Amesti N380 (aka Nordic 380)

[joecool85]

There has been a bit of talk about the Chilean made Amesti N380 sold at Lowes this past year. I ended up buying one for $399 (marked down due to end of season from the original $599 price tag). I figured I would share my experience with it in this thread.

Since I don't have it installed yet, I will pool together what I've read elsewhere on here into this one spot.

It is a small plate steel stove with secondary combustion and built in heat shields that make it a convective stove. It has an ash pan and utilizes a "cold handle" that isn't attached permanently to the stove. It puts out 37k btu and loads N/S. It is EPA approved and UL listed. The firebox measures 15.25" deep by 14" wide and 10" tall (to the bottom of the stepped damper in the rear). If you had short enough wood you could load it E/W. The depth I measure to the lip of the stove, if you measure to the glass it is 16.25".

Here is a picture from the company of what it looks like:

And here are some inside shots thanks to raderator.

[quote author="raderator" date="1291591758"]Went back to Lowe's. They had four. Yes, 16" logs will fit N/S. Looked very well made. Nothing crooked. Tidy, unobtrusive welds. Glass is 10"x10". Handle seemed to work fine. I guess it's safer for kids.


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[joecool85]

The air intake does seem a little odd to me.

First the primary air:

Air wash on the front window coming from the top, also primary air is supplied by the "blocks" on the left and ride side of the box (looks like secondary, but the air is controlled via the primary air control). The air coming into this system is via two 1.25" holes that are adjusted with the air control lever. There is also a 3/4" hole between the two larger ones that does not get covered, so it is impossible to "shut off" the stove from primary air. There is also a 1/4" hole from the ash pan into the box via a small pipe although I'd imagine with the ash pan closed it wouldn't make any difference.


The secondary air:

The secondary air is fed in via a 1.25" pipe on the back of the stove (hid behind the rear heat shield) and into the stepped damper block and out all three sets of holes. It seems to be mixed feelings from board members whether this will cause nice secondaries or hardly any at all. Time will tell.

 

[joecool85]

The good news and the bad.

The good: Some folks were worried about the baffle contorting/twisting/deforming due to the heat and the fact that it is made of regular steel (no stainless). I doubt it. It is made of 1/8" thick plate steel and welded on all seems. If this deforms, you got a problem. That said, it is removable and someone with the right tools could repair it or even make a new one without too much hassle.

The bad: They use fiberglass rope to seal up the baffle on the sides. They use nothing on the rear to seal it around the hole that feeds the primary air. Also, with a flashlight you can see light from inside the box to above the baffle where the fiberglass rope is - it isn't a tight seal. So we will try it out as is, but I have a feeling I will be upgrading the side gasket to a thicker rope size for a better seal as well as using some to seal the rear of the baffle to keep smoke from being able to come into the house around the secondary air inlet.

 

[joecool85]

Since my last post we have decided to rotate the stove 90 degrees. For our hearth pad we will be using 1/2" plywood for the base, then 2 x 1/2" wonderboard (0.26 R per sheet) then 2.25" brick (R 0.45) for the floor protection with the wonderboard extending all the way out to the edge of the "combustible zone" with tiles on top for added safety. So our total R value will be 0.97 R for the "hearth pad" area and 0.54R for the lower area of the pad that is in the "combustible zone". The required hearth pad rating for this stove is 0.84R so we will be well above that for sure and it should look nice to boot.

The stove will be only 8" from the wall. The ratings are 14" for the side and 16" for the rear. We will be using heat shields on the wall, spaced 1" off the wall surface to cut the distance by 2/3 (as per the manual and UL listings). This means we could have it as close as 4.62" from the wall on the side and 5.28" at the rear - WAY to close for my comfort. The 8" distance gives a nice safety buffer and keeps the wife happy as well

We aren't 100% sure on what to use for a gate yet but will use something since we will have a little one (our first) at the beginning of November and our cat and dog aren't the brightest so we need to protect them too.

 

[begreen]

Thanks for the update joe. Is the stove going in the corner pictured? If so, I was wondering if you considered rotating it 45 degrees so that most of the radiant heat from the front is projected into the room?

 

[joecool85]

Thanks for the update joe. Is the stove going in the corner pictured? If so, I was wondering if you considered rotating it 45 degrees so that most of the radiant heat from the front is projected into the room?

It is going in the corner pictured. We had tried it at 45 degrees and it looked great, but the hearth would have to come out substantially further into our already small 12 x 12 living room. What you can't see to the right of the stove is another baseboard along the wall. The new hearth will go pretty much right up to both baseboards but not past which will look nice, save space and should work really well. I'm hoping the wall shields will help reflect heat back into the room too. Our home is only 1,250 sq ft and we live in Central Maine. I'm thinking this Amesti, rated at 35,700 btu, should pretty well heat our whole home until it gets to about 10-20 F outside. We only have 42,000 btu of baseboard installed and 2/3 of it is UPSTAIRS (no, I didn't design this heating system lol).

 

[joecool85]

Turns out we can't use the Amesti. Explanation here: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/79771/