I have a new BK Princess, installed on March 10/23. I have experience with five non-cat wood stoves prior to this. The Princess is amazing! Far superior to all previous stoves. I am very happy with the performance. It is the shoulder season for me up here, but it’s great so far. I can’t wait for the -40 next winter now. These 10-12 hour burn times are great.
Your neighbors (and several species of small furry animals gathered in a cave grooving with a pict) may think you have given up burning wood with so little smoke coming out of the chimney.
Even though the BK is an awesome performer my BK is a smoker, like a freight train the first few hours, no missing the smoke but then a relatively long period of much less smoke. A modern noncat is much easier to burn smoke free. Those low flue temperatures make the stuff and steam condense into visible smoke pretty easily at the typical low burn rates.
Yes, it’s mostly water vapour, but when it hits the cold air at between -20 to -40, it still looks like a white smoke to the average person passing by.
I have a BK Sirocco 30.2. Great stove. It smokes at start up especially with fir. Then no visible smoke for the duration of the burn. New stoves are a huge improvement over the old technology. Efficient and clean.
I don’t have any cold weather experience with my Princess as it’s still too new, waiting for winter to know for sure. But I’ve used my MIL’s King 40, and that drops from about a 50 hr burn time down on low, to about a 10-12 hr burn left on a higher setting for the -20’s, -40 ‘s. They’re great, love them.
When turning up the thermostat for max heat, the BK is similar to other efficient stoves as far as burn times. BK shines during shoulder seasons with extended burn times.
That's a great heater at those temps.My large soapstone gives me 14 hrs of usable heat during the really cold temps which for us is down to -10.Nothing like you guys.
The burn time is entirely user adjustable regardless of how cold it is outside. I can get 24 hour reloads just as easy when it’s 55 outside or when it’s 5. I choose to increase the burn rate when it’s down into the teens to align with a 12 hour reload cycle to keep the house temperature from falling. There’s no free lunch for any of us. If you want twice as much heat output then your burn time is cut in half. Not all stoves are capable of much burn rate adjustment so choose wisely if that’s important to you.
Your 12 hour reload cycle sounds somewhat similar to other BK owners who say they lose the long burn times when the temps are very frigid.They state that they have to open up their BK's more to get more heat thus the burn times lessen.Makes sense.Your the only user who I've come across who says they can still get 25 hr burns even in very low temps.How do you do it ?
I simply select the very low burn rate that results in the full 24 burn cycle. The low burn rate setting is always available to all operators. Obviously, at that low burn rate the stove is making less heat than at high burn rates so the house temperatures may begin to fall but it falls much slower than with no fire at all. If I’m going to be gone for a day I would prefer a long, low, efficient fire and a slowly cooling home than I would a flash in the pan 12 hour burn and then rapid temperature drop in the home. The burn rate is always user selectable. The stove thermostat knob is not aware of outside temperatures. It’s job is to regulate burn rate to match what the operator selects.
