Englander NC30 burning too hot / too quick

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jasonthines86

Member
Dec 7, 2017
5
NE, Connecticut
Hello everyone. This is my first post on the site.

I live in NE Connecticut and am not a newb to burning wood. I am new to using an EPA stove though. I just purchased an Englander NC30 from H.D. I read the manual and tons of forums on here about the stove and best practices in operating.

Whats happening is I get the fire good and hot with stove top temps around 450. Let that burn down to mostly embers. Then i open the air fully, fully load the stove with red oak (more on that below), get a roaring fire again and back down the air per instructions and in doing so the stove top easily cruises to +700 with secondaries roaring and some healthy primary flame. This burns for about 2-3 hours and its nothing but a massive piles of coals at 3-4 hours temps are back down around 350-400.

The set up:

The single wall stove pipe come up out of the stove about 48" to a 90. Then roughly 28" to a 10" - snout for a stainless steel chimney liner. The liner is roughly 20' straight up. I applied furnace cement to the joints in an effort to ensure the flue pipe was sealed. Looks horrendous, but those joints are sealed...

I live in a very old house -1864- that is very drafty (always working at it)

My thought on the fast/high burn rate is that snout to the liner. I feel it is not sealed tight and pulling additional air in. I was going to pull the pipe apart and add stove gasket and caulk and re-seal this piece. Thoughts?

The wood:

When we bought the property in 2016, the previous owner had horses in which ate a ring of bark off the bottom of a lot of trees. This killed the trees. From my understanding this all took place between 2012 and 2015. I took down a red oak in march of 2017, cut, split and stacked in april. Originally my moisture was 23-27%. When i split a few into smaller pieces in october i was less than 20%

To me this stove seems to be ripping though wood way too fast. I know there is a learning curve with this stove and i feel i have a strong handle on running it. Once the stove is full and cranking away, i tend to leave it be until im down to coals.

Any thoughts on extending burn times? Ive thought about adding a damper to the flue pipe but read on here somewhere that isnt a good idea. Thanks in advance.

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I live in a very old house -1864- that is very drafty (always working at it)
I think that's the issue...heat load is too high for the stove. If the house temp is still dropping when you have a stove full of coals and its running 300-400* STT, then this is almost certainly the case.
How long between loads?
Active flames for 2-3 hours on this type of stove is pretty typical.
 
I've had this stove for 2-3 years now. I thought this was normal operation. Isn't it good to have 400F for many hours?

Coals are very hot, and if you have a stove full of coals that will continue to burn down, you're doing ok. I'm not sure I really see the issue. Is it getting your home up to temp?
 
Your stove is working as it should. Any leaks in your chimney would actually slow it down. If anything, your chimney is drafting too strongly and pulling in too much air which burns up wood faster. A key damper is one way to deal with this.

This stove is a noncat and so is not very controllable by design. They are built to run hot all the time to reduce emissions.

My nc30 runs at 700 when there is fuel and slowly cools after the initial charge. I reload every 3-4 hours to keep it up near 700. Coals buildup though and I have to suffer through some 400 degree hours before I can get another full load in.

Most people with these stoves embrace that roller coaster and don’t reload until the coals have burned down enough. This way, on average, they stay plenty warm. The roller coaster life of a noncat.

This is why I use a cat stove to heat my home. Much steadier and efficient output.
 
Your always going to have coals on the back end of a burn, may depend somewhat on the wood species. If you need 700 constant to heat your place your going to be busy. Id look into some air sealing on the house.
 
Whats happening is I get the fire good and hot with stove top temps around 450. Let that burn down to mostly embers. Then i open the air fully, fully load the stove with red oak (more on that below), get a roaring fire again and back down the air per instructions and in doing so the stove top easily cruises to +700

Also sounds like your loading on a hot pile of coals which can create an uncontrolled or at least a less controllable fire. If you don't need the heat and want somewhat longer burn times, there's no need to burn the first load down so much before cutting air.

In addition, wait until the coals have burned down more before your reloads. Then cut air sooner as stove top temp rises. This will give a more controlled burn with somewhat lower top temps (maybe 500-600) but should last longer too. If you need a consistent 700 to keep the place warm well then you do what ya gotta do.
 
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Thank you all for your replies. I have a plan in place to insulate the walls next spring when we re do the siding. Hopefully this will help retain some of the heat generated by the stove.

What is the hottest the NC30 should ever get on the top? Before reading all the replies, I fully loaded on a bed of hot coals and backed down the air around 550. This thing soared past the 750 mark on my thermometer. I was really nervous at that point. I turned the fan on high also opened the air back up and got the temp down to right at 750 for the next hour. I actually went to work late because i didnt feel comfortable leaving the stove when it was that hot.

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Shoot, 750* is where that thing just starts to run good! Me personally, I wouldn't get too nervous 'til she hits 8-850...even then, if you have everything installed properly, it shouldn't hurt anything
 
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Yea i turn the fans on at 800 and Up. Sometimes 750. I dont run the stove fan at cooler stovetop temps cuz i want to keep the stove in the clean burn range and the flue hot.
 
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I wouldn't get too nervous 'til she hits 8-850

850's too hot IMO.

To the OP unless you need extreme temps start cutting air earlier than 550 F, especially if it's a reload of a hot stove. Typical stove thermometers can't be counted on to be that accurate and could be off by 25-50 deg or more. The important thing about running hot is no glowing metal which begins to start around 800 F.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/know-temperature-when-metal-glows-red/
 
Where's @Highbeam at? He runs his NC30 hard on a regular basis with no problems...
EDIT: Oops, I see now you already posted here...==c
 
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I work with metal all the time...steel does not glow at 800...not even in the dark.
http://www.marshallarts.co.za/temptable.htm
I brought up glowing since its independent of any thermometer and had not yet been mentioned especially given this is a new user. I couldn't tell you if the Hearth link is accurate or not but personally I wouldn't run regularly to 850. Plenty of heat to be had in the 550-650 range.
 
I don't want to see my Condar stove top gauge above 750. Heck, I don't even think it has an 800. I was working it hard today. Three loads by 1 pm. This thing can eat!

You don't want the outside to glow but the burn tubes and baffle will glow a lot.
 
i have the Englander shw-35 wood furnace. same type of house and same experience with burn times. it really eats wood. but it does keep us warm. overall satisfied with the unit. hey, we all get up in the middle of the night to pee anyway. . . so just throw some more wood on then
 
850's too hot IMO.
Typical stove thermometers can't be counted on to be that accurate and could be off by 25-50 deg or more.
Mine was off 100 deg !
 
I agree with that ,my son runs his 30 up to 850-900 stovetop temp and iv never seen it glow. Only thing glows is the burn tubes and the edges of the refractory material (So far)

Does his gauge go up to 900? Mine has no markings above 750. Maybe he just uses the ir gun? When you heat up an nc30 you'll notice the door latch get looser. Loose enough to let more air in which makes the fire bigger! Kind of a spiral. Then as it cools the latch gets really tight.

900. That's pretty great. And you know that if you're trying for 900 that you'll occasionally overshoot to 1000. That can only be described as "really chooching hard".
 
900. That's pretty great. And you know that if you're trying for 900 that you'll occasionally overshoot to 1000. That can only be described as "really chooching hard".
He is asking about a fan ,to cool the stove a little, never had a fan on it yet.
 
He is asking about a fan ,to cool the stove a little, never had a fan on it yet.

I propose that an nc30 at 700 with a proper fan and convection deck can make almost the same heat as an nc30 at 900 without the fans. The fan stove will have lower flue temps too so higher efficiency.

Now your brother might just want fans, deck, and 900 degrees to really kick out some heat.
 
Thats with the air on low ,he has a new tall masonry chimney. He is now using a box fan to try to cool it some when it hits 900.