NC-30 inbound

Current insert is a Century CW2500 (phase II EPA). It's been a really great little stove for the past 4 years but it's small...only 1.4 cu ft. and its struggling up here with the cold in our "new" house (moved last march from Denver suburbs to up around 7,000ft) which is an older, drafty, 1500sq ft home with poor insulation.

Finally ordered a NC-30 (Timber ridge version) to bring back summer and provide some much longer burn times. Should be here next week. Been reading quite a bit of reviews and it sounds like the nc30 can go thermonuclear pretty quickly. Will be getting some magnets to help control the bottom jet (dog house?) which is supposed to mitigate a runaway.

I also thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and upgrade the blower but not spend $180 bucks so I'm going to try something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/PayandPack-Va...7-9094811?ie=UTF8&refRID=1QH73370YBQXTP4VBYJZ
Will modify the stock NC-30 blower plate to fit it.

I'm probably going to seal up the ash clean out as I don't like having another point of entry for air and maintenance for something that's not necessary.

Will do an outside burn first for the new paint "cook off".

Any other NC30 tips/tricks?

 

I like the ash pan. Keeps most of the ash dust outside, and isn't tough to do.
This stove burns very clean and thoroughly, so taking ash out is done fairly infrequently.
Take some pics when you hook up that blower....I'm curious how it'll work.
The stove is pretty easy to control as long as you don't wander away for too long with the air wide open. That'll happen with pretty much any stove.
I've done the magnet thing for the doghouse holes. I still don't like the way that air acts as a forge, but I think it helps to get wood in the back to burn more completely later in the cycle.

 

Thanks Dave. Might give the ash drop a run and see how its goes. Did you see any benefit with using the magnets?

 

May be less of an issue with reduced draft at altitude. Not sure how much difference it makes but there's an adjustment factor that can be found, I'm sure. How tall is your stack? Liner?

 

Jutt, the magnets are a double edged sword type thing.
Don't use 'em, and the "doghouse blowtorch" chews right through the wood in it's path......use 'em to cover the holes and that's not quite so pronounced depending on how much you cover.
Have fun messing with it, but try it as it comes first.
I'd like the ash hole to be a little larger, but it works well. I just take the tray out to the concrete porch and dump it into an ash bucket or take it to the pit.
I've got a load of 10 Maple splits in the stove right now with the primary air completely off, and it looks like the gates of heck at the top of the firebox.
Stovetop temp is about 450, and the stove's been running for about an hour on that load.
I can still see the doghouse blowing air into the center of the load with the holes partially covered. Might leave it like that and go to bed.

 

Yeah, maybe so. Stack is 15ft, full length 6" flex SS insulated liner.

 

10 maple splits, lol! Man, that's going to be nice. I can fit around 4 normal sized splits without any coals or ash...maybe 5 if I squeeze a split against the door.

Do you load n/s or e/w?

 

I load n/s.
The 30 will hold more than those 10, depending on size of splits.

 

Good point Ray.
I usually run the blower on low.....so far.

 

You could use two of those blowers at the same time. The knockout is like 18x4 and since the can of those blowers is unknown you might as well use two. One of them might only match the included ac16.

My nc30 is anything but a runaway. I find it very easy to control.

 

Cfm not can. The englander furnace uses 850 cfm so you can't really overblow.

 

When I burned off my 30-NC, I could not get a good draft with 4' of single wall out near my shop. Called the tech line to register my stove and the tech said 4' was barely adequate; he recommended I keep the door slightly open to keep the air moving. I did that and finally reached some good "burn off" temps!

Good luck!

 

My forth season running 24/7. Thing runs like a timex watch. Have NEVER had a wildfire in all that time. Have never played around with the air system. I believe you will really like this stove. Lots of bang for the buck.

 

I finished installing the NC-30 tonight! I had to cut the legs down to minimum height to allow for just a bit of clearance for the ash pan in order to fit into my fireplace and have room above to connect the liner. Unfortunately, I had to forgo a blower due to lack of rear clearance. Basically, if I didn't shove the stove in as far in as it could go the liner adapter would have been blocked by the lintel so it came down to either installing with an offset box or no blower. I'm not a fan of those offset boxes so I decided to forgo the blower.

I removed the door and bricks and was able to move it in solo strapped to a regular dolly. I have no stairs to navigate so no problems. I raised it up to the hearth (18" tall) using some jacks and 2x4s for cribbing and then a couple of more 2x4s for a bridge from the cribbing to the hearth. Then it was just a matter of shoving it into the fireplace That worked out pretty well just a bit time consuming but my back actually doesn't hurt from moving a wood stove for once I had some extra chimney liner insulation laying around so I finished up the install with a damper block off plate using that extra insulation and my existing full length SS insulated flex liner.

Fired her up tonight and dealing with massive paint cure fumes but man, does this stove throw out some heat! Like really impressive amounts! Also coming from my previous stove with 1.4 cu ft of volume to this thing feels like I'm loading wood into a Cadillac. It's also seems to be quite controllable, so far.

Great stove and it couldn't have came at a better time with how cold this winter has been so far.

Oh yeah, pics will follow.

 

Do you have any space behind the stove? The AC16 sticks out 6", which is probably the blower you have. The AC30 sticks out only 3.5" once it is installed. If you have the space for it, get the AC30. A blower will really help move the heat in your setup and will be worth the additional cost.

 

+1 what BBar said.

 

+2.