Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => Natures Comfort => Topic started by: Shrek1112 on November 03, 2013, 07:59:44 AM
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I am in the market for our first OWB and would like to know what people think the pros and cons of the NCB 325 and the CB 6048. Will be heating 3000 soft home, dhw, and a larger pole barn workshop. Also wondering the benifitsnof a plate hx vs. a shell tube. Thank you for any insight.
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I am in the market for our first OWB and would like to know what people think the pros and cons of the NCB 325 and the CB 6048. Will be heating 3000 soft home, dhw, and a larger pole barn workshop. Also wondering the benifitsnof a plate hx vs. a shell tube. Thank you for any insight.
Stoves between these 2 would just come down to personal design preferences, the 325g with air coming in under the fire and over should make for a cleaner and more efficient burn tho
Either would do the job your looking at
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A plate heat exchanger will be much smaller and cheaper for the same heat transfer ability. A shell in tube will have less restriction so they are used on stuff like pools where you have high flow requirements.
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This is how they measure up side by side:
CL 6048 NCB-325G
BTU 500,000 (I believe) 460,000
Firebox Cap 60 ft3 (my calc) 28.5 ft3
Heat Transfer Area 119 ft2 (94 ft2 my calc) 51 ft2 (my calc)
Separate Ash Pan None 39”D x 11.75”W x 4”H
Water Jacket Thickness ??? 3/16"
Firebox Thickness ??? 1/4"
Water Cap 393 gal 325 gal
Firebox Dim 60" x 48" x 36" 54"D x 30"W x 36"H
Door Dim 23" x 31" 27"W x 25.5"H
Weight 2,450 lbs 2,313 lbs
Current Price $8,570 $8,480
Warranty 25 yr limited 20 yr limited
The Central Boiler 6048 has much more heat transfer surface area, firebox capacity, and water capacity, but only produces 40,000 more BTU's than the NCB-325G (per the #'s).
The Nature's Comfort 325G has an oval firebox with less linear welding to fail, and minimal corner welds to fail.
I've read several reviews of both and both have similar stats when it comes to good and bad reviews.
$90, 5 years in warranty coverage, and 40,000 btus separating these two should make them pretty similar comparisons.
My question is, side by side, which is the better of these two boilers?
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Brown,
did you calculate the surface area of the water jacket that surrounds the chimney and extends way down to almost the bottom of firebox? That would be the inside and outside surface areas of the water jacket around the chimney because it will get heat from both sides.
Plus the simplicity of Nature's Comfort controls vs. the Central boiler would make it an easy decision for me. $.02
Forced draft vs. natural, air above and below fire, ash pan, shoveling ashes out the loading door sucks.
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Racnruss, I didn't calculate the dimensions of the ripples in the top of the CL 6048, and I didn't calculate the dimensions of the chimney of the NCB-325G either, so my calcs are rough only. It would be nice if both manufacturers accurately calculated and made all of these data points available to the public.
I personally prefer the design of the Nature's Comfort over the Central Boiler due to the separate ash pan, forced air, and the simplistic design of the firebox leads me to believe is less likely to have weld failures. (Simplicity is GOOD!)
After a large newly completed addition, this coming winter I will be heating my 6k ft2 (more or less) well insulated home and 1k ft2 (more or less) well insulated attached garage via hydronic baseboard heat in the lower level and hydronic radiant floor & baseboard heat in the upper level, along with DHW for the entire house. I may be pushing both the CL 6048 and NCB-325G pretty hard to keep up with my heating demands, and I want to make sure I choose the better of the two performers that will last the longest with the least amount of issues over the duration.
The additional water capacity and BTU's of the CB 6048 lead me to believe that it may be the better choice for my heating needs, but I do lean towards the NCB-325G for the reasons I listed above.
Please help me make the right decision. I am having a tough time making up my mind here and need some professional advice. Thanks!
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If you think those may be a little too small you could go with the NCB-400G
Water Jacket: 400 gal,
Firebox: 40.0cu/ft (54D x 30W x 46H)
Fuel Door: 27W x 25.5H
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MY NEIGHBOR HAS A 6048 AND IS HEATING HIS 3,000 SQ. FT. HOME , A 40 X 60 SHOP AND A 40 X 40 SHOP AND HE HAS BEEN USING IT FOR AT LEAST 10 YEARS W/ NO PROBLEMS EXCEPT FOR 1 PUMP.
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RSI, the NCB-400G doesn't look like it's been on the market long. Got any real world experience with it and / or feedback about it? It looks like it's just got a 10" taller fire box and larger water tank capacity than the NCB-325G. Are there any other differences? Thanks
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OK problem solved, are you ready?
Heatmaster 20000 E!!!!!
check it out
simple controls
stainless steel
555 gallons of water
forced draft above and below fire
ash pan
shaker grates
30x42" door!
can you imagine what will fit through that door? Load it with a skid steer or small tractor with forks BIG chunks.
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Or....
BL series by P&M. I see they have an even larger one, the 4044. Just go all the way.
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I could not have said it better myself!
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racnruss and slimjim, I don't understand why the sarcasm is necessary. I'm not trying to go for complete overkill, just wanting to make sure whatever I choose will adequately meet my home heating needs.
A majority of the reviews I've read about both the CL 6048 and NCB-325G were from people heating 3k+- ft2 homes and maybe an out building or two. Out buildings don't usually need to be heated as warm as homes do, so it seems like many of the people who have either of these makes / models are only working them at around 1/2 capacity. I'm now entertaining the NCB-400G because it holds less than 10 gallons more water than, and produces the same 500k BTUs as the CL 6048.
Stainless steel is not an option, and my research has narrowed my search down to Central Boiler and Nature's Comfort. I'm posing real world questions here in an attempt to make the best possible purchase.
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WOW, not sure about the sarcasm part but instead simply another option, best of luck on your search, have a nice day!
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slimjim, both models racnruss recommended are absolute monsters that produce way more BTUs than I need, and are quite a bit more expensive than the Central Boiler and Nature's Comfort models I'm asking about. That's where I was interpreting the sarcasm from. I apologize if I offended anyone.
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I'm pretty hard to offend, none taken, we do have a bigger model, have you looked at it? Chip boiler?
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RSI, the NCB-400G doesn't look like it's been on the market long. Got any real world experience with it and / or feedback about it? It looks like it's just got a 10" taller fire box and larger water tank capacity than the NCB-325G. Are there any other differences? Thanks
Yeah, it is a new model this year. It is pretty much just a taller version of the 325G.
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Follow up: I bought the NCB-400G from RSI and installed it in November. It's a beast with a veracious appetite, but I couldn't be happier with it. RSI sold me some 5 ply wrapped / insulated pex lines with it that are the bees knees. I only have a couple of degrees temp drop in a 150' underground run. I've read about people having snow melt on top of pex buried 30+ inches underground and I don't know what product they bought, but I've got a short segment of mine that pops out of the ground to run into the house and snow sits directly on top of the external corrugated tile shell without melting.
After feeding the beast and watching smoke roll out of the chimney, then turning around to see no exhaust coming our of my gas boiler stack, gives me a big ol' smile to start my every morning.
We just got hit with 8+ inches of snow and a couple days worth of an arctic blast, and you wouldn't know it inside the house. I am super pleased with my purchase.
Thank you Nature's Comfort and thank you RSI!!!
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:post:
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Hey Brown,
Russ in Des Moines here. How long can you go between loading it? Congrats on the purchase too.
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Sorry, It's been a while since I've checked this Site. If I'm heating my garage too, and the temps are below freezing, I have to fully load the boiler twice a day, (morning & evening). At the same temps, if I close or nearly close down the garage zone, I still load it twice a day, but each time it's only about half of a load instead of a full load each time. I was having some initial problems with my aquastat not triggering the blower, so when it began working, I had left the temp differential set at 5 degrees from before while I was trouble shooting it. A few days later, while inspecting everything to see why it was burning SO much wood and having really short burn times, I discovered what I had done and set it back to a 15 degrees, per the instructions. This decreased the wood consumption by quite a bit. I had a little bit of a learning curve, but I think that I've got it figured out now.
One of the 8 zones, (within the original structure), doesn't currently have an automatic zone valve on it. It has a thermostat, and wires that run into my water closet, but no zone valve. How silly is that... Anyway, as the seasons change and we turn the heat off for the year, I plan on installing one. Then we'll have thermostatic controlled zone valves on 7 of the 8 zones and my wood consumption should go down even more. I tentatively plan on installing a thermostat and zone valve inside my garage to operate the garage zone too, after I get the construction materials and tools moved out and I start spending more time in there working on my hobbies. My garage zone is controlled via a manual ball valve currently and it's tough to get a constant inside temp as the outside temps change.
I'm extremely happy with my choice to install a wood burning boiler! The propane bill would have broke the bank...