Enviro Wood Stoves

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I just bought an Enviro Boston 1700. It’s my first wood stove, so I am a complete newbie. Despite being new to wood stoves, our wood stove experiment has been going well so far, due to the help we’ve received on this forum.

While I was researching different stoves, I found several running threads on specific stoves that I found to be really helpful. I would like to start a similar thread with information specific to Enviro Kodiak and Boston wood stoves (as well as other Enviro stoves, I’m not sure how many models there are?). Hopefully it can be a helpful resource to all of the Enviro owners on hearth.com, as well as to prospective buyers of Enviro stoves.

It doesn’t seem like Enviro stoves are as common as BK’s, PE’s, Jotuls, etc, but hopefully there are enough to support a dedicated forum thread. Who knows, maybe this thread will result in the Enviro tribe increasing!

A few questions for you experienced Enviro burners:
  1. How many square feet are you heating?
  2. How many years have you had your stove?
  3. Have you had to replace any parts?
  4. What is your typical maintenance routine for your stove/chimney?
I apologize if I am not posting correctly but I am looking for some help removing the left shroud/ fan housing on an enviro Kodiak 1700, any help would be appreciated. Also suggestions where to buy a replacement, local AD is not an option and others in my area won’t touch anything they didn’t sell
 
Not sure where in New England you are but The Preston Trading Post in CT is a good Enviro dealer.
 
Try this from stovelark. Hopefully it helps. It’s from a few pages back in the thread.

Hey everyone- the blowers are set up diff between the Boston and the Kodiak. For the Kodiak, take the surround off, pull out the left side a bit, find the two t20 screws that hold the blower pod on, just loosen (they have holes for accessing them) and remove the pod. I've found the blowers to be quite good to stay clean being mounted vertically. The boston needs the top plate (3/8 inch wrench needed to loosen the bolts), take that plate off, then the door and then the side panels are accessible. I only tighten down the front bolts on the sides and one bolt on the top plate. Boston owners will see what I mean. Its not easy, but it hides everything. The Venice and Kodiak also have one top bolt on the pod to remove to take their blowers off. Hope this helps.




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I apologize if I am not posting correctly but I am looking for some help removing the left shroud/ fan housing on an enviro Kodiak 1700, any help would be appreciated. Also suggestions where to buy a replacement, local AD is not an option and others in my area won’t touch anything they didn’t sell

See my previous post with the quote from stovelark. Should help.


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Hey everyone- one thing I forgot. On the Kodiak and Venice, there is a 5/16 screw on top of the blower pod that needs to be loosened as well. Yes BG is correct (again), Preston is a SE CT Enviro dealer for parts. Hope this helps.
 
Hey everyone- the blowers are set up diff between the Boston and the Kodiak. For the Kodiak, take the surround off, pull out the left side a bit, find the two t20 screws that hold the blower pod on, just loosen (they have holes for accessing them) and remove the pod. I've found the blowers to be quite good to stay clean being mounted vertically. The boston needs the top plate (3/8 inch wrench needed to loosen the bolts), take that plate off, then the door and then the side panels are accessible. I only tighten down the front bolts on the sides and one bolt on the top plate. Boston owners will see what I mean. Its not easy, but it hides everything. The Venice and Kodiak also have one top bolt on the pod to remove to take their blowers off. Hope this helps.
Stovelark, thanks this this info...I have a 1700 but it appears to be an older model, by that I mean 8-10 years. My version has a shroud with diamond shaped cut outs backed by a wire screen for the intake (both sides) and are at 45 degree angle from the surround to the front of the unit. On the left shroud is a 3 way toggle and a dimmer switch, Both of which are broken, but the unit is still running as one of the positions is still functioning. I tried what you mentioned above but still can’t seem to get the left shroud off, am I overlooking something?
 
Ok your stove is about the same age as mine circa 2008-2009. If you take off the surround (two screws behind it), and pull the insert out a bit on the left side facing, look back on the pod. You'll see two holes cut out. Inside those holes two t20 torx screws are loosened, along with the small 5/16 screw on top of the pod. The blower can then be taken off of the body of the stove. The switch at the base of the pod is the auto/off/manual blower selection and you have the rheostat for the speed of the blower. I liked this earlier version of the Kodiak better too (the diamond style sides). Hope this helps. If not, go to enviro's website and look at the older manual on there, if you don't have a manual. I do believe it shows these screws too.
 
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Ok your stove is about the same age as mine circa 2008-2009. If you take off the surround (two screws behind it), and pull the insert out a bit on the left side facing, look back on the pod. You'll see two holes cut out. Inside those holes two t20 torx screws are loosened, along with the small 5/17 screw on top of the pod. The blower can then be taken off of the body of the stove. The switch at the base of the pod is the auto/off/manual blower selection and you have the rheostat for the speed of the blower. I liked this earlier version of the Kodiak better too (the diamond style sides). Hope this helps. If not, go to enviro's website and look at the older manual on there, if you don't have a manual. I do believe it shows these screws too.
Thank you very much stovelark, will give it a go today
 
Hi cheap, you're welcome. Nothing beats experience and usage of these stoves. I have had 4 different wood stoves in the past 20 years, a Quad 3100 (great stove, shorter burn times than advertised, short pieces of wood, but easy to use, superb burner- just did not understand firebox size to burn time ratio back then). Then I started selling woodstoves, learned very quickly, price does not always equate to quality/ease to use and overall satisfaction. I next thought HS Phoenix might be perfect combo, cast iron for holding heat, soapstone for heat retention and smoothing the heat spikes of burning. Wonderful stove, a bit pricey and my theory didn't pan out. It didn't seem to heat upstairs as well as the Quad did, and firebox only somewhat bigger. Then my beautiful F500 Oslo, blue black. Kept it 6 seasons. Slow to get going (as compared to the Quad), but well rewarded with beautiful burn, long burn times (finally had gotten a big enough firebox), very happy with it. I then moved to selling Enviros, so took the plunge with this relatively inexpensive Kodiak FS. Happily, it does all- long burn times, longer (compared to quad and HS) pieces of wood, extremely easy to use stove. The least expensive one has been my favorite, still 9 seasons later. I got the brushed nickel door and cast legs, its def not as pretty as the F500 (not even close, Jotul makes beautiful stoves), but for all aspects, a very user-friendly, easy drafting, great heating machine. I try my best to advocate for Enviro woodstoves, but do wonder why they are not more popular. Even dealers I've found are leery of them. There are many great steel stoves out there, Regency, Osburn, PE, Lopi, Englander, but Enviro normally comes in lower (wished the Boston was a little more reasonably priced, the FS) than just about all of them except the England stove works. Have become a fan of the NC-30 too, for the money spent its hard to beat. Still USA made I believe. Anyway, sorry for rambling, everybody be warm.....
 
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Enviro seems to me to be like the tube equivalent of the PE. My theory is that PE and Enviro stove engineering may have some common roots. I could be wrong, but there are a lot of similarities and they are made about 20 miles from each other. Maybe their designers got together over coffee sometimes? If we didn't have the T6 there's a good chance we would have ended up with a Boston 1700.
 
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I totally agree with you BG. I've cleaned a bunch of PE stoves over the years, good robust stoves and their owners always support them well, a la Enviro folks. Wouldn't surprise me if they had talked technology over many times. Happy Holidays to you as well.
 
One of these days I'll get up to Vancouver Island for some stove factory tours I hope. Have a great Christmas and New Years stovelark.
 
Thought I would post this link to my most recent post because it’s an Enviro stove. Maybe it will have useful information that can help someone at some point.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...problem-looking-for-some-input-please.166013/

FYI: In order to open up this link from my phone on Tapatalk I had to flip to webview. I think that’s because of how I inserted the link.


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A little thread bump here.

It’s really friggin cold for most of us. How are the Enviros holding up for you?

My routine has been a big load N/S on a relight in the morning with a few coals around 7:00 AM. Another load E/W at about 4:00pm. Still a lot coals so I push most of them towards the back and load in front. Then before bed I’ll still have a good amount of coals. More than I would normally reload on, so again a few splits E/W in front to keep it going through the night.

House has been warm, oils kicks on a few times a day at the end of the cycles but I’m not trying to be a wood purist. Still at only using 1/2 tank all year (including the last few weeks for hot water). So I’d say the Boston 1700 is doing all we could ask of it.

How about you?
 
A little thread bump here.

It’s really friggin cold for most of us. How are the Enviros holding up for you?

My routine has been a big load N/S on a relight in the morning with a few coals around 7:00 AM. Another load E/W at about 4:00pm. Still a lot coals so I push most of them towards the back and load in front. Then before bed I’ll still have a good amount of coals. More than I would normally reload on, so again a few splits E/W in front to keep it going through the night.

House has been warm, oils kicks on a few times a day at the end of the cycles but I’m not trying to be a wood purist. Still at only using 1/2 tank all year (including the last few weeks for hot water). So I’d say the Boston 1700 is doing all we could ask of it.

How about you?

My Kodiak has been keeping up fairly well. However, it’s been down yesterday and today (see the thread I inserted up above). I think most people are probably taking their coals up towards the front for the extra airflow to help burn them down.

My wife argues with me about how to run the stove. I want to run it more like you do, but that does lead to cooler house temperatures, which is my wife’s complaint. She likes to keep it loaded up and running on high to keep the house temps up in these kind of outside temperatures. The stove keeps up with no problems that way, but it is harder to fight the hot coals and ash battle.


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Sorry to hear about your situation Saewoody. Hopefully it’s a relatively easy fix.

This weather is really putting our stove to the test. We had a week of temperatures in the teens/twenties that the stove was able to keep up with, but just barely. Now that we’re in the single digits, we have to occasionally supplement with our electric heat.

Since this is our first winter with the stove, we are still trying to sort out what our approach will be when it gets really cold like this. Right now we are doing 3 full loads, one at 5:30 AM, one at 1 or 2, and one at 8:30 PM.

One problem that I am having is that I need to turn the air all the way down at the beginning of the burn to keep the stove from getting too hot. However, a few hours into the burn, if the air isn’t opened back up a bit, the flame goes out. This is only a problem for the overnight burn. Is this a problem that other people have? I am seriously considering something like this to address this problem: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/automated-airflow.161316/

NGASN, why do you push coals to the back instead of pulling them to the front so that the air can burn them down? That’s a new technique for me.
 
Happy to report we are staying warm here but loaded up my Kodiak 4 times today and running the Empress upstairs at the same time. Pushing the Kodiak harder than normal, but she is up for it. Hope this next year is a good one for us all, lets all pray its a safe and successful time for our country too.
 
NGASN, why do you push coals to the back instead of pulling them to the front so that the air can burn them down? That’s a new technique for me.[/QUOTE]

It’s because I’m reloading earlier than I would normally and violating some of the rules of thumb I gave you in your other thread.

If I reload on too many coals there’s a good chance the stove goes nuclear. Pulling them to the front and loading N/S or even spreading them out on the bottom evenly elevates the bottom splits and they burn easier (sometimes too easy). I could load E/W behind the coal pile but I don’t like reaching all the way into stove and fiddling around with the split position while getting burned by the coals so I just bulldozer them to the back.

I find the fire is much more controlled. The fire goes from back to front slowly since it’s working against the prevailing winds from the dog house even though I’m getting good heat and secondaries and the primary is shut down pretty far.

Again I’m only doing this for coal management when pushing it a little harder. I wouldn’t do it if I had a normal coal bed.
 
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It’s because ...[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the thorough explanation, as always. I think you need to write a manual for these stoves.
 
FYI: while my stove was down I cleaned out my blower. I haven’t ever done it before, but it was very easy to get to once the stove was pulled out and the surround was off. As I mentioned in another thread, the two squirrel cages in the blower looked like they had been wrapped in a wool sweater. A combination of sucking and blowing with the shop vac eventually got it all out (along with a little bit of pulling with a small hook pick to get the really stubborn stuff). I’ve got to tell you guys, it is like a brand new stove. This is my fifth year of burning and it’s never been done. With two long haired cats, a dog, four kids, and of course my wife and me, there is plenty of activity to stir up all the dust and fur that we all create; and the stove sucked plenty of it up.

While it still felt like the fan was moving air, it was nowhere near as efficient as it is now that it has been cleaned. So much more hot air is now getting pushed into the room, even at lower stove temps. We were struggling this winter to keep the house as warm as we normally do, but I don’t think tat will bean issue anymore. Here is a pic my wife sent me this morning.
IMG_5898.JPG
 
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Anybody ever have any luck with getting I touch with Enviro customer service?

I have a potential warranty claim that I would like to pursue, but it looks like you need to go through a dealer. The dealer I bought the stove through closed a couple years ago. I called another local dealer who said they should be able to help me for a $35 fee.


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Anybody ever have any luck with getting I touch with Enviro customer service?

I have a potential warranty claim that I would like to pursue, but it looks like you need to go through a dealer. The dealer I bought the stove through closed a couple years ago. I called another local dealer who said they should be able to help me for a $35 fee.


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Did you end up submitting a warranty claim? I'm curious how this ended up working out for you.
 
I cleaned my flue last night for the first time. Used a sooteater and cleaned from the bottom. I went up and down several times, but only ended up getting about a cup of creosote, which was a pleasant surprise. I burned marginally dry wood for about a month this winter, and so I figured I'd end up with quite a bit of creosote.

The sooteater flexible rods got pretty scratched up from making contact with the burn tubes while spinning. It's not possible to remove the burn tubes, is it? Does anyone else use a sooteater to clean their Enviro?