A little background, and apologies for the novella.. I started burning with wood back in late 1979, when my wife and I bought her brother’s mobile home. My BIL had installed a “Made in Taiwan” cast iron Parlour stove, the previous winter, that he had purchased at Canadian Tire for the tidy sum of $99. I remember the first winter we heated with that thing and many a night sitting up most of the night baby sitting a runaway stove (I quickly learned what apple wood looked like and not to fill said stove with same). The next winter, we decided on purchasing a better stove, however we couldn’t afford the gold standard at the time (Fisher) and settled on a no-name steel step stove (made from a company named “Wood Craft”) and proceeded to heat the trailer for 15 winters. It heated quite well and there were times that we both sat in our underwear, complaining how hot it was, meanwhile the wind howled outside in minus 20 degree Celsius temps. A horrifying site though that may be, at least in my case. We moved in 1996 into an old farmhouse, that was built at the turn of the last century. After the ice rain storm of ‘98, we decided on getting back into wood heating and in 2006, we purchased and had professionally installed, a Jotul F3 CB and ICC Excel chimney system. It has more than done it’s job, and paid for itself multiple times, however, it is a small stove that struggled at times to keep the oil furnace at bay, and many a day I had to wear a toque and a heavy sweater or jacket to keep warm. Then in 2013’ish, I started to hear about a “budget” stove from a company called England Stove Works and thought that would be a good replacement for the venerable F3 CB. It was always on my short list and I remember reading lustfully on all the reports of the 30NC and longed for gone-by days of being truly warm. Now that we are living in the “End Times” and the world has gone to “Heck In A Handcart”, what with the price of heating oil and the likelihood of insurance companies not insuring homes that heat with oil, we decided on revisiting getting a larger stove. So along came the Englander 15-W06 with a rather huge firebox of 3 cf or so, on “sale” at Canadian Tire. It was a learning curve at first, but it wasn’t too big of an issue to figure it out. It definitely heats better than the old Jotul and keeps this old leaky house a lot warmer. I actually have a fan blowing cold air in the bathroom, back towards the stove and the bathroom is now warm (it never worked with the Jotul), and overnight burns, oh the joy! The huge window is nice but I would have preferred a little smaller glass and more cast iron on the door, but oh well. It has two really strange “features” that makes me wonder if the person who designed the stove, ever actually used the thing. Why oh why, would you design a removable door handle that you would have to modify to stay attached, not to mention the likelihood of misplacing same? Makes no sense to me. Also, why on earth, would you design an air controller on the back of the right side of the stove, requiring you to lean over the hot stove in order to adjust the air intake? Not good with potential balance issues. Thank goodness I no longer drink ...or maybe I should start again... nah. Now, to be fair, both issues can be overcome, or at least put up with. I have little concern that this stove will do it’s job for many years and I have not regretted the purchase. I am now (finally) able to sit here, at my computer, typing this in my underwear.
Looks real good, and so happy you can sit around in your skivvies typing away with all of us Insurance not supporting home's with heating oil? First I've heard of that, must be a Canadian thing??? Regardless, enjoy that good looking stove.
Been running nc 30's since the mid 2000's The units have never let me down. even with howling wind( 50mph+ and -20f without wind chill ) still kept the current 2200sqft place around 75F. But that wind was really making the draft on the stove high- had to choke the secondary intake off and the main was set to lowest point.
Actually, when I had my oil furnace inspected last fall, the tech said that it was pretty well impossible to get a mortgage on a house with oil heating. I know that insurance companies (at least mine) really would rather I change out oil and go with electric or even propane heating. Hence the reason for the big wood stove.
i am confused by this non insurable idea with an oil fired heating system. perhaps it is not the heating system they are afraid of but rather the storage of fuel. but that isn't much diffirent than lpg stored underground. LpG has its own set of problems in extreme cold/heat when stored above ground. With electric you are at the mercy of the power grid. Sounds like some Greene desk jocky has a bug up the back side. That I have run into personally.
Is the oil heating and insurace an actual hazard issue of some kind? Or are they just being a bunch of woke Karen's and have it out for using oil?
Glad you are now warm. We used to have a problem staying warm until we bought a Woodstock Soapstone Fireview stove. Now, like you we could sit half, or all naked and be warm.
There seems to be a concerted effort on the part of insurance, mortgage lenders, and curiously - oil suppliers themselves to "encourage" people to go to other sources of fuel. I replaced my oil furnace in 2002, put in a new ss chimney liner a couple years later, and replaced my oil tank 3 times (mandatory tank replacement after 10 years) and now have a 30 year Roth tank. Even though equipment does need upkeep, the PTB do seem to make it harder to stay with oil. That is the main reason why I went to a large stove in order to wean myself off oil. At least until some enterprising bureaucrat decides to outlaw wood heating.
Talk within the oil burner community here surrounds oil tanks and insurance. Insurance companies really like the bladder tank where the steel shell acts as a second container. They're not cheap, but are supposedly the safest fuel tank. Whether they will be successful lobbying local governments to mandate their use is yet to be seen.
Wonder if the government gives the insurance companies some kind of tax break if they refuse to insure oil heated homes. Seems like the government is always behind the green initiative.
In my area we've never heard of a home exploding due to oil.We do have serious gas explosons from time to time that's the most dangerous fuel not oil.
FIFY Exactly. Would think that paying for a whole neighborhood blown to bits due to gas leak would cost a lot more than a lil cleanup and possible remodel of 1 basement if the oil tank leaks a lil...even if its an underground tank, cleaning up that spill would have to be less $ than rebuilding the whole neighborhood, oh, and paying for any lawsuits from victims family members!
Man I'm afraid of Gas.Years ago my friend was asleep at his grandparents house.Somehow there was a gas leak and he was blown from his bed to the street.The house was toothpicks but he survived with bruises. In the towns of Lawrence and Andover they had massive gas explosions at the same time.Many houses were destroyed.It confuses me why the experts can't tell that gas far outpaces oil as a dangerous substance !
Oh man I forgot about that. Merrimack Valley gas explosions - Wikipedia Gas is supposed to be supplied at like 2psi and they screwed up and ended up sending 75psi to everybody’s house
This is an update to the W-06 after a couple of burning seasons. Some (most) buyers of the newish Englander models that are based on the Madison design, have mentioned the warpage of the stove frame around the door, primarily the bottom. This caused a fairly substantial amount of air leakage entering the stove and altering the way the fire is supposed to burn. I didn't notice much of any warpage when I first purchased the stove, but last winter, did notice some air leakage occurring, and that the frame was indeed warped around 1/8" towards the inside of the stove. What I did, at the beginning of this season, was to get a 10-12" length of the glass gasket (that has the sticky side) and just stick it to the bottom of the stove frame. Now, the door gasket can make contact with the gasket on the frame. I have noticed that it has toned down the burn rate and it seems to burn at a more controlled rate now. One thing, is that I now notice less wood is needed to heat my drafty old house, however that may be just imagined. This winter will be the real test. It is a cheap and dirty way to fix the issue and, hopefully, mitigates the need to bundle up a 400 lb stove to return it back to Virginia. Other than that issue, I have no problems with the way the stove burns and am satisfied with the stove.
