Question about Englander 30NC

[Roamer]

Newbie here...

We're replacing a Wonderwood stove that we've had in the basement for over 10 years. It's ugly, the firebrick is cracked and the grate is broken. It's time for an upgrade. Our house has a basement where the stove is, then two more levels. We use the chimney from the old coal boiler (chimney sweep-inspected and approved) that runs through the center of the house. We have amazing draft from that chimney. The house isn't large - probably about 1500 square feet including the basement, but is old and has no insulation in the exterior walls. We mainly need the stove to heat the basement game room and my teenage son's bedroom, but are thrilled with any heat that comes upstairs into the main level of the house.

I followed a link I found on this website and found this stove. Am I correct in that it is the same as the Englander 30NC? http://overstockstoves.com/50nowomo2sqf.html

While I'd love to have a Hearthstone Mansfield, we can't afford it right now. This stove looks like it would suit our purposes. I just have one big silly problem with it. My husband and I both hate that gold/brass trim. Can anything be done about that? Will it accept high temp paint? Do the experts here think the stove I linked to will suit our purposes?

Thanks in advance, everyone

 

[eernest4]

that stove is the one you want to buy, I just buy one myself. See my signature at the end of this post & you get sick from the price that I steal it for at lowes 1/2 off clearance sale. too late,lowes been all sold out for 3 weeks now.

It is the www.englanderstoves.com 50-3ocnp or 50-30cnl or summersheat 50-snc-30lc all the same stove made in monroe,virginia by a family owned company that keeps two representatives here on hearth.com to help customers, after work ,on their own time ,just because they love stoves so much.

That stove is rated to heat 2000 sq ft & your house is only 1500 sq ft so get ready to start running around the house bafefoot & naked, if you want to.You gonna love that
stove , it heat basement,son's room, the room at the top of the stairs & probably the room next to it too & maybe another room if the heat has a way to get there. i bought mine to heat 2700 sq ft so at 1500 ,you have heat to spair. Stove does 8 & 10 hr overnight burns nicely &
is the cleanest lest smoking secondary burn stove you can buy as well as next to the least expensive stove you can buy.

Only the century stove is cheaper, and there is no compairing it with an englander, it is like 30% less of a stove. Now don't all you century owners kill me at once for saying that, but if you could have gotten the same size englander for the same price, the 2 stoves sitting side by side ,which would you have chossen? englander 5 to1 is my bet.


the color of the trim is not a problem at all. go to www.englanderstoves.com & look up your model stove & find its accessories page to see all the different doors & trims to choose from.
You get flat black or brass or gold or peuwter trim. Mine is peuwter trim but the trim plate snaps right off in 15 seconds & dont need to be replaced at all if you like flat black or can be changed for peuwter, brass or gold trim.
englanders are a bit ugly but you love them for how well they heat & how much money the save you,both in initial cost & also in wood fuel milage. 1/3 MORE HEAT FOR 1/3 LESS WOOD.
OR THE SAME HEAT FOR 2/3 LESS WOOD. only a few catilitic combustor stoves are more efficient wood burners for lots & lots more price to buy.catalitic combustors cost 200.oo to 300.oo to replace & can be a nightmare because some like the vermont castings encore defiant are super complicated to repair.

Like I said ,i already bought mine & was overjoyed to get it.my house twice the size of yours but i only need stove to heat basement & all of first floor & i have a air current friendly room layout that allows that. Stove actually heats second floor ,too, enough to keep it 58 deg. if you can call 58 deg with 16 deg outside, heating the second floor.

With your size house,i would not be suprized that you can get away with only 1/2 a load of wood to do the job. 3.5 cubic foot firebox so a 1/2 load of wood would be 1.75 cubic feet of wood. Yea ,I would buy that stove if I were you. it give you all the heat you ever need & last 20+ years, if you take care of it.
DO BUY THE OPTIONAL BLOWER THAT YOU WILL SEE ON THE ACESSORIES PAGE . You will like the way it gets the heat out & away from the stove. You can use a box fan blowing cold air down stairs from the top of the stairway & this will flow down the stairs into the basement and force hot air up the stairs. i do it myself ,everyday,so i know it works good enough for 79 deg F in my kitchen, 73*anns room,70*my bedroom,74*living R. & 58*on second floor.

only 7 parts can normally break on the englander, door glass, secondary burn air tubes,ceramic baffle,
, firebox bricks & optional blower fan& door & ash pan gaskets & its all DIY owner replacable.
everything else on the stove is damn near indestructable.

Anything else about the stove ,youll have to ask mike or corrie here on the web site or www.englanderstoves.com i got their phone # here someplace where i cant find it but that will be in your owners manual anyways.

 

[stovehugger]

Hey Roamer, I would agree with all that was said with eernest4 but I would check the local Home Depot to see if they have any left on clearance. They are around 700-800 on sale right now and I know that my local home depot had a couple left. You should check yours. You could luck out and have one by tomorrow. I got mine 50 % off at lowes but would have paid more for it now that I have used it. It works very well. Nothing fancy just a great heater. Good Luck.

 

[eernest4]

depending on where you live, you might just get lucky & find one at home depot or lowes. I know 4 weeks ago there was only one left at lowes & it was the demo floor unit. I bought the last unopened one in the box. but that at newinton ct . You could be in different state.

I dont think either lowes or home depot answer their phones anymore, i waisted a day trying to call up so i took a chance & just went up,ready to buy & lucked out big time.

So,take a ride & ask the salesman at both lowes & home depot. At lowes its the summersheat
model 50-snc30lc rated 2000 sq ft 3.5 cubic foot firebox.

This one of the largest fireboxes of the 2000 sq ft large class of stoves.
bigger than this is the extra large class of stove.

BTw ,my house built 1910 , not 1 stitch of insulation anywhere & englander still keep 79 deg with 16 outside but more remote areas, like second floor(3 staircases away from stove) only58 deg.

 

[Roamer]

Wow, everyone! Thanks for the resounding support. This looks like the stove to buy. We checked Lowe's the other day and they had NOTHING! I haven't been to Home Depot yet - mostly because our Home Depot is new and I forget it's there. I'll stop by this afternoon. Our house is very easy to heat by wood stove - air currents flow perfectly and heat seems to rise up the stairs just like it should. We have electric baseboard heaters and in the 13 years we've lived in this house, I've never turned the one in our bedroom on - I don't even know if it works. And those 8-10 hour burns sound wonderful. Our Wonderwood has to be babysat constantly.

 

[BrotherBart]

To answer the other two questions. The stove takes paint just great. I put five coats of Stove Bright paint on my 30-NC and cured the paint outside before bringing it in. As to the trim it just snaps on.

 

[fullbore]

You can't go wrong with the Englander, I recently picked up the NC30 at Lowes for my father to replace his 30 yr old VC Vigilant. Englander has got to be the best value on the market.

 

[Roamer]

Alright, guys...new question.

I went to our local Home Depot today and they have a 30NC there, but it's sold and awaiting pickup. They also have one each of the two smaller ones. After comparing the 30NC and the 13NC, the 13 will fit better in our place. It's a good price, too. Do you think it would be enough stove for our purposes?

 

[SlyFerret]

I've got a 1600 sqft place that's pretty well insulated and I'm trying to learn how to control the 30 so that we don't overheat the house.

You might be able to get away with the 13. Corey has one, he can give you a little better info on what it really can do.

-SF

 

[stovehugger]

I would check around the other Home Depots in you area. I would like to say the 13 ncl is big enough but it may not figuring the lack of insulation and your burn times will definately be shorter. I am assuming that there are more than one Home Depot around. My area has 5 within 30 miles or so. Good Luck and the stove on the Overstock website is still a good buy. Make sure you have plenty of muscle to get that thing in the basement when you get ready.

 

[Roamer]

We bought the 13 last night. If the numbers are correct, it is more of a stove than the one we've been using for 10 years, so it will be an upgrade, though not as much as the 30 would have been. It may not be enough to completely heat the whole house, but along with the gas heater in the living room and the baseboard heaters we use in the kitchen and dining room, I think it will be good. I was worried about the depth of the 30 because it would be quite close to a walkway in the gameroom where the kids hang out.

If it turns out that it's not for us, we'll move it to our weekend house - we've been thinking about putting one in the back bedroom there as it's too far away from the coal stove in the living room and the cookstove in the kitchen. That room is cold at night.

 

[Jimbob]

If it turns out that it's not for us, we'll move it to our weekend house - we've been thinking about putting one in the back bedroom there as it's too far away from the coal stove in the living room and the cookstove in the kitchen. That room is cold at night.

I don't think you are allowed to do that. Most owner's manuals say something like "DO NOT INSTALL IN A SLEEPING ROOM"

 

[Roamer]

Jimbob...I don't see anything about it in this owner's manual, but I believe we're going to be happy with the stove where it is anyway. While we probably won't put it in the bedroom at our other place, I wouldn't worry if we did. It's an old house - not insured, so insurance wouldn't be a problem. It's definitely not airtight or anything near airtight, so I wouldn't worry too much about carbon monoxide. A fire would be more likely to start from the old coal stove or the even older wood cookstove than a new stove with a new chimney.

That being said, I don't like to leave a fire going at night in either house. I usually wait until the fire has about died down before I go to bed.

 

[SlyFerret]

w00t! Not insured?!!?!?!

Man, my homeowners is like $50/month. Too cheap not to have it.

-SF

 

[Roamer]

w00t! Not insured?!!?!?!

Man, my homeowners is like $50/month. Too cheap not to have it.

-SF

Because of its construction, it is not insurable at the moment. After some upgrades, we may get insurance. This isn't the house we live in. It's my husband's grandparent's old homestead. We're talking no plumbing and electricity in only a couple of rooms. We're only there on weekends occasionally.

 

[eernest4]

If it turns out that it's not for us, we'll move it to our weekend house - we've been thinking about putting one in the back bedroom there as it's too far away from the coal stove in the living room and the cookstove in the kitchen. That room is cold at night.

I don't think you are allowed to do that. Most owner's manuals say something like "DO NOT INSTALL IN A SLEEPING ROOM"

Wood stoves eat up oxygen & emit combustion byproducts like carbon monoxide poison &
co2 The reason they ban wood stoves from bedrooms is the number of people that wake up dead because of them.

if anything clogs the chinmey or stove pipe , a wood stove can fill the bedroom with smoke & if you dont wake up ,you make never wake up.

If you get a pin hole in your stack pipe, toxic fumes will be released into your bed room air that you breath while you are asleep.

Murphy's law , if something bad can possibly happen , it will happen & at the worst, most incovient time.

I've been nailed too many times by murphy's law, usually with my car breaking down far from home & late on a really cold winter's nite, to ignore it.
Now i ride with a cell phone & a list of tow truck opperators in the glove box.

A wood stove is always looking for the least little chance ,to get you, but good.
Your job is to prevent it from having any opperitunitys.

 

[stovehugger]

I think that you will be happy with the 13ncl and since you probably only paid around 480.00 for it you havent got that much invested. Please post to us to let us know how it works out for you. I thought about getting one for my fathers ranch but wasnt sure if it would give long enough burn times. Let us know how you make out.

 

[Roamer]

Goodness, guys! This isn't at all where the thread started. Again, this only a very remote possibility that we'd put it in that room. If we did, we wouldn't be sleeping with it going. It would be used to warm up the room during the day so it would be warmer at night. Of course all safety precautions would be followed, like always...smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, etc.

 

[eernest4]

I didn't mean to pick or jump on you, so please excuse me.

Its just that the bedroom thing
could be dangerous when one is unaware of what could happen. After a forewarning, the stove looses the element of surprise & cant catch you.period.
unawares or otherwise.


I tend to view a stove as a evil preditor just waiting for me to slip up so that it can gobble me up in its fiery maw. Its my job never to allow it an opening to spring at my throat.

I've had a couple of run away overfires that i got under control with no harm done, but its a strange, wierd & scary feeling for a couple of minutes, until the stove responds.

Your like ,is this sucker going to shut down or is it going to start a chimney fire. So far,it has always shut down, although sometimes, not quickly enough for my comfort. And I don't know what i'm really worried about ,seeing as my chimney was originally built to handle a coal furnace.

The stove seems to be particularly onery when it is full to the top with wood. On a half load of wood,the stove behaves quite lady like.

But , I neglect to mention,my stove has the most freocious over draft I have ever seen. It draft blows out my matches when i go to lite the newspapers if the in line damper is open & the draft dump is closed. I have both a inline manual draft damper & a draft dump to room air & i use then both on every load of wood.

How much draft, lets just say I can go from newspapers to 2x4 splits without any kindling needed.
so when your stove has the personality of a lady fire dragon with a bad temper, you learn to respect it.
Not the stove's fault,its the overabundance of draft on a 44 foot interior chimney.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Alright, guys...new question.

I went to our local Home Depot today and they have a 30NC there, but it's sold and awaiting pickup. They also have one each of the two smaller ones. After comparing the 30NC and the 13NC, the 13 will fit better in our place. It's a good price, too. Do you think it would be enough stove for our purposes?

lack of insulation may make it a bit hard on the 13, it may handle it , but its gonna have to be run in the upper end a bit , this said heat wise it may do it just fine , but your burn times may not get out to the 6 to 8 hours its capable of and still heat the whole space. if that old wonderwood handled it though it may just do fine. gonna have to burn it to see, and i would suggest the blower especially with this install.

 

[iceman]

depending on where you live, you might just get lucky & find one at home depot or lowes. I know 4 weeks ago there was only one left at lowes & it was the demo floor unit. I bought the last unopened one in the box. but that at newinton ct . You could be in different state.

I dont think either lowes or home depot answer their phones anymore, i waisted a day trying to call up so i took a chance & just went up,ready to buy & lucked out big time.

So,take a ride & ask the salesman at both lowes & home depot. At lowes its the summersheat
model 50-snc30lc rated 2000 sq ft 3.5 cubic foot firebox.

This one of the largest fireboxes of the 2000 sq ft large class of stoves.
bigger than this is the extra large class of stove.

BTw ,my house built 1910 , not 1 stitch of insulation anywhere & englander still keep 79 deg with 16 outside but more remote areas, like second floor(3 staircases away from stove) only58 deg.

\

Damn you I was looking and can confirm you got the last from Newington...lol there is no more there just glad i didn't drive down from mass
... the guy told me how happy you were!! lol

 

[Roamer]

eernest - your chimney sounds very much like ours. We, too, have amazing draft out of our interior, former coal furnace chimney. Ours isn't quite 44 feet tall, probably more like 30-35. I understand your concerns about installation in a sleeping area - really I do. If you knew the area we were talking about, though, your concerns would be alleviated, especially since I make it a habit of letting any fire die down before going to bed. As it is, though, we have no plans to put it in that room. That's just a possible backup plan in case the stove doesn't work here.

I do have every belief that the stove will work fine here, though. We haven't fired it up yet, but should do a few break-in burns before the end of the week. We don't want it to heat the entire house. I like the upstairs bedrooms to be cool (read cold) at night. We just want it to heat the basement and my son's bedroom - and supplement the heat on the main level. While the house is about 1500 square feet, we're wanting to heat about 1000 square feet of it with the stove. After reading about the 30, I almost think it would drive the kids upstairs with the heat it puts out and, believe me, no one wants that Our house seems to be much smaller than yours, eernest, and the 79 degrees you get from your 30 would be way too hot for us. We like to keep it about 60-65 degrees. Also, we're in Southwest Virginia - right on the Tennessee state line so our winters are much milder than your Connecticut ones.

After the Wonderwood, which had to be tended about every hour, I'm sure this will be an upgrade, even if it doesn't sustain 6-8 hour burns. Time will tell if it's the stove that works for us , but like someone else said, at the price, I'm not out much if we have to upgrade to a bigger one eventually. It does look awfully darn cute down there.

 

[eernest4]

The 79 deg is in the kitchen,the room closest to the basement stairway. my bedroom , on the other side of the kitchen is 70 or 71 tops, & mom's bedroom 72 -72. So we are not getting blasted out of the house by the 30 at all.
And that is with me running the 30 hot, well above cruising.

A lot of your heating actually depends on air flow distribution to the rooms in question, actually more that the output of the stove. That is way the kitchen is 79* , because the heat does not transfer well to my bed room or moms bedroom.
If the heat transfered better, we would see 75 * all around. Through the wall fan forced heat registers would go a long ways toward rectifying this situation & getting even heat in all the rooms . I project for me to tackle this summer.
I already put one thru the wall transfer fan in ,so I know that it will work well.I run a Pel Pro 44,000 btu pellet stove in my living room as secondary heat for when i am too lazy to lite a wood fire. I love it, it heats the whole first floor, all by itself, in milder temps like 40* but can't cut it at 16 deg. At 16 ,it heats the living room & kitchen , but the bedrooms are too cold & need electric space heaters or I need to run both the pellet & wood stove at the same time.

See, I have a special situation as mom is 96 yr old & dieing from conjestive heart failure & there is no cure , so the hospital can't help her. She wants 78* for her to not feel cold, and so ,if I have to run the oil burner or both the wood & pellet stoves or even all three at once, oil,wood & pellet, then that is what happens. I'm running around in a tee shirt
& shorts & she wearing 4 sweaters. She would sure be freezing her AO in a hospital at 68 deg. The 68* probably kill her quick.
When I say 72-74 in moms room, that is when she is in the 79*kitchen & I turn off electric space heater. When she in the bedroom , space haeter on & temp 76-79 , But the electric bill is obscene. Still, better to pay 200.oo /m for elect
than 700.oo/m for oil.

WOW- 60 TO 65, I remember that, back from before mom got sick , when oil was only a 1.50 a gal. & I had not bought my first wood stove ,yet. We were keeping the house cold back in those days, living like europeans & sleeping with all our clothes on & a jacket & hat & boots to save money from the outragiously high 1.50 a gal price of oil.

At least so we thought, at the time. i remember, we would go thru about 2000 gal a winter or roughly 3000.oo in fuel oil
because all we had was just the oil heat & the next yr I bought my first wood stove & that dropped the oil down to
1000 gal for the winter.

This winter, so far, I buy 600 gal of oil from sept through first 2 weeks in april. because I have to keep it so hot for mom. its still 1/2 of what I paid the year oil was 1.50/gal.& we froze at 65*with just oil heat.

I get a big kick from my friends comming in to visit, Oh Larry, You keep it too hot in here! I'm like , "Why , what temp do you have in your house. "Oh, I keep it 64 deg to save on oil. " I' m like, Why don't you get a wood stove,like I did.

My other friend comes in"Damn, first time I felt warm since summer time!"