Well, I learned a hard and somewhat expensive lesson yesterday. I bought my new Englander NC-30 on Wednesday last week. Thursday in the blistering cold, I pulled the door off and all the firebricks out and unloaded it off the truck with the help of my wife. I put all of the firebricks back in and the door on. Then had a small burn in the stove outside that evening and Friday night I got it up to about 500*F to cure the paint. Then yesterday morning it was finally time to move the stove into the basement and I got in a hurry. I figured 475lbs was less than I've moved before with the dolly and its only 4 (concrete) stairs. Why waste the extra time to pull the bricks out and the door off. Ah, I'll be fine, no need for help. WRONG. So I ratchet strapped the stove to the dolly and away I went. As the dolly started to slide down the first stair something caught, hard, and the weight of the stove and gravity took over. The dolly ripped out of my hands and the stove went end over end and landed on its head at the bottom of the stairs. My wife came running downstairs to see what had happened and she was on the 2nd floor at the time.
After about 20 mins of foul language we rolled the stove over and I began to asses the damage. Luckily this thing is built like a Sherman tank. The stove itself was fine except for a couple of dinged up corners and some scratched paint. However, I broke two firebrick and destroyed both fiberboard baffles. Great, I thought. Home Depot doesn't carry replacement parts and upon calling, Englander said a week lead time to order them. As I frantically searched on this site and the rest of the internet for a source that might have the baffles in stock, I began to wonder if the local stove shop would have anything that would work. So, I jumped in the car and hauled the mail to get there.
After speaking with the owner, he voiced some concerns about differing materials between manufacturers but said we could take a look at the Quadrafire 5700 baffles as those were the biggest ones he had in stock. He grabbed a pair from the warehouse and brought them out. I measured them and they were just barely larger than the NC-30 baffles so I bought them along with 2 fire brick and thanked him profusely for saving my tail (my wife was fit to be tied by this point). I walked out of the store with two baffles and the firebricks for $10 less than the cost of the baffles alone from Englander. On the way home I pondered my ordeal and I can actually say I'm glad I didn't ask for help (though I probably should have) because whoever was helping would have likely been under the stove when it fell and I know neither my wife nor the friend who I would have called would have been able to catch a 475lb stove. So, silver linings, no one was injured and for a $110 lesson I was able to get my stove up and running.
Lessons Learned:
-Don't get in a hurry to move a stove. Take the time to remove as much weight as possible.
-Ask for help when moving a stove, the more the better, but do make sure everyone will be safe while doing it.
-The Englander NC-30 is a REALLY tough piece of iron.
-I have a really good local stove shop.
-The ceramic fiberboard baffles for a Quadrafire 5700 will fit an NC-30 near perfectly after trimming 1/2" off of the ends.
-Secondary flames are really cool.
Obligatory pictures to make up for my stupidity. First image is from the hot burn outside and the second is the final install.
After about 20 mins of foul language we rolled the stove over and I began to asses the damage. Luckily this thing is built like a Sherman tank. The stove itself was fine except for a couple of dinged up corners and some scratched paint. However, I broke two firebrick and destroyed both fiberboard baffles. Great, I thought. Home Depot doesn't carry replacement parts and upon calling, Englander said a week lead time to order them. As I frantically searched on this site and the rest of the internet for a source that might have the baffles in stock, I began to wonder if the local stove shop would have anything that would work. So, I jumped in the car and hauled the mail to get there.
After speaking with the owner, he voiced some concerns about differing materials between manufacturers but said we could take a look at the Quadrafire 5700 baffles as those were the biggest ones he had in stock. He grabbed a pair from the warehouse and brought them out. I measured them and they were just barely larger than the NC-30 baffles so I bought them along with 2 fire brick and thanked him profusely for saving my tail (my wife was fit to be tied by this point). I walked out of the store with two baffles and the firebricks for $10 less than the cost of the baffles alone from Englander. On the way home I pondered my ordeal and I can actually say I'm glad I didn't ask for help (though I probably should have) because whoever was helping would have likely been under the stove when it fell and I know neither my wife nor the friend who I would have called would have been able to catch a 475lb stove. So, silver linings, no one was injured and for a $110 lesson I was able to get my stove up and running.
Lessons Learned:
-Don't get in a hurry to move a stove. Take the time to remove as much weight as possible.
-Ask for help when moving a stove, the more the better, but do make sure everyone will be safe while doing it.
-The Englander NC-30 is a REALLY tough piece of iron.
-I have a really good local stove shop.
-The ceramic fiberboard baffles for a Quadrafire 5700 will fit an NC-30 near perfectly after trimming 1/2" off of the ends.
-Secondary flames are really cool.
Obligatory pictures to make up for my stupidity. First image is from the hot burn outside and the second is the final install.
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