New Install of Blaze King King 40 KE Stove on Six Inch Flue and Chimney

After a lengthy discussion regarding the install of a Blaze King King 40 on a six inch flue and chimney, this thread is to detail my install and experience of attempting just that. To read our previous discussion on this, please visit this thread:

Real life use of a catalyst stove like the Hearthstone Heritage for newbies

So, a little geographical information: I live in the lower peninsula of Michigan, dead center on the "mitten". My elevation is approximately 900 feet.

As detailed in my previous discussion, I purchased and installed a Hearthstone Heritage 8024 in June 2023. When the colder 25-40 degree nights hit us in September 2023, I fired up the Heritage, dying to see this beauty in action. Waking up the next morning to quite a chilly house, I was a bit dismayed as to what went wrong.

When I purchased the Heritage, my intent was to purchase the Mansfield when I walked through the doors of the fireplace store. After looking at the stoves they had on the floor, my wife loved the color of the stone on this one particular Hearthstone Heritage stove. As I discussed with her that I didn't feel the Heritage would provide the heat we wanted based on my research, I told her we would look around for a Mansfield with similar stone color. The salesman immediately began to tell me he did not recommend the Mansfield as it was too large for the 2000-2500 sq feet I intended to heat. I told him we like our house VERY warm, ideally in the 75-77 degree range. He assured me hands down the Heritage was the stove I needed. Of course, this made my wife very happy because she was looking at the stove she liked. Long story short, we bought the stove, ashpan, and rear heat shield; The works (Pictures included below of my Heritage install)!

Jumping forward to Fall 2023, we discovered on the 40 degree days, it was almost a necessity to be loading the stove every 3-4 hours to "maintain" a temperature of roughly 74-77 degrees in the house. At night, I would stay up extra late to load the stove about 11:30pm just to buy some extra time in the morning. Again, on the extra cold nights of 20-25 degrees, we woke up to a 69 degree house on several occasions. It didn't take long to realize this stove would never cut it after it actually got cold! After much discussion on these forums, I settled on the Blaze King, primarily because it had the automatic thermostat similar to the stove I had used years ago which heated my house amazingly well.

Fast forward....I ordered my Blaze King King 40 in November 2023. My primary concern would be, will it operate properly on the six inch flue and chimney which I had just installed for my Hearthstone Heritage in June 2023. I finally settled on the fact that it would be worth a shot. I might as well try it and if needed, I would install the eight inch.

My King 40 was delivered yesterday morning, December 1, 2023. Wow! It looks so much bigger in my house than it did on the showroom floor! This thing is a beast! Took me no time to get it connected to the chimney and ready to fire up. Put in two of my cedar shaving fire starters, about 15 pieces of small kindling, and struck a match. What a beautiful sight. The kindling roared to life and I was making heat. All was great until what I knew was coming next. The paint started to generate smoke. No way to avoid this. At one point, I had every smoke detector going off, windows open and a box fan in the patio doorway, lol. This went on most of the day which cooled the house off quite drastically as it was a high temp of 35 degrees for the day. Late afternoon came, the smoke subsided, and we could now start warming up our 51 degree living room. The King caught up rather quickly and by 10pm, we were boasting nearly 72 degrees in the living room. At this point, I was already completely satisfied. My Heritage could have never accomplished this. It was an all out battle to warm the house back up on a 40 degree day after the house temp fell to around 70 the previous night with the Heritage. When I went to bed December 1, 2023, at 10pm, I placed 6 medium pieces of splits in the King, each being approximately 3-4 inch diameter. I woke up at 5:30 am December 2, 2023, outside temperature is 31 degrees, house temperature is 77 degrees, and I still have crazy hot coals in the stove. Life is beyond good!

So, let's move on to my initial take of reducing the eight inch exhaust opening on the King 40 down to my existing six inch. My install consists of exactly 7 feet of 6 inch DuraPlus DVL double wall pipe from the wood stove to the ceiling adapter. Then, I have 12 feet of 6 inch triple wall stainless steel chimney from the ceiling through to the cap outside. My initial install had 9 feet of stainless steel triple wall pipe, but I added and extra 3 foot section just because I thought it may help facilitate better draft since I was only 6 inch instead of eight.

My initial impression after only one day with the stove. It seems to be performing flawlessly. At this point, I have not had any smoke spill out of the door when reloading. That being said, before reloading, I am down to a bed of coals. I have not reloaded with burning wood which would obviously generate substantial smoke. I open the draft to full, let the stove heat up for 3-5 minutes, open the bypass, let the stove warm the chimney for another 3-5 minutes, then slightly crack open the door for a minute or so to exhaust gases, then open the door and load the wood. So far so good. Obviously, humidity, outdoor temps, etc., will play a role in this factor as time goes on, so, I will do my best to keep this thread updated so fellow users can make a decision on what they want to do based the experience I am having with this present configuration.

I'm including pictures of my original Hearthstone Heritage 8024 install and the new install of my Blaze King King 40 KE install. Hope this thread will be helpful.

 

Very nice! Glad the stove is working for you so well already, hope it continues to meet your needs and expectations.

I'll be interested to see how it does with smoke when reloading before its down to just coals, since you extended the stack. I'm needing to do the same.

Did the BK come with the lighthouse picture?

 

Other way around......The lighthouse picture cost me $4,500, and they threw in the stove!

 

Too bad about the heritage. They used to have a jumbo heritage called the equinox that used an 8” flue in modern time like beyond 2010 but it still wasn’t half the performer that your king is.

The king likes to loaded all the way full. The stove size is just the size of the gas tank. It can spew off the same low heat with a full load or a part load but the amount you fill just determines how long it will burn.

There’s a chance that the better quailty insulated double wall 8” pipe might be the same diameter as your triple wall 6” so you could reuse the hole in the roof and the cone flashing. Or maybe the 6” will be permanent.

Best chance of 6” not working seems to be when it’s warm outside and at low burn rates especially near the end of burn as things cool.

 

Agreed. I'm thinking it would be more important then than ever to build a small fire and burn down to coals only before reload. A day and a half into the King, and I'm loving it!

 

Dang...helluva deal!

 

That's a big difference in stoves! The Hearthstone only takes up part of that pad. You definitely needed that larger stove, Stay warm!

 

Yep, I'm back. Just with a new BIGGER stove. Unfortunately, as much as I loved the looks of the Hearthstone Heritage, it didn't have the size to meet my heating requirements.

 

You're not kidding! There's a HUGE difference in the size of the two stoves! It makes me wonder if the Hearthstone Mansfield would have met my needs if I had bought that one instead of the Heritage.

 

I'm entering my second full day with this new BK40. The outside temperature hit 29° last night . I woke up yesterday morning (first morning with the new stove) and the house was 77°. I had put about 6 medium sized splits in the night before and still had a very large bed of coals. I put about 5 small sized splits in (about 2-3 inches diameter). Then, after grabbing a coffee and soaking up the heat, I decided to let the fire die out for the day as it was going to hit 40° in the forecast. The house remained amazing warm throughout the day, we even cracked open a window at one point for a little bit. About 6pm, the house temperature was about 72°, so I decided to rekindle a small fire as overnight temps were supposed to be about 30°. At 10pm, I added about 3/4 of a tote of splits (about 35 pounds of wood) to the stoves nice coal bed. Woke up at 6:30 to outside temp of 29°, and house temperature of 73°. I had set the thermostat dial on the stove to about a medium burn level. I'm beyond happy happy with this new BK40! There's no doubt, it will easily heat the house to 75-77° on a -20° winter day.

Now to address the biggest question everyone has, and the main reason for this thread. Will the stove exhaust smoke through the six inch flue and chimney? I have only put wood in the stove a couple times now since install and have not yet had smoke enter the room. Here's what I'm doing during a reload with wood in stove, which may be helping:

Before starting, have your wood ready to load.

1. Turn thermostat dial to high.
2. Open bypass door
3. Open front door approximately 1/2 inch and wait about 1 minute to avoid thermo shock to the catalyst.
4. Open the door to about 2 inches until the wood has a pretty good burn going on. Not necessarily roaring hot, but decent flame.
5. I now turn the thermostat dial all the way down, (forcing the stove to drawn the much needed air through the front door)
6. I open the loading door and add my wood.
7. Shut the door, turn thermostat dial to high. If catalyst temperature within range, as it should already be, close bypass door. Once wood has caught and burning good, set thermostat dial to desired range.

So, for me so far, I'm having zero issues with smoke spillage. There are a lot of other weather temperature related factors that could affect this, but only time will tell. I already have an idea in mind to combat that though which will be a discussion at a later date.

 

Don’t let the size deceive you. Because of the combustion system on a BK, the physical size of the king stove is not a representation of its output. It’s actually not a very high output stove but it’s able to maintain a low or moderate output for a LONG time.

 

You are exactly right. That is what I had said all along with my Hearthstone Heritage stove. It put out enough heat when it was burning, it just did not burn long enough for a good steady consistent heat output. This BK is really nice because it doesn't burn you out of the house, but it burns for a long time.

I have been extremely happy so far. The house has been an even consistent temperature so far. I don't get the huge fluctuations from the hot and then the cooling that I was getting with the Heritage.

 

Looking forward to more reports especially when you start loading that beast full. Do you monitor flue temps? What did you do with the Heritage?

 

With the double wall pipe, I don't really monitor the flue temps. I have gone up on the roof, and put my hand over the chimney opening and it is barely warm heat coming out of the chimney. Pretty amazing really! I still have my Heritage stove. I am trying to sell it, but if I don't sell it, I will probably put it in my upstairs room which is just a game room with couches, TV, pool table, etc.

 

Nice to hear of the success. Let us know how it goes when you do a fully packed north=south load. Enjoy!

 

Glad it’s working for you..
If only concern is smoke in-house, I would add draft inducer before changing chimney