The Blaze King thread, new combustor & good wood.

Seems you are seeing an improvement in performance
Gonna be interesting to see how well it does with a full load


35° here & wind
still getting 24 hrs ±.
Back to putting space between the splits again.

 

You are cranking lots of BTUs into the house ,
if not with efficient wood burning ,
it would have to come from the furnace .

I think the new cat will help you add more heat & burn less wood

Believe it or not, 37° here.
Slow low burn , fans off & cat temp is in the lower end of it's range,
another 24 hr + burn.

 

Ok, curious how loose is too loose for the new combuster?
I cleaned out the ash and what over the weekend, and gave the Cat a quick vacumn. It seemed a little loose. Should it fit snug or is this a problem?

BTW, I've always heard it's beneficial to leave an inch of ash in the stove. So I cleaned the box down to the bricks and layered in about 2" of noodles, chips, and small pieces of wood before I re-lit. Ta-Dah!! Fresh ash layer and a new use for something I'd normally just scoop and burn in the pit. BTU miser.

 

I think they should be snug so no air bypasses it.

Like the noodles & chips in the bottom idea.
I have a couple gallons of pieces of bark etc.. from the wood box,
Will have to start doing that.

 

Wondering how to tighten it up a bit. It's not falling out, just looser than the old one. Doubt I'd get more than a 1/16"th of gasket material in there.

 

If it's not falling out .
I'm not sure.
I know the center section of my ceramic fell forward, not out,
just to where it touched the flame shield / protective cover
Manual don't have much:



Testing:

 

#7- expanding insulation. Maybe it takes a while for it to snug up. I'll check in Feb., next time I clean it. Thanks Dave. JB

 

Have any of you had to replace the blower rheostat? I think mine's on the way out. I just called my friendly dealer, and it's $42+shipping.

I doubt if it's anything special. I'll probably take it apart tomorrow and see what I can find. I'd like to have another in hand, just in case.

 

Still ok here,
Post some Pictures of the inside, might be fixable with parts .

 

Dealer said he has some in stock for other fireplace stuff that will probably work. Might be just as easy to match it up. Trouble is, the dealer isn't exactly local.

Lots of electrical suppliers around, though.

 

I was under the impression that new ones don't have the snap disc, just the rheostat.

 

I heard that, too. I bypassed the snap disk last winter.

Today, when I turned the blowers on about halfway, they ran really slow for about 30 seconds, then came up to speed. About ten minutes later they slowed down again, like almost off, fluctuated for about ten seconds, then back up to speed again. I haven't been home for very long since. Been in and out all afternoon.

First time they've been on since last week.

 

I have noticed that mine seem very sensitive to voltage. When I was on genset power I noticed that the fans get really quiet when voltage dips. Perhaps you have something cycling on and off on that same circuit?

 

I've noticed that also. Fans will "dip" and then speed back up, always figured it was something to due with current draw.

 

Yes, that's always happened. This was much more. And there was nothing else running on that circuit.

I guess I don't know that much about rheostats. Is this an indication of impending doom? Or do they just fail without warning?

I'll see what happens tomorrow. I'm just trying to be proactive, because I don't want to wait for it to die, and then be without blowers for a couple of weeks while waiting for a replacement. I guess I could wire it directly? Running on high all the time would make me crazy

 

Maybe just wire one of the fans to run on full blast if you must.

 

Yeah, I might just let it go. We just got the house on the market, and hopefully after the holidays we'll get some action. Might not be my stove much longer.

Have a sick kid today, and at the dentist with the other one right now, but I took a peek with a flashlight this morning. It's just a little black box. I bet it's pretty easy to find a replacement.

 

Typically they are just dirty if intermittent.
Take apart & pray with "Electra-clean"
move the rheostat back & forth a few times while spraying.

Good luck with the house,
Moving to Hawaii ?

 

Thanks. It's been perfectly normal all day, so maybe I won't have to worry about it.

Moving to Alaska. Or maybe just into town, at least until my kids are out of school.