24 hour burn in the new Woodstock Ideal Steel stove

[BrianK]

I just took a 16 hour time lapse video of a big load of 3 year seasoned honey locust. I set the TimeLapse app to record for 16 hours and create a 1 minute long time lapse video, so every 4 seconds of the video is equivalent to about an hour of the burn cycle. So at 30 seconds in the video, 8 hours have passed in the burn cycle. I put a magnetic stove top thermometer over the hot spot on the front of the stove right above the door. This is the single hottest spot on the entire stove and is usually about 100 degrees hotter than the stove top thermometer next to the flu collar. Most of the heat comes off the top front of this stove. You can watch the thermometer go up quickly at the start then slowly descend till the end. You can also see when the cat was engaged (top left lever) and follow the air settings change (bottom left lever).

 

[zogger]

That's petty cool. How much usable heat out of it once the big chunks collapsed and the flame went way down?

 

[Elim]

The Blaze King, King can give 40+hrs on a load. It looks like the King is what gave them this idea. I have a King that is just as great as they say it is.

http://www.blazeking.com/EN/wood-king.html

 

[dave_376]

well it looks like there is a new winner in the ugliest stove on the market. I hope its just for the beta testing and they plan to make it more attractive. When I first heard about this stove I was excited about the prospect but not with those looks. It does have some impressive burn times! How has it done heating with the recent cold temps?

 

[BrianK]

That's petty cool. How much usable heat out of it once the big chunks collapsed and the flame went way down?

About 12 hours of usable heat out of this cycle.

 

[BrianK]

well it looks like there is a new winner in the ugliest stove on the market. I hope its just for the beta testing and they plan to make it more attractive. When I first heard about this stove I was excited about the prospect but not with those looks. It does have some impressive burn times! How has it done heating with the recent cold temps?

It produces a tremendous amount of heat, more than we need for our drafty old poorly insulated medium size house. When I built the fire for this time lapse video last night at 6:00pm, my first floor was 68, outside temp was 4. After an hour on a 50% air setting, first floor temps were 79 degrees (they went up 11 degrees in one hour), outside temp 0 degrees, with high wind, and I cut the air back from 50% to 25%. At midnite I needed more heat so I opened air up to 40% at which point in the video the secondairies reappair after briefly stopping. That was six hours into the burn, outside temps were -12 degrees and first floor temps were 72 when I went to bed.

I'm not happy with the color scheme our family chose for this unit. There is another Beta unit in use up in New England that has a more appealing color scheme:

 

[BrianK]

The Blaze King, King can give 40+hrs on a load. It looks like the King is what gave them this idea. I have a King that is just as great as they say it is.

http://www.blazeking.com/EN/wood-king.html

No doubt that is an awesome stove.

 

[BrianK]

Another time lapse, this one was with Lodgepole Pine, not very exciting as it was mostly a cat burn on a dark firebox over 15 hours.

And a video of a combination of rolling cat secondary flames in the front left and secondary air secondary flames top left rear:

 

[Elim]

Nice burn! I can almost feel the heat from here. Thanks for the vids.

 

[BrianK]

After running the Beta Ideal Steel from Woodstock last winter, we went ahead and purchased a production model Ideal Steel this year. I built a new hearth for it and installed it over Christmas. A lot of people didn't like the looks of our Beta unit last year but this production model stove and hearth combo turned out pretty well I think:

 

[flotek]

It's different ...but has a modernness that is unique and it's growing on me as I look at it .

 

[Idahonative]

The Blaze King, King can give 40+hrs on a load. It looks like the King is what gave them this idea. I have a King that is just as great as they say it is.

http://www.blazeking.com/EN/wood-king.html

I wasn't going to comment on this thread but I just can't take it anymore. After owning the Blaze King, I'm just not impressed with this thread.

We have done two REAL WORLD test runs of our Blaze King (King Ultra) and it easily heated our home for over 40 hours. And both of those runs had a small mix of lodge pole pine in them. And when I say real world I mean we waited until the weather turned cold to do the test. A home furnace? WTH? We don't even know we have a home furnace as it never gets turned on. Isn't that the point of heating with wood?

I would absolutely love to do a test like this one where we stack a load of square oak blocks. I can honestly say that (with cold weather, no furnace, & keep the house 70) we would easily get over 50 hours of real world heat.

 

[BrianK]

I wasn't going to comment on this thread but I just can't take it anymore. After owning the Blaze King, I'm just not impressed with this thread.

We have done two REAL WORLD test runs of our Blaze King (King Ultra) and it easily heated our home for over 40 hours. And both of those runs had a small mix of lodge pole pine in them. And when I say real world I mean we waited until the weather turned cold to do the test. A home furnace? WTH? We don't even know we have a home furnace as it never gets turned on. Isn't that the point of heating with wood?

I would absolutely love to do a test like this one where we stack a load of square oak blocks. I can honestly say that (with cold weather, no furnace, & keep the house 70) we would easily get over 50 hours of real world heat.

No doubt about it, the Blaze Kings are awesome stoves.

But the BK King has a 4.32 cu ft firebox while the Woodstock Ideal Steel has a 3.2 cu ft firebox, so it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. Naturally you'd expect a longer burn time with the BBK.

The Ideal Steel base price is around $1900, with the fully decked out version at $2,200. What does a new BKK Ultra cost?

Given some early speculation about this new model last year I just wanted to show what this stove could do. I have the utmost respect for Blaze King's products. If I lived in a bigger house or a colder climate I'd be proud to own one. (Except I don't necessarily like the looks of the Blaze Kings, but that's just personal preference.)

 

[caw]

My family has a 30 year old BK King model that leaks smoke. That said it still easily holds a fire for 12+ hrs and yesterday when the temperature changed from 20 deg F to 45 deg F we had to let it go out because our 4k sq ft house was too hot. They are expensive but I think you get your moneys worth.

 

[Idahonative]

No doubt about it, the Blaze Kings are awesome stoves.

But the BK King has a 4.32 cu ft firebox while the Woodstock Ideal Steel has a 3.2 cu ft firebox, so it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. Naturally you'd expect a longer burn time with the BBK.

The Ideal Steel base price is around $1900, with the fully decked out version at $2,200. What does a new BKK Ultra cost?

Given some early speculation about this new model last year I just wanted to show what this stove could do. I have the utmost respect for Blaze King's products. If I lived in a bigger house or a colder climate I'd be proud to own one. (Except I don't necessarily like the looks of the Blaze Kings, but that's just personal preference.)

Well ok, if you want to compare the two based on firebox size, the BKK has a 35% larger firebox. Our last test heated our home for 45 hours:
http://www.arboristsite.com/communi...iest-firewood-blaze-king-distance-run.269274/

So just based on firebox size, 45 hours minus 35% is 29.3 hours. And even that is not fair to the Blaze King because we were burning "real" firewood (air spaced), not blocks of oak. I don't think this stove you are testing is even remotely capable of a 29 hour real world burn.

As far as price, we paid $3000 last year for our King. If you want to compare "apples to apples" then you have to realize a larger stove will cost more to manufacture. Comparing your beta stove priced at $2000 is not an apples to apples comparison with a $3000 King.

There are many stoves out there in the $2000 price range that will have similar performance as your stove. The title of your thread is "24 hour burn..." which gives the impression the stove will heat someones house for 24 hours. I guess my point is, spend $2000 on a good stove or spend $1000 more and get a fantastic stove.

 

[Del_]

Well ok, if you want to compare the two based on firebox size, the BKK has a 35% larger firebox. Our last test heated our home for 45 hours:
http://www.arboristsite.com/communi...iest-firewood-blaze-king-distance-run.269274/

So just based on firebox size, 45 hours minus 35% is 29.3 hours. And even that is not fair to the Blaze King because we were burning "real" firewood (air spaced), not blocks of oak. I don't think this stove you are testing is even remotely capable of a 29 hour real world burn.

As far as price, we paid $3000 last year for our King. If you want to compare "apples to apples" then you have to realize a larger stove will cost more to manufacture. Comparing your beta stove priced at $2000 is not an apples to apples comparison with a $3000 King.

There are many stoves out there in the $2000 price range that will have similar performance as your stove. The title of your thread is "24 hour burn..." which gives the impression the stove will heat someones house for 24 hours. I guess my point is, spend $2000 on a good stove or spend $1000 more and get a fantastic stove.

How would you explain your Blaze King stove having a 45 hour burn time Vs. the Woodstock's 24 hour burn time when the firebox on the Blaze King is only 35% larger?

Taking apples to apples into consideration.

 

[Idahonative]

How would you explain your Blaze King stove having a 45 hour burn time Vs. the Woodstock's 24 hour burn time when the firebox on the Blaze King is only 35% larger?

Taking apples to apples into consideration.

The Blaze King engineers have done their homework. Efficient, controlled burn is the goal and they have nailed it. When you read some of BrianK's posts, you see how the temp is dramatically fluctuating (house temp went up 11 degrees in an hour). That is a sign of poor air control. You will never have really long burn times unless you have even, consistent heat output. To have that, you must have a really good air control system on your stove. That is probably the single biggest thing that sets the Blaze King apart from the rest.

Our daily routine for the King is to load it with pine once per day (every 24 hrs.) right before we go to bed. Anyone who has burned pine knows just how difficult it is to heat a home for 24 hrs. with it. That is the real test for anyone wanting to show off their beta stove. Load it up full with "real" splits of pine and see how many hours of real world heat you get out of it. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, in the case of BrianK's beta stove, somewhere around 12 hours.

 

[Pulp]

Hey, back off. This is all about what the unit does for you. It's not a "mine is longer than yours" BS, or posturing.
It's about info, and real time experience. Each of us then decides from what we learn.
BK products are fine, Woodstock is an excellent manufacturer with exceptional customer support direct.
Stihl vs Husky.....who cares as long as it does the job.

Tech details: both cat stoves have a simple bimetallic primary air control that controls the fire for long, clean burns. It was developed and engineered
decades ago (1970s) by the original Vermont Castings crew that improved on the creosote burners such as Ashley. Over many owners in the past, VC quality tanked .
Truth in Bias here: the BK stoves are ugly to me and the boss. At 5 F (temp here now in N.Maine) with no central furnace, if BK can HEAT a 1600 ft² home to a comfort level of
say 70 F (soft or hardwood ) for more than 12 hours, then there is a tooth fairy.

 

[Idahonative]

At 5 F (temp here now in N.Maine) with no central furnace, if BK can HEAT a 1600 ft² home to a comfort level of
say 70 F (soft or hardwood ) for more than 12 hours, then there is a tooth fairy.[/QUOTE]

Only 12 hours? Why is the bar so low? The King will heat a 1600 sf home to 70 F (@5 F outside) with pine for 20-24 hrs. and 30-40 hrs. with hardwood. Sorry if that is hard to understand. I'm not interested in a pissing match here. Just giving you the facts from my real world experience with the King. Do you have some real world experience with the King that is contrary to what I'm saying? I guess there really is a tooth fairy

 

[Pulp]

No pissing here Idaho. No, no experience with BK, only many years heating with many wood stoves 24/7, 100%.
Wood stoves only can do only so much real world magic.
Get down to basics: central heat in your place set at ~55-60 F ? Oil, gas, electric ?
Any backup heat on ?
How many cords do you use in a winter ? Species ?
What is the average 24 hour outdoor temps where you are ?
What's the BK stove top temp after 12 hours, 30 h, 40 h ?
Any good primary air control that shuts completely down can keep coals for that 40 hours ...but not heating.
What's the real world delta ( the difference between your outdoor temps--honestly @ 5 F, and desired indoor temp ) ?
Tooth Fairy....no pissing. I do use Stihl saws not Husky.