Englander 30-NCH - Couple of Questions

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.
leeave96

leeave96

Minister of Fire
Apr 22, 2010
1,113
Western VA
The temps are dropping again around my neck of the woods and I am having a chance to fire the Englander 30-NCH again. I'm still on the learning curve and have a few questions.

When firing the stove from a cold start, given the stove is steel plate vs. soapstone, do you just let the stove rip until you get a 500 degree stove top and then begin to damper down from there? Reason I ask is that there ain't nothing to crack like soapstone from getting to hot to quick and the sooner you get the secondaries going, the less smoke out the chimney and creosote build-up and of course, heat gets into the room quicker too? So do you let the stove rip, damper wide open, until you get to 500 degrees or go slower than that?

How much ash do you leave in the bottom of your stove? How high to you let it get before you begin emptying?

We are enjoying the stove. I lit it off last night with N/S splits on the bottom to get things going and then E/W on top of them for a nice fireplace look burn.

Thanks!
Bill
 
I fire my 30 up from a cold start and usually have it cruising at around 550 bout 40 minutes later.

I leave the air full open until the stovetop gets up to about 300. At this point, the secondaries are starting to catch a bit. I push the air rod in about a quarter of the way to my cruising position (this final spot will vary from install to install, for me, my stove cruises with the tip of the sprint handle even with the front edge of the ash lip).

By starting to cut the air back, the secondaires start to take hold a little better. As the secondaries stabilize, I push back to about half way to my cruising position. Again, as things inside the stove progress, and the temp on top continues to come up, I'll bump it back another 25%, wait a bit, and then finally to my cruising spot.

If you leave the air wide open, you will be letting a lot of heat up the chimney. You have to balance providing enough primary air to keep the fire burning while it's getting going an getting the air backed off to switch the air flow to the secondaries. As the secondaries reburn the smoke, that heat and energy is all being kept inside the firebox to help the entire process (basically turning your firebox into an incinerator).

At one point, somebody (Maybe BrotherBart?) wrote up a description of how the air flows through the 30, and how the adjustment lever affects the airflow. If you can find that post, it might help make the process make more sense.

Hope this helps!
-SF
 
I've actually never measured how much ash I keep in there. I'd have to say about 1 to 2 inch average if it's raked out evenly. I'll pull ashes out of the stove once or twice a week. When I do I keep about 3/4 to an inch in the stove and end up filling a 2.5 gall metal bucket about 3/4 of the way w/ ash.

Too little ash and things just don't burn as well. Too much and I'm losing room in the stove.

When loading on hot coals, I pay less attention to the temp and more to what the fire looks like when deciding to close things down. I'm up about an hour before I have to walk out the door for work. First thing I do is load the stove up on hot coals and leave the air on high (door closed) run upstairs, start coffee, make sandwich, chug OJ, head back downstairs (10 mins top) If fire box is mostly filled w/ flames I'll close the air down about 2/3 to 3/4 closed then go upstairs and keep the process of getting ready going. If it needs a few more minutes I'll jump onto hearth.com. About 30 minutes after loading I generally have the stove closed down to it's cruising mode (anywhere from the tip of the spring being even w/ the ash lip to almost closed). At this point I usually have an internal flue temp of ~900 and the stove top is up over 500 to 600.

This gives me about 20-15 mins of the stove cruising so I'm sure things are stabilized before I need to walk out the door.

If someone tries this using wood that isn't well seasoned, plan on waking up earlier.

pen
 
SlyFerret and me do it pretty much exactly the same way. What he is talking about with the airflow is that the chimney has a set amount of draft and by adjusting the primary air you move where that draft pulls air into the firebox. You are looking for that just right balance of primary air coming down the glass, secondary air coming from the tubes and the air coming in through the "doghouse" in center front.
 
I have 2 of these beasts, one home, one at the cabin.The 30 at home has 10 feet more chimney than at camp.
just let her rip until the flue temps get to 400 or so and start backing er down. I don't know your chimney height but i have 26 FT or so at home and i have to watch that stove as it will take off much faster than the camp stove with 16 FT .
I think you can abuse the steel stoves a little more anyway, IMO.
These are great running stoves and should last many years.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

D
  • Locked
Maintaining even temperature throughout the day
Replies
24
Views
1K
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
begreen
begreen
Hexa Fox
DuraLiner and Englander 32-NC Install
Replies
28
Views
2K
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
brenndatomu
brenndatomu
30WCF
Key Damper Theory
Replies
44
Views
2K
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
T-Rav
T-Rav
N
Wood Stove Insert decision- Englander or Drolet?
Replies
51
Views
4K
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
turbo-power
T
T
connecting Morso 1410B to existing dual-wall chimney
Replies
8
Views
577
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
bholler
B
Top Bottom
Back