pan. And yeah, the Keystone burns long. It'll burn even longer when I fix that leaky seam. damm seams.

 

Let me just say Woody....You just about summed up my experience so far but normally I just put about 5 splits (3 medium to large splits and 2 small) and get a good productive heat for 12 hrs with good hardwood. I really did not want to get into much of a discussion just asked BB if he had looked at the Buck's. Some of the comments he made I don't entirely agree with but there is enough back and forth in this thread that I don't care to discuss. I actually was hoping the mods would just shut it down.

 

3 times as much is 3 times as much. Pretty simple. It doesn't matter if it's 1 split vs 3 splits, or 1 cord vs 3 cord. It's 3 times as much wood. Same size house, same style house except mine is on stilts, and his is not (which makes mine colder, air flows under the house), same age home, same construction (same guy built both houses), same basic insulation.

Sorry, you can argue it all you want. Facts are facts, and I saw it with my own eyes. I have nothing to gain either way, it's just an observation.

 

OK, that still doesn't give me an idea of what ALOT of wood is. I'm not sure why the question is hard to answer. 3 times more than you might be what is considered normal by the rest of the wood burning world. Let me ask it this way, how much wood do you burn on a day in the teens or single digits?(I'll then multiple it by 3) How much area are you heating? IIRC you're heating the upper level on a 2 level home correct? How big is that level? What model stove does/did your neighbor have?

I'm also curious how a stove with a similar tested efficiency as yours(unless the BK in question is an old smoke dragon) can use 3x as much wood.

How much wood do you burn in a season? I assume it's in the 3 cord range if you burn from Oct-April. I guess that means your neighbor burns 9 cords a year?

 

It's probably run it's course.

 

That's what I was thinking.

 

I don't see a problem. I admit to bringing up a heated topic but after 107 posts we've done a great job of being civilized and spreading info instead of discontent.

If the mods disagree and think we have gotten out of hand, by all means shut it down. No hard feelings. We all know how different views can spiral into something ugly, but so far Hoarder members have shown great character.

ETA: Imho, the first few pages were good and clean, the last few have had a few overtones. If the mods see fit, by all means......

 

Much like motorcycles, I have never seen a stove that I didn't want to give it a try. Even the dodgy looking ones still invoke a "well, that looks like a piece of crap... where are some splits, let's see how it burns!"

 

One thing I noticed last year burning my Princess, I was more tempted to burn more often with more wood during the shoulder season when I probably didn't need to.

It would be in the upper 50's and I'd fill her up full and burn low and slow for 24+ hours but in reality I probably could of just burned a half load hot in the evenings to keep the house temps where I wanted.

I guess I could of held back on the wood consumption but it was fun seeing what the stove was capable of. Lots of different factors and variables when it comes down to wood consumption, you can't just go by stove efficiency.

 

I do a smaller version of this in my Keystone, load it up for a shoulder season burn instead of building a couple of smaller evening fires. Sometimes I over do it and wish I had just let the fire go out. As you said, I wonder how much wood this wastes.

 

I believe what you witnessed Machria and do not discredit you at all for your experience. The problem I have with it is that you are taking one instance and generalizing that all BK products are like that. There are just too many people using a BK stove that say otherwise.

 

I haven't generalized anything. I simply stated MY observatons. Good, bad or ugly, that's just what I saw.

 

And then tweak it, (not twerk cause I think that's different) to see if it'll work even gooder.

 

Well, to put that in perspective, my neighbor has a Fireview. His chimney smokes. A lot. More often than my two VC stoves. But I know that is not indicative of Woodstock stoves.

 

He should really try to get it to quit! Tell him to try the patch, or maybe switch to the new electronic cigs, they are not supposed to be as bad, less nicotine....

 

^Care to elaborate?^
Interesting as BK's are known for low and slow, some even believe that a cat stove will not throw big heat.

 

Well, the King is a huge stove. Most burners do not need a 4.2 cu ft firebox. Even burned low, it will still throw a certain amount of heat. For someone like youself that is getting 10-14 hours out of the Keystone, the King at a low setting may still be too much heat for you.