30-NCH Stove Replacement

[fhon]

Hello All,

I was hoping to get some suggestions on replacing the Englander 30-NC I currently have.

I've been working at home for years, so heating the house with a wood stove has been great. Loading the stove throughout the day was no issue. However, now it's back to the office for me and I'm realizing my current setup is not going to work very well. It takes to long to get it going where it's really putting off heat and by the time I get home it would be completely dead.

At this point we're really invested in burning wood. So I've been looking at what kind of options I have. I'm worried I may be asking for too much out of a stove. Heck I may be asking too much out of wood in general. I'd l'd love to stick with a stove but I assume there aren't any that can get the kind of burn times I would need. Are the indoor wood furnaces that much better? Also the only spot I have to vent into the chimney is at the hearth. So I wouldn't really be able to hide the furnace in the laundry room.

I've also seen the outdoor boiler units but it seems like a giant investment and they look like they put off a ton of smoke that may bother the neighbors.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

 

[begreen]

If you just need to increase your burn time between reloads then look at a cat stove from Blaze King like the Princess or King or the Woodstock Ideal Steel.

Or is this more a matter of not enough heat without stoking the stove like a fireman? How large an area is being heated and what is the house like wrt insulation and sealing? Describe the stove setup and location in relation to the rest of the house.

 

[Highbeam]

I’m sitting in front of my nc30 right now. It’s a heating machine but has short burn times. In my home I burn a blaze king princess. It’s a smaller stove but I only have to load it once per day and it just burns and burns without having to reload it for 24 hours. Keeps my home nice and warm unless it’s bitter cold out and then I throw a few more splits in at the 12 hour mark when I go to the office in the morning.

Imagine, start a fire when you get home from work and then walk past the stove in the morning on your way to work in the morning and the stove is still half full of fuel! When you get home after your shift you reload on top of coals.

It seems crazy if you’re used to babysitting the nc30 but these cat stoves really can do long burns which keep your house steadily warm. There is no wood furnace that can burn much longer than your noncat nc30, they make big heat.

There’s no free lunch though. Long burns can only happen at relatively low burn rates. If you need more heat then you’ll get a shorter burn time but only a cat stove can offer the flexibility to burn slow or fast.

 

[ratsrepus]

go with the blaze king, its tried and true

 

[ratsrepus]

Of course i might add, get your wallet out

 

[fhon]

Thank you all for the replys. I don't know how I missed the cat stoves. This seems like exactly what I need.

Our house is 1800 sqft and 2 floors. Insulation is not great so I guess I should stay on the larger side. The NC30 does the job but we lose a lot of heat over night and then have to catch back up. Mainly because I refuse to wake up in the middle of the night to throw wood on.

My only concern with the cat stoves are mild weather. Will I have trouble on these days if I don't have a perfect draft?

Also, if I'm not getting enough heat could I just burn a little hotter and load it twice a day?

 

[jetsam]

Thank you all for the replys. I don't know how I missed the cat stoves. This seems like exactly what I need.

Our house is 1800 sqft and 2 floors. Insulation is not great so I guess I should stay on the larger side. The NC30 does the job but we lose a lot of heat over night and then have to catch back up. Mainly because I refuse to wake up in the middle of the night to throw wood on.

My only concern with the cat stoves are mild weather. Will I have trouble on these days if I don't have a perfect draft?

Also, if I'm not getting enough heat could I just burn a little hotter and load it twice a day?

My BK does fine on 15' of pipe. It used to like to leak smoke when the door was open in warm weather back when it was a 12' pipe.

Mild weather is the best time to have a very controllable stove. I can burn right through 60 degree days.

If you're not getting enough heat, turn it up a little! You can blow through a load every 4 hours if you want to chase people out of the house. If you are burning that hot all the time though, your stove may be too small for the job. A bigger stove could burn lower and be more efficient than a small stove that is being run wide open all the time.

I load on my schedule, not the stove's. In shoulder season, once every 24 hours... then twice a day... then 3 times a day when it gets really cold- but I can just pop the door open and top it off before work, whenever that happens to be. No babysitting.

The stove was expensive, but it has paid for itself already in 3 years (if you don't count the saws, the splitter, the truck, etc.... but nobody else here counts it either!)

 

[begreen]

Thank you all for the replys. I don't know how I missed the cat stoves. This seems like exactly what I need.

Our house is 1800 sqft and 2 floors. Insulation is not great so I guess I should stay on the larger side. The NC30 does the job but we lose a lot of heat over night and then have to catch back up. Mainly because I refuse to wake up in the middle of the night to throw wood on.

My only concern with the cat stoves are mild weather. Will I have trouble on these days if I don't have a perfect draft?

Also, if I'm not getting enough heat could I just burn a little hotter and load it twice a day?

Sounds like a good fit. The Princess takes 6" pipe and probably would be the easiest fit. It's a bit ugly, but does the job.

I'm with you, not going to get up in the middle of the night to feed a stove. Have you investigated tightening up the sealing of the house and maybe some more insulation? That will pay itself back all year round and may solve the problem. There are many people burning the 30-NC with good overnight burns including moderator BrotherBart. If the house is holding the heat reasonably well it should go 12 hrs during the shoulder season and about 8 hrs. in the winter.

 

[Highbeam]

I get three hours out of a full load in the nc30 burning it at 700. 8 hours tops if I just try to barely keep it burning clean and measure burn time until the smallest remaining ember. Not sure what people getting 12 hours from a noncat are doing but I can only imagine that their definition of burn time is not the same as mine.

Look, I’m a guy that actually burns both the nc30 and one of the good cat stoves at the same time. In real life, the difference is beyond amazing.

The princess is ugly but there are other models that the op might like more that also burn for up to 30 hours per load.

 

[fhon]

Thanks again. The princess is what I was looking at. Sounds like a decent amount more heat than the 30-NC which is probably good. The 30 seems to really need to be run pretty hard for us in the middle of winter. And if we get behind it takes most of the day to get back up to a good temperature in the house.

I love the 30 but I could never figure out how to get burn times that good. I never liked how it seemed like the air flow had to be just right in the firebox. It always needs a channel in the wood right in front of the dog house and if it collapsed on itself it threw things off. Maybe that was part of it. Are the blaze kings like that?

 

[Highbeam]

No, you stuff the bk firebox full to the roof and it just burns. When at low output there are no flames at all!

The princess is a smaller stove and lacks the peak horsepower that the nc30 has. But it burns longer at the lower output level. Sort of a tortoise and hare scenario. It is much more efficient so you should use noticeably less wood compared to the nc30. Most actual users report 20-25% reduction in fuel use.

What you will find is that keeping the house warm is much easier when you match the burn rate to the home’s heat loss. None of this “catch up”.

I heat 1700 sf of 1963 built rambler in single digit temperatures with 12 hour reloads using softwood like Douglas fir and alder. The other 95% of my burn season I can keep it very warm with 24 hour reloads.

The good folks on this site convinced me to switch my house stove to the princess and I don’t regret it at all. The nc30 is fine for a shop use where you want a peaky fast burner. It’s cheap and a very good value. Lots to like about it.

 

[begreen]

Paging @BrotherBart for 30NC home heating help.

We have roughly the same capacity stove and have no problem with 12 hr burns in mild weather and 8 hr burns in cold weather. But then again we are not cycle heating a workshop up from cold temps.

 

[bholler]

Hello All,

I was hoping to get some suggestions on replacing the Englander 30-NC I currently have.

I've been working at home for years, so heating the house with a wood stove has been great. Loading the stove throughout the day was no issue. However, now it's back to the office for me and I'm realizing my current setup is not going to work very well. It takes to long to get it going where it's really putting off heat and by the time I get home it would be completely dead.

At this point we're really invested in burning wood. So I've been looking at what kind of options I have. I'm worried I may be asking for too much out of a stove. Heck I may be asking too much out of wood in general. I'd l'd love to stick with a stove but I assume there aren't any that can get the kind of burn times I would need. Are the indoor wood furnaces that much better? Also the only spot I have to vent into the chimney is at the hearth. So I wouldn't really be able to hide the furnace in the laundry room.

I've also seen the outdoor boiler units but it seems like a giant investment and they look like they put off a ton of smoke that may bother the neighbors.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

What species wood are you using and what moisture content is it at? Some of the things you said like taking a long time to get going and being picky about how its stacked makes me think wet wood which will cut down output make you run it harder and waste more fuel at the start driving out the moisture. That all leads to lower burn times.

I have a non cat now and i easily get 8 hours when its in the 20s or 30s. 10 in milder weather i can even stretch it to 12 at that point the top is well below 250 and its not putting out much heat.

 

[fhon]

I've checked the wood and it's good. Can't remember the moisture reading I got but the wood is seasoned covered for two years first. When I say it takes too long I mean starting from an almost cold stove and having to used kindling again. So I'm not really rolling until the second load. Well at least not of I want to pack it.

Packing it full is really the only time I have issues with air flow. Only because I want to fill it as full as possible but need to be careful how I do it.

So really these are not huge issues but due to my situation, living without them would make my life much better.

 

[bholler]

I've checked the wood and it's good. Can't remember the moisture reading I got but the wood is seasoned covered for two years first. When I say it takes too long I mean starting from an almost cold stove and having to used kindling again. So I'm not really rolling until the second load. Well at least not of I want to pack it.

Packing it full is really the only time I have issues with air flow. Only because I want to fill it as full as possible but need to be careful how I do it.

So really these are not huge issues but due to my situation, living without them would make my life much better.

Something doesnt sound right. Even from a totally cold start it only takes me 30 mins pr so to be up to temp and shut back. And you should be sble to pack it full with no problems.

What size type and height is your chimney? How is the stove hooked up?

 

[begreen]

How quickly is the air getting shut down and what is the guide to doing this - visual, stove top thermometer, or stove pipe thermometer?

 

[bholler]

I am not trying to talk you out of a bk. It sounds like it may be a good fit. But if its a fuel or chimney problem a bk wont fix that. The 30 may even work for you if the problems are figured out.

 

[fhon]

I've got both thermometers. It gets up to heat very fast but I have to wait for the first smaller load to burn down pretty good before throwing on another full load. If it burnt the original load any faster if be concerned about that.

 

[bholler]

I've got both thermometers. It gets up to heat very fast but I have to wait for the first smaller load to burn down pretty good before throwing on another full load. If it burnt the original load any faster if be concerned about that.

Why are you burning a small load first? Just load it up.

 

[fhon]

I have no coals from the night before. So I have to use kindling and can't go straight to the real big stuff that I want to choke down for a long burn

 

[begreen]

This is not right. I do cold starts with a full load of dry wood and always have coals for a restart in the morning. The problem may be how the stove is getting loaded or with the wood.

I never liked how it seemed like the air flow had to be just right in the firebox. It always needs a channel in the wood right in front of the dog house and if it collapsed on itself it threw things off. Maybe that was part of it.

Packing it full is really the only time I have issues with air flow. Only because I want to fill it as full as possible but need to be careful how I do it.

It's possible that with some changes the current stove will perform better. To figure this out we need more details about the stove and flue, the method being used to load the stove, and the quality of the wood.

• Tell us more about how you are loading the stove now for a full load. Do you load N/S or E/W? Or crisscrossed?

• And tell us more about the wood. How thick are the splits that normally get burned? What species of wood? How well seasoned is the wood?

• Tell us about the flue system on the stove from stove top to chimney cap including total height.

 

[fhon]

This is not right. I do cold starts with a full load of dry wood and always have coals for a restart in the morning. The problem may be how the stove is getting loaded or with the wood.


It's possible that with some changes the current stove will perform better. To figure this out we need more details about the stove and flue, the method being used to load the stove, and the quality of the wood.

• Tell us more about how you are loading the stove now for a full load. Do you load N/S or E/W? Or crisscrossed?

I load them N/S and I leave a small air gap down the middle for air from the dog house.

• And tell us more about the wood. How thick are the splits that normally get burned? What species of wood? How well seasoned is the wood?

I use 18" pieces that have been seasoned for two years. They're about 4-5" wide. Mainly Oak and Cherry.

• Tell us about the flue system on the stove from stove top to chimney cap including total height.

The stove is in the basement so from the out let to the top of the chimney cap is about 20'. Also the chimney has a stainless liner. It does have to make a 90 degree turn to get into the chimney.

I don't want to sound rude but, I think I'm pretty well talked in to the blaze king and I don't feel like I'm really having an issue with the current stove. Sounds like the blaze king would make life a lot easier. But if there is some kind of underlying issue with my current stove I could have a bad experience with the new one, so thank you for all the input. I could load it full and get 8 hours. But not the 10 or 12 that I need for work. Even if I could I'm not sure I'd be getting the heat I need by doing these slow burns all the time. Also I really don't understand how you're loading the stove completely full and still fitting kindling in there.

 

[Highbeam]

I’m a little worried about the op thinking he will get “more heat” with the princess. The nc30 is a large stove and keeping it loaded all day and burning all day should makes lots of heat. Plenty to keep 1800 sf warm! It’s worth sorting out whether that is happening or not and why.

What the cat stove brings to the party is better efficiency and a much wider range of outputs to match your situation better. If that means you need 16 hour burn times, no problem, but at moderate output. If it took 20 splits to keep your house warm with the nc30 it will take a few less at about 16 with the princess. This efficiency improvement is from several factors beyond the epa testing, most important is not playing catch-up to reheat a cold stove, flue, and house.

It’s hard to get more heat than what an nc30 can make. It’s easy to get more comfort, efficiency, and less heat with longer burns.

 

[Highbeam]

Reading back through the posts I really think it’s just a case of the classic peaky burn cycle of a noncat being uncomfortable. At the end of an overnight burn, or when you return from work, the noncat stove will be way past the peak of the burn cycle and the house will be cooling. Some creative folks on this site referred to the early stages of a noncat burn as the Period of Meaningful Heat. After that period, the noncat just dwindles on those remnants in the ashes that are enough to ignite fresh fuel but hardly making meaningful heat.

A cat stove doesn’t do that. The output curve is almost totally flat over the duration of the burn. Cooler than a noncat at the peak but warmer at the end. Steady output for a steady house temperature.

Some houses can absorb the peaky heat output of the noncat cycle and smooth out those peaks better than others. Or you could select a heater that doesn’t create those peaks.

 

[bholler]

Reading back through the posts I really think it’s just a case of the classic peaky burn cycle of a noncat being uncomfortable. At the end of an overnight burn, or when you return from work, the noncat stove will be way past the peak of the burn cycle and the house will be cooling. Some creative folks on this site referred to the early stages of a noncat burn as the Period of Meaningful Heat. After that period, the noncat just dwindles on those remnants in the ashes that are enough to ignite fresh fuel but hardly making meaningful heat.

A cat stove doesn’t do that. The output curve is almost totally flat over the duration of the burn. Cooler than a noncat at the peak but warmer at the end. Steady output for a steady house temperature.

Some houses can absorb the peaky heat output of the noncat cycle and smooth out those peaks better than others. Or you could select a heater that doesn’t create those peaks.

Yes but most of us with large non cats are getting 8 to 10 hours of meaninful heat