Help deciding between a Lennox Grandview 230 or Englander 30-NC

[kinatron]

I've been looking for a year to replace our freestanding fireplace with a modern efficient woodstove and am about to pull the trigger. I would like some advice from the hearth member community before I decide.
We are looking to help heat our normally cold and and drafty 1979 2400 sq ft split level home.
We live in Western Washington so the winters are relatively mild but the home has lots of windows and vaulted ceilings with poor insulation so it's normally on the cold side during winter.

The plan is to keep the wood stove in our 450 sq ft daylight basement/family room. The room is under our kids rooms with a short stairway to our living room which has 18 ft vaulted ceilings. I'm hoping that much of the heat will make it's way up the stairs and into the living room and with the help of a ceiling fan push the heat back down into the living area.

I've narrowed it down to two stoves. The Lennox Grandview 230 and the Englander NC-30

Questions for the forum:
Are we going to get overheated in basement by either of these stoves or will the heat move up the stairs and into the rest of the house? We currently have a free standing fireplace in the spot the stove will go and the heat does seem to make it's way up the stairs but this is also aided by the huge draft that a fireplace provides. With a modern efficient stove I'm anticipating a much less draft. Will this impeded the airflow and cook us in the basement?

Given my desire for air movement, I'm looking for more of a convection type stove. Will the Englander with the manufacturer side shielding (and the supplied fan) make it a "convection" stove?

I prefer the looks of the grandview and it's "innovative" expanded heat exchanger makes sense to me, but I don't know if it's effective in practice. I don't see many reviews for this stove.

Englander NC Pros: cheaper price, larger firebox, free blower, reputation on hearth.com
Grandview 230 Pros: Better aesthetics (large viewing window), heat exchanger, appears to be a better convection stove, smaller clearances.

Which of the two would you recommend?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Silenced38]

Looks like your question may have gotten over looked. But this should kick it back to the top of the list, for you. I was looking at a 30nc. From the answers i got. Its a heat monster. Huge firebox. Alot of the guys say on a full load it will run in the mid 700*s for hours. But it has a high hearh requirment 1.5 r. It think. It was too much heater for my situation. But you have alot more area to heat.

 

[Grisu]

The Grandview 230 has a firebox of 2.3 cu ft and is therefore quite a bit smaller than the 30NC with 3 cu ft. You may want to look at the Grandview 300. Do a forum search to find user reports about the Grandview. You will find a ton about the 30NC and the vast majority will be positive. For that price it is almost impossible to beat. The biggest knock on it is the hearth requirement of 1.5 in r-value while the Grandview seems to only need ember protection. When you install the optional heat shields on the 30NC you will get more of a convective type stove. As a rule of thumb: The smaller the required clearances the more convective/less radiant a stove will be. None the less, your layout sounds challenging regarding heat distribution. How is that basement room connected to the rest of the house? Would there maybe a more central spot to put it in?

Both stoves (or any other) will need dry wood to provide enough heat and burn safely. How many cords do you have split and stacked in your yard? For how long has the wood been drying?

 

[Highbeam]

I grew up in a late 70s western wa split level. The only connection to the upstairs was the closed in staircase with a switchback in the middle. We used a stove in the basement and kept it really warm down there to keep it pretty warm upstairs. Worked great.

Lennox bought country stoves a few years back. Country made stoves in auburn and lots of locals own country stoves.

Their "innovative" heat exchanger is a gimmick. Give it no value.

Don't pick that silly small 2.3 credit rated stove. It's too small for your house and just too small in general.

Both good brands, one is just much cheaper and other than looks doesn't seem to give anything up for those savings.

 

[blades]

2400 sq ft is going to be a challenge even for the NC30, particularly when located in a basement area. The NC30 in a 450 sqft room is going to blast you out heat wise the other thing you will find is a great deal of cold air draft sliding down the stairs to that room. That draft will make things quite uncomfortable down there. From just above your ankles to the floor surface.
You would be much better off with a 2 stove plan one on each floor.
Having had multifloor homes in the past with wood heat appliances & fireplaces I have an intimate knowledge of those drafts. Even a single story will suffer from a draft function when the stove is located on one end or the other ( got the T-shirt on that one also) Case in point although not a wood stove but a gas fire place in a contemporary 2 story- stairs to upper level located across from fireplace draft flows down stairs across floor to appliance - cold on the toes. Granted there is about a 40 deg difference in my winter weather temps than yours ,still applicable.

 

[kinatron]

Thanks for the feedback!
This is going on top of tile over concrete slab so unless I'm mistaken I don't need to worry about an elevated or insulated hearth.
Highbeam seemed opinionated about the Grandview, which is what I was looking for . It sounds like he grew up in a similar house with the results I'm looking for. Our stairway is a bit shorter the way the house lays out it only goes straight down half a flight of stairs. The furnace room is also down in the basement. There is an air register return at the bottom of the wall near the floor. Would it be worth while to move the return up near the ceiling (of the basement) and move heat from the basement to the rest of the house that way? Also there are there are air registers in the ceiling of the basement that feed off of the same duck line that feeds the kids rooms. Would installing register fans push warm air into the rooms upstairs?

 

[begreen]

Many folks here are opinionated! The most common being that my stove is the best stove. The radiation deck on the Grandview does seem effective at increasing the surface area and therefore the heat convection. Fins are commonly used for heat dissipation in other applications. I was impressed with the heat output from this unit when I got a chance to see it burning.

The furnace return should be at least 10 ft away from the stove. Often using the ductwork and furnace fan is inefficient. It uses a lot of electricity and the ductwork unless fully insulated will be delivering cold air at the end of long runs. If possible let natural convection do the job by placing the stove near an open stairway or better yet, moving it upstairs.

 

[w127st]

I have a grandview 230 in my basement. I'm new to wood heating so this will mostly be anecdotal, but here goes.
I love the stove.
my house is a new york city townhouse - stone and brick walls and floors in the basement; 10' ceilings (yes you read correctly, 10 feet). the room is about 16x45 (720sf). we live one flight up, which has the same footprint directly above the basement (720sf), AND has a 16x16 extension (256 sf) which is built directly on the ground in the backyard - no basement underneath. (translation - the floor gets very cold). total sq footage is about 1700.
I put an exhaust fan in the old transom window to pull warm air into the extension, which is divided into 2 rooms. between those 2 rooms there are slider windows high and low to encourage passive convection.
I'm also about to cut a hole in the floor pretty much right above the stove to bring warm air into the front of our apartment. I keep ceiling fans running on slow speed/reverse to encourage convection in each room. the building is 100 years old and drafty.
so far we have enough heat. it's not baking upstairs, but it's fine. I make the biggest fire I can in the evening and let it bake all night with the fans running. whatever I spend on electric for running the fans is a bargain compared to $600 a month last winter for electric radiation.
admittedly, it hasn't been that cold for that long yet this year. But, I'm only running one heat cycle. When it gets colder, I'll run as many as I need to keep the house warm.
the only catch is that it might have to be as hot as hades in the basement in order to keep the apartment upstairs warm - only time will tell.
some of the things I've read don't strike me as 100% true - I think they may be partly dogma.
1. that putting the stove in the basement and heating the upstairs with fans is a bad idea - could create a back draft; won't heat that well.
In my experience that's incorrect. I think it has to be done a certain way. I'm using no ducts, just vents directly through the ceiling/floor covered with grates. my house is old and drafty, not modern and tight, so I have no worries about back draft, anywhere!
the only critical things I have to say about the grandview are that the firebox does strike me as a bit small for a stove of it's size, but what do I know? and that no matter how carefully I follow all the rules about burning wood, the glass still gets dirty pretty quickly. all the wood I burn is under 20% water content. I always burn in cycles rather than constantly feeding. I wait until all the logs are charcoaled on the outside before starting to close down the damper to bake. I make my fires top down. I don't burn pine or other soft woods except for a few small pieces for kindling, etc etc.
maybe I'm still doing something wrong - dunno.
anyway I think it's a good stove, compared to others I've used.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Either stove will cook you out of a 750 sq ft room, and don't count on moving that heat upstairs effectively.

 

[blades]

Better off to push cold - the hot will rush to fill the void.

 

[kinatron]

Thanks everybody for the feedback! Just wanted to report that I went with the Englander primarily for the price, I also have a 90 day return policy with Home depot if totally cooks us out.
Unfortunately the stove isn't hooked up yet My existing chimney is 9" in diameter. I purchased a 6 to 9 inch "stovepipe" adapter at the same time I ordered the Englander. Both arrived at the same time, only the adapter appears to be made out of galvanized steel, which from what I understand is not safe at woodstove temperatures.

I can't seem to find a 6 to 9 adapter, and everyone I talk to says they don't make 9" chimneys. Any suggestions?
Given this is a different topic I started a new thread.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/need-help-with-a-9-chimney-width.136074/#post-1825409
Please let me know if you have any ideas.
Thanks again for everyones time and responses.
-Ryan

 

[sd71]

Thanks everybody for the feedback! Just wanted to report that I went with the Englander primarily for the price, I also have a 90 day return policy with Home depot if totally cooks us out.
Unfortunately the stove isn't hooked up yet My existing chimney is 9" in diameter. I purchased a 6 to 9 inch "stovepipe" adapter at the same time I ordered the Englander. Both arrived at the same time, only the adapter appears to be made out of galvanized steel, which from what I understand is not safe at woodstove temperatures.

I can't seem to find a 6 to 9 adapter, and everyone I talk to says they don't make 9" chimneys. Any suggestions?
Given this is a different topic I started a new thread.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/need-help-with-a-9-chimney-width.136074/#post-1825409
Please let me know if you have any ideas.
Thanks again for everyones time and responses.
-Ryan

Did you get the Englander hooked up and running? I hooked up a Grandview 230 (see avatar) last week and the heat is great - been 70 - 79 (too hot sometimes) in the house. My upstairs is 2500sq ft and the heat spreads around nice. Even the living room with 15ft ceilings has been up to 77. I looked at the Grandview 300 but the chimney sweep said it may be too much heat to run wide open - I'd have to damper it down too much - so far I can't argue with his advice. I'm burning a pellet stove in the basement which is another 2100sq ft. Good luck.