Current conditions exploit the shortcomings of my NC30

[BrowningBAR]

That forward throwing heat is what made the Defiant so nice in my application. Stove is in the corner of the basement, near the walk in door, and the stairs are just beyond midway in the footprint. I can verify the wood use with accuracy. The Defiant would use a full wagon load per day. The 30 does not when temps are above 35, but when under, it is virtually equal. I get 2 loads at a time; one from the wagon into the bin, and then the wagon is filled and stored near the bin. Every two days I do it again.

Give up the fight and just get another Defiant:

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[rdust]

If it is the old side loading Defiant with solid black doors, there ain't no cat in that thing.

It was a 75 Defiant which I believe is a Defiant I? He told me it was the first Defiant made? I don't know what was in there when it was made but I can tell you there isn't anything in there now except a big empty box with flue collar. "I took all that crap out years ago and used furnace cement to patch everything up." Gotta love old timers!(he's 77)

 

[wkpoor]

The original poster sounds much like me 2 yrs ago. I went from a huge pre EPA heat monster, that I had to load every 4 hrs or less, to a 3ish cuft EPA that was supposed to make my life easier. And it did till I needed real serious heat. Sure I had the same issue, stove in a heat vacuum as the root of the problem, but as Browning said there is no replacement for displacement. On the 1st floor the OP would think that baby was rockin.

 

[etiger2007]

Give up the fight and just get another Defiant:

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B-Bar just curious, with dry wood how often is one cleaning the chimney with one of these? And how often is one filling it to keep house temps up? Do they run away?

 

[BrowningBAR]

B-Bar just curious, with dry wood how often is one cleaning the chimney with one of these? And how often is one filling it to keep house temps up? Do they run away?

I can only speak to the Vigilant as I have never used the Defiant, but they are similar (air controls, damper, horizontal burn). They can be run relatively cleanly, but they are REALLY easy to smother and smolder a burn. Usually this happens for the overnight load.

Are they controllable? Like a light switch... and by that I mean it is either "on" and peeling the wallpaper off the walls from the heat, or it is "off" and smoldering. You'll spend a lot of time hitting the air controls around trying to get a clean hot burn without smoke, that isn't too hot, but also avoiding having the temps crash and having a smoldering, smokey mess.

Going from a Vigilant to a modern stove was amazing in terms of how little attention modern stoves need. Cat or non-cat, it doesn't matter.

 

[mywaynow]

My experience with the Defiant was not that at all. I always ran her on fire; never smoldering. I would have to load at midnight to have a hot stove at 6 am. However, there was a thermostat air control that was very effective. Once you had the stove where it was needed, you could reduce the air to maintain and it would open as the stove cooled, or close if the fire took off. It had some reburn technology too. Maybe crude vs today, but I can tell you when the stove was cruizin' there was zero, repeat, zero smoke. Pipes were never caked either. Only debris found when cleaning annually was a couple cups of cat litter looking granuals.

 

[Chestnut]

I also have a defiant II (same stove some minor changes over the 1) heating the house as I type, its nice and
toasty.
I have been burning with this for 20+ years here in RI.
Same experience very controllable and about 2 cups of stuff when cleaning from 3 cords a year.
I love the defiant for the type of heat it puts out, its only 3/16 of cast iron between you and the fire and you
feel it.
lots of radiant heat, run top temps at about 550.

Also have a small lopi patroit at the other end of this one story 2200 sq, foot ,sort of rambling ranch house.
the lopi is a great stove, nice fire view lots of heat from the top of the stove, it will run right right up there
to 900 if you let her I usually run it about 700 top temp.
Its epa phase II and been in since 1995.
but with the inch of fire brick surrounding the sides and back of the lopi you just don feel that radiant heat like
the defiant.
The lopi is mostly used for shoulder season and atmosphere in the great room, Does help with these single digit
temps going on right now. the lopi does burn cleaner than the defiant.
The primary heat here is electric, only used if were away for more than a couple of days.
I am burning 3yr seasoned mostly oak.
Just my experience with the old and new.

 

[oldspark]

Nothing wrong with a good older stove, my old stove will always have a place in my heart.

 

[Huntindog1]

I thinks thats what was so loved about the old Fishers stoves nothing but steel between you and the fire but metal made for impressive heat.

Any stove running so wide open is going to burn pretty clean with good seasoned wood.

I am still sticking with my theory that they reason that stove heated his house better was the more intense heat was being propelled up to the upper parts of the house much better than a cooler burning stove.

So burning a stove load with almost twice as much wood and burning it such a high rate its gonna burn pretty clean but take a stove like the NC-30 and increase its size to load the same amount of wood your gonna have more heat out of it as its a higher efficiency stove. Plus it will burn more than 6 hours with an equal load to the Defiant.