Kind of a long post cliff notes at bottom:
We bought the stove in 2009 installed it in the basement into a insulated, lined, interior chimney, and used it the first 2 winters, and though it did crank out the heat I had trouble controlling the stove. It would either take off, 800+ degrees, or if you cut the air back a little more it would slowly lose the fire and smolder, I know, I know, IT'S THE WOOD
(but wait) Well after pulling the 30 out last winter for a pellet stove, this year I decided to move the pellet stove to an outside wall and re-hook up the NC-30. Now the wood I'm using had been split and stacked in 2010, so well seasoned, but same issues. This past weekend I decided to go through and really clean out the stove, pulled the tubes and fiber boards, vacuumed, and blew out all the air passage ways, and then pulled the air doghouse at the front of the stove, first off found a screw inside the dog house, don't really think that it was causing any issues but who knows, but what I did notice was on the side closest to the door, where the pieces had been welded together there was some extra weld that kept it from sitting flat against the air channel underneath. So instead of all of the air being directed in a jet type fashion to the bottom of the fire some of it was "leaking" into the firebox from around the bottom of the doghouse. I took a grinder to the extra weld, and what a difference in how the stove burns. Now I can cut the air down to almost closed, and you can see the jet of air feeding the base of the fire, and secondaries roll all the way through the burn. So if you have a similar setup with a welded together doghouse it cant hurt to make sure it's sitting flat, I know it made a huge difference in how my stove operates.
Cliff notes: Always had trouble controlling the air/fire, found extra weld on bottom of the doghouse air intake keeping it from sitting flat on the air channel, ground it off and now stove behaves like it should.
We bought the stove in 2009 installed it in the basement into a insulated, lined, interior chimney, and used it the first 2 winters, and though it did crank out the heat I had trouble controlling the stove. It would either take off, 800+ degrees, or if you cut the air back a little more it would slowly lose the fire and smolder, I know, I know, IT'S THE WOOD
(but wait) Well after pulling the 30 out last winter for a pellet stove, this year I decided to move the pellet stove to an outside wall and re-hook up the NC-30. Now the wood I'm using had been split and stacked in 2010, so well seasoned, but same issues. This past weekend I decided to go through and really clean out the stove, pulled the tubes and fiber boards, vacuumed, and blew out all the air passage ways, and then pulled the air doghouse at the front of the stove, first off found a screw inside the dog house, don't really think that it was causing any issues but who knows, but what I did notice was on the side closest to the door, where the pieces had been welded together there was some extra weld that kept it from sitting flat against the air channel underneath. So instead of all of the air being directed in a jet type fashion to the bottom of the fire some of it was "leaking" into the firebox from around the bottom of the doghouse. I took a grinder to the extra weld, and what a difference in how the stove burns. Now I can cut the air down to almost closed, and you can see the jet of air feeding the base of the fire, and secondaries roll all the way through the burn. So if you have a similar setup with a welded together doghouse it cant hurt to make sure it's sitting flat, I know it made a huge difference in how my stove operates.Cliff notes: Always had trouble controlling the air/fire, found extra weld on bottom of the doghouse air intake keeping it from sitting flat on the air channel, ground it off and now stove behaves like it should.
