Englander NC30 deal .....ordered

The reason I think in the nc30 wood in back east/west load doesn't burn well is that its a bigger stove deeper and more head room so wood back in the back on the bottom doesn't get air to it as well. In my old stove which was a 2.1 cuft stove and it was wider than it was deep it wasn't an issue plus my older stove the vogelzang performer had low head room which keeps the air coming in thru the tubes closer to wood and coals .

 

Yeah, I know Pete, but not much I can do about it right now.
I've been using the IR gun on the ST to give me temps., and once the stove gets to about 400°, I can close the air a little at a time while the STT rises.
This gives me a lot of secondaries, and a clean burn (I've checked the flue....a lot).
Once the outside temps rise, I can get in the attic and undo everything, raise the ceiling support where it needs to be and then drill the probe holes.
The killer is.....it's only about an inch.
I like that even though the stove looks like the gates of hello once secondaries get crankin', I can control the STT quite well.
Less so with the Ashley.
Still having what I consider to be too short burn times. Didn't get the full load going last night until close to midnite, and when I got up at 6-ish, the flames were gone with large pieces of what looked like wood.
I was tired, so I didn't look at the STT.

 

Hope so.
I pulled coals forward this morning, then loaded 3 Spruce splits e/w.
Had the stove back up to 450 within 5 minutes. Almost closed air, and it ran with secondaries for almost 1.5 hours. Down to coals, it's been 2 hours or so, and the house is almost 70 with the stove close to 450°.
The blower should be here this week, and will get put on within minutes of it's arrival so I can see how that helps pull heat from the stove.
It's been so long since I used the old blower, I've forgotten it's effect.
I plan to work on some more attic insulation this year, so that should help more next winter as well.

 

I still don't think this is far off from what other people are seeing. My non cat had active flames for 2-3 hours max after that it was "coals" that produced a bunch of heat for hours and hours. The majority of the "burn time" is going to be coals. Snap a picture after 6 or 8 hours I'd like to see the coal bed. How many coals are left at the 200-250 mark?

 

When I'm down to that temp, there are still coals.
Gonna' be warm the next few days. Might be able to do a good overnight load (tonight) with a morning pic.
I do know this stove holds coals and heat somewhat longer than the Ashley.......holds more wood too.

 

I plan to pull the baffles today, and maybe get a steel rod in, then clean the flue.
I'm curious what it looks like after just under 2 weeks of burning this stove, although I didn't clean it before the install. I did sort of clean the cap a few days ago.

 

If there was a fingers crossed smiley, I'd click on it.
The place I ordered the AC30 from got around to pulling the money from my account yesterday, so I'm hoping it'll be here sometime this week for testing.

 

So, I was only able to pull the front burn tube because the screw on the 2nd one stopped unscrewing about 1/2 way out.
I was able to retighten it, and still get the baffles out w/o issue after a little back and forth wiggling. The RTV on the back of the baffles let loose easily.
I had noticed the baffles sitting on top of all the tubes when looking inside earlier, but when I was putting everything back together, I pushed the baffles all the way back, and now they don't quite reach the front tube.
I haven't put the steel rod up with the baffles yet.
The brushing freed up about 1/2 gallon of creo, which isn't great, but considering I haven't brushed for a while and just put this in 12 days ago......?
Even though it's 40°, I started a fire with 3 small Spruce splits, and one Poplar. Didn't want to get going, so I added some small kindling and it's doing fairly well.

 

Are you talking about the tabs at each side in the front?
I noticed the RTV at the back of the baffles when I got the stove. It's there to keep the baffles in place during shipping, I'm sure.
It seemed like that was pushing the baffles forward a bit, and I noticed some black soot at the back outside corners of each, so I thought maybe there was a gap back there.
I'll move 'em back into those tabs.
Thanks Dex.

 

Yep, you were right. The boards were up on that sill...now back in place.

 

Everything I see in this thread tells me the 30 is running as it should.

The hurdles I have seen are:

• Lots of draft and insulation issues
• Lack of a blower to compensate for the draft and insulation issues
• Small splits
• Loosely packed stove

Dave is heating 1200 (?) sq ft. This, unfortunately, is illustrating that the insulation issues he has might be a lot worse than he thought. (I feel your pain, Dave)

But, the positives:

• The blower will help a lot. He will still suffer from shorter burn times. But the blower will improve everything by a large margin.
• This should put to bed the notion that Dave could get away with a Sirocco or a Chinook 20.
• Realizing your home insulation issues are worse than you thought with a $650 stove is a lot less painful than if the stove would have cost $2-3k

Get the blower on the stove before you start altering how the stove works.

 

I'm not even sure if the Princess would perform well for Dave.(I know it would heat his place) My stove spends a lot of time in the 350-400 range, it sounds like Dave needs more. Of course just comparing stove tops isn't going to be spot on but it's all we have to go by.

 

I think the Princess with the blower/convection deck would allow Dave to have decent burn times and would work better than the 30... I think. He just won't be getting the 30 hour burns. Probably 8-10 during the coldest temps and 12-15 during average winter temps. Although some of his posts about always feeling cold air hitting him is concerning.

Let's see what happens when Dave gets more air movement over the stove top.

 

I appreciate the thoughts.
Since getting the 30, I've had most of those myself.
I'm not sure I can pack the stove much tighter than I have been. Bigger splits might help, but I've had a few overnight fires with 4-5 not small Oak rounds that didn't do much better than fires with just splits.
With what everyone says about what a heating monster this stove is, it doesn't seem to be up to the task here when it gets really cold.
I have yet to get the stove above about 650 or so for any extended time, but if I did, the burn time would suffer even more.
The 20 series from BK would not do well here, I'm thinking.
I still think the 30 series would do fairly well though. My problem with the cold stems from a stove not holding temp long enough (among other things), hence my thoughts of getting one of the BK 30s, or the IS. Even with shorter burns times of over 12 hours in the cold, that would be nice.
Until I can redo the siding (and insulation), the infiltration issues will remain. An OAK might help there, but I'm not sure.
I might have been somewhat disappointed by shorter burns in the BK30, but I'm getting to the point where the money would be well spent for all the positives that would come from that stove or similar.
I'll reserve final judgement for a while, although you might hear some grumblings, but I think I'll eventually end up with a different stove unless the blower makes a huge difference.
Any more thoughts on an OAK?

 

• The blower will make a huge difference. But, you will still move on to another stove in the future.
• Post a picture of a packed load when you can.
• I think an OAK is the least of your problems.
• Surprised you have not gotten the stove above 650
• Is the house any warmer with the 30?

You have a 3.5 cu ft stove inside a 1200-1300 sq ft home. You have a LOT of insulation/draft problems. How warm does the stove room get?

What is the ETA of the new blower?