New stove, what would you choose?

[NSMaple1]

take a good look at how the blaze king is constructed, compared to say JOTUL its way OVERPRICED a lot of marketing involved with blaze king, to give the idea of quality, its not a bad stove just not worth the money there asking look at other models in that price range, and you will probably pass the b k by, the QUADRA FIRE IS TWICE the stove blaze king is with just as good burn times,

OK - next time I am in a stove store, I will compare. Not sure they have Jotuls & Quadras too. But what exact aspects of the construction & quality should be compared? Welds? Or other things? The couple other times I have looked, I wasn't seeing anything that told me they were of lesser quality - but I wasn't eyeballing them super closely either.

 

[Marshy]

I dunno, like I said before, it's a very popular stove around these parts. I think word of mouth sells the stove darn well.

As far as cost, I'm not sure. I paid about $2500 for mine, that's the Ultra model with the blower and nickle door (normally it's black). Granted that was 7 years ago. I know the chimney cost about as much as the darn stove!

The cheapest Quadrafire I can fine on their site is the Discovery and it's $2200. The other models are $3500, 3000 and $2700

The BK King is going to run you about $3500 and that before you purchase the fans for an additional $300. Maybe they run a special deal certain times of the year where you can get the fans included, idk. I spent about $4k for the stove and the double wall pipe to hook it to my chimney.

The build quality of the BK was good. Heavy plate steel and good welds. Reinforced and we'll built.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

The BK King is going to run you about $3500 and that before you purchase the fans for an additional $300. Maybe they run a special deal certain times of the year where you can get the fans included, idk. I spent about $4k for the stove and the double wall pipe to hook it to my chimney.

The build quality of the BK was good. Heavy plate steel and good welds. Reinforced and we'll built.

It may be the blowers were in addition to the $2500, it's been quite a while. When I bought mine the .gov had the 30% tax rebate which was nice.

 

[Mad Professor]

https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/warner-stove/


Nothing offered now compares.

P.S. How come we can't post links anymore?

 

[Cody]

I have the Blaze King Princess model free standing with the dual blowers .Heat is not an issue here in my old farm house but your mileage may vary. With the side shields on this stove even at this burn rate you can lay your hand on the sides till you get bored doing it. The stove pipe does not get much hotter.View attachment 603932

How close do you come to their advertised burn times?

I can get a solid 12 hours out of my Myriad but 30 hours out of the BK? I like the idea of only having to add once per day but I just can't see that amount of wood lasting that long.

 

[Jeff Lary]

Well to be honest I do not have the large one the 40+ hour burn time stove that's the "King" it requires an 8 inch thimble and stove pipe. I have always had a 6 inch thimble and pipe. So I bought the " Princess" free standing. Oh yea it will run forever in what they call the shoulder seasons just before real cold weather or just after like November or March. It has a thermostat kind of gadget that you can set the amount of heat you want a lot or a little. It goes from 1 to 6 on the dial and I have NEVER had it above 4 for any length of time. The blowers they say impact burn time buy moving heat off the stove and thus the thermostat automatically open up some more to keep up with your desired temperature ( I like it about 68* to 74* my wife likes it about 186* (like most women.) They tell me the real long burn times come from not running the fans but I can get plenty of time between loads with them on and wood is mighty plentiful here in Laryville so I don't get too caught up in the whole fan on or off thing

In the winter months during the work week I fill it when I get up at 5:30 and it will last easily till I go to bed at 8:30 not even trying . I do start the reload process at about 8 so she is all set by 8:30. So 14-18 hours is pretty normal, now if I require more heat like it's really cold -10* to +20* and windy maybe, I put some in it when I get home at 3:30 or 4pm and open her up some,.. then fill it at bed time. It will get 30 hours of heat production form one full load of wood during moderate temperatures like 25* and up. I use hardwood but they were originally designed for the soft woods available mainly in Alaska. If you watch "Alaska the Last Frontier" Otto Killtcher has 2 of them I think one in the cellar and one on the third? floor maybe one is quite old.

You would have to do the research then choose what you want there are a zillion stoves out there some much better than others I suppose. I never heard of a BK before 3 years ago I bet I am the only person within 20 miles that owns one .I been living in a home heated with wood since I was born and this is quite a machine to be sure. I done a lot of reading and research before I bought a new stove and reading led me to look at a site called "Hearth.com" They specialize in all things wood I guess kind of like we do with Chain saws here. I read about a stove called Blaze King a lot so I started reading about them some. It has crazy good ( I guess) efficiency numbers and the numbers do not lie. I went from 6.5 cords of seasoned wood to 3.7 or 3.8 but less than 4 cords anyway for the last 2 winters.

I called the company to ask some questions and I ended up speaking with Chris (don't know his last name) the vice President of the company a very nice guy. He told me they sold them near me in the town of Bangor. The stove recommends to burn wood that is less than 13% I think ? in moisture content. I have been burning all my life but never even heard of checking moisture content. Well when I did it surprised me some,.. my first winter I burned like 16 to 20% moisture content wood now I split and stack earlier and I am right now burning 7% for this coming winter so I have learned a lot. Wood burning is so basic it is easy to think you know all there is to know at least I figured I did.

So I got the shops name and went to see them. There is ZERO advertising about these stoves here in Maine it is all word of mouth. I think on the outside of the store there is a small sign saying Blaze King? But if so the sign is like 15" by 10" maybe not a Hugh sign by any means. The place is called McVetteys Home and Hearth I think? My stove holds 3.1 or 3.2 C.F. of wood a big step up from the Old Mill I used to own that one held 2.0 CF. I know that I way more than answered your burn time question and I myself know about 20% of the possible 100% that could be known about these stoves they are not the old log burners I grew up on. There IS a learning curve and I am just entering the curve ha ha.
This place is so insecure you cannot even say another sites name .. what a freaking joke

 

[dave mclennan]

Not sure what was "no good" on your Blaze King, but they are by far the most poplar stove here in Alaska for a reason... they flat out work! They heat homes in areas that see -60*.

I have to say I WAS WRONG, AFTER reading all the positive posts about BLAZ KING STOVES I Wondered why ours didn't perform in the real cold weather here in bc Canada, well I discovered my chimney was external and therefore was a cold chimney and blaze kings are best with internal chimneys , sorry guys, for the negative post

 

[Jeff Lary]

For the heck of saying so I will tell this short tale. About 4 years ago I had a white pine tip over near one of my woods roads. So I sawed it up and stacked it beside the road and there it sat in the weather half rotted to begin with for 4 years. Fast forward to Sunday morning I went out that road and saw that wood and thought hey you outta burn that. It has been dry the last 3 weeks or so,.. so the wood was not too wet. I tossed a couple arm loads in the back of the Ranger and brought it home. We had the remnants of a fire left over from Saturday in the stove. So I opened the door raked the coals around and put in 6 pieces. That was about 7am Sunday morning .When I got up Monday morning the stove top was still too hot to touch.

 

[hunter72]

I have had the Drolet HT2000 now for 5 years and love it . Load it up at 10 PM and have a nice bank of coals in the morning. Much more efficient than the Vermont Castings Defiant we used for 30+ years before the Drolet.
Ordered it through Menards.

 

[Marine5068]

WE BOUGHT A DROLET HT 2000 AFTER 11 YEARS WITH A DROLET AUSTRAL MODEL. THERE MADE IN QUEBEC CANADA AND THEY HAVE been building them for the last 90 years, the woodstove salesman did there best to sell us a fancy blaze king [which I owned once and hated it, no good when its 30 below in Canada,} drolet stoves are built well we get a 8 hr burn time so over nite is no sweat, and the price point is great, we have a big old farmhouse and need a big stove, and the drolet ht 2000 works great we paid about $1600 cdn for it not a fancy stove but a workhorse they have many models and sell wood furnaces to, I'm a professional welder, and I can say there put together well and priced well to, last year here in the mountains it got down to - 27 for a week or so and the drolet kept us nice and warm, we got ours delivered for a very fair price. my sister has a new QUADRA FIRE and which burns less wood than ours but she paid 2 1/2 times as much but the quadra fire is a very high tech stove, guess it depends on the budget but the DROLET GETS MY VOTE GOOD LUCK,

I've got that Drolet HT2000 too. Great no nonsense stove. Easy to light and easy to use. Holds a ton of wood too. Got it at Costco for $1500 CAD delivered with a starter kit of gloves, 50pk of fire starter, SBI glass cleaner, firewood moisture meter and temp probe for pipe, and fan blower....all free with stove. It's a large stove and can easily heat our 1200sq ft basement and 1200 sq ft upstairs. Fits 20" wood too. I am also a licensed welder and it's no joke, they are built good. Heavy stove at 460lbs. or so.

 

[Jeff Lary]

That is a really nice looking stove and all the extras yea man that's the money right there. I always burned 20" wood now I burn 16". That is like twigs to me ha ha but they do move easier 16" means my back may thrive +/_ and few more years. I have a moisture meter too and it will make you humble fast. I always figured my wood was in real good shape but the first year with the Blaze King I checked it with the Moisture meter. It was 20 to 22% my ego took a big hit ha ha. But it burned and it was ok now I split much earlier in the year and it gets to 10-14% so I and the stove are much happier.

 

[dave mclennan]

I've got that Drolet HT2000 too. Great no nonsense stove. Easy to light and easy to use. Holds a ton of wood too. Got it at Costco for $1500 CAD delivered with a starter kit of gloves, 50pk of fire starter, SBI glass cleaner, firewood moisture meter and temp probe for pipe, and fan blower....all free with stove. It's a large stove and can easily heat our 1200sq ft basement and 1200 sq ft upstairs. Fits 20" wood too. I am also a licensed welder and it's no joke, they are built good. Heavy stove at 460lbs. or so.
View attachment 605265

I know the price is great my neighbor has the savanagh I thinkits called by drolet 11years now and hes got c a big old farmhouse built in 1947 its always warm there he said he burns 4 to 5 cords a year and hes got a monster 1 st floor open design though, I wondered how they last but his is top shelf after 11years, you haveto consider the price point of drolet stoves,

 

[Marine5068]

That is a really nice looking stove and all the extras yea man that's the money right there. I always burned 20" wood now I burn 16". That is like twigs to me ha ha but they do move easier 16" means my back may thrive +/_ and few more years. I have a moisture meter too and it will make you humble fast. I always figured my wood was in real good shape but the first year with the Blaze King I checked it with the Moisture meter. It was 20 to 22% my ego took a big hit ha ha. But it burned and it was ok now I split much earlier in the year and it gets to 10-14% so I and the stove are much happier.

I also cut and split my own firewood from log form. But I only use 2-3 cords a year for shoulder seasons because I burn wood pellets during the main heating season.
Wood I cut and split today will be burned in a year or two. So I'm one to two years ahead. It's stacked under a protected deck in triple piles on each side of our main entry doors with some extra on pallets near my sheds.
I'm working on building a lean-to for extra wood and trees I take down on my property.
Most of my firewood sits at about 12-15% moisture. That's pretty normal here, but if it's in the house for a little longer it may get down to 8%.

 

[Jeff Lary]

Yesterday afternoon I finished up splitting and stacking 2019's wood. 2018 is stacked in my pole barn and 2017 is in the wood shed has been since early spring. Now I will go back to the wood lot and cut and split a couple standing dead Fir trees. I use them to provide heat while burning down coals. I used to just open the stove to burn of excess coals but that is just way too slow, now I have learned that if I burn some crappy (to me at least) softwood fir, cedar, pine, I get a lot of heat from the softwood and the coals burn down much faster. By doing this with softwood I don't create more coals and it works fantastic.

 

[Csailors]

Been busy driving truck for harvest time but I’m still doing research. TONS of good info here.

I’m leaning towards a drolet at this time just for the price point of nothing else. jotul is just out of my price range at this time.

The comment about the uninsulated chimney stands true for any stove. Not just the B.K, you have. Any stove will draft poorly with a cold stack. Warm chimneys create there own draft.

 

[Little Al]

Have no idea if they are available in the US but if they are 1 from the "Godin "range

 

[Jeff Lary]

My chimney goes up through a non heated portion of my home (wood shed sort of) but years ago I wrapped it in 2" blue Styrofoam.

 

[Picaso]

Hey how do you get your wood pile to 7% MC?

 

[Marine5068]

Hey how do you get your wood pile to 7% MC?

Ya mine never gets to 7% outside, maybe 10-12% at the absolute hottest time of the year. Wood is porous and will absorb and release moisture of surrounding air.
I have to bring mine inside near the stove for a day or two to get it to 8%.

 

[Jeff Lary]

In May or June I saw split and stack my wood out in a sunny field. Then, after one year I move it inside my woodshed. I shouldn't say one year more like the next spring early summer so maybe 8-10 months later.
I have a window in the back of the woodshed and one in the front for air movement. I also have a large 8 x 12 sliding door I keep open. Up above suspended from a rafter and angled down I have a heavy duty 20" fan that runs 24-7 from maybe June to November, helping to move the air around.
Once your wood is under a roof it cannot do anything except get more dry.