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[jerkash]

Which is best in your opinion?

[Ridgekid]

Welcome to the forum.

I can't comment on which is better because I have no expieriance with any of your choices. Feel free to browse around. I'm sure you'll find what your looking for!

[RSI]

I have no experience with legend but Nature's Comfort quality is 1000 times better than Shaver. I only ever saw one Shaver and it looked ok from 50 feet away but up close I was speechless. 
The two worst things that stuck out were the nasty looking welds and the hole for the door  (what you see with the door open) was torched out and not even cut straight. There was a lot of other crude stuff but not worth mentioning it all here.

Nature's Comfort are built very well. They have good welds (most of them are done by robot) and the steel is laser cut. They also look good up close.   

[Scott7m]

Shaver is pretty much the worst boiler ever made, Legend or NC don't need to be in that same sentence lol 

However, i know little about Legend.  I personally have owned a 175 and sold a bunch of them, never had any issues with them to speak of.  If your looking at something to heat under 4000sq ft, I think that the NC175 is hard to beat.  It's simple yet built great.

Just avoid Shaver and Taylor.

[wood nut]

I have a Legend bought it last year.So far so good i burned 5 cords last winter.I live in central NC but i didnt learn how to burn till after christmas so i wasted alot of wood i am still learning.It will burn what you put in it.Trick is to only put enough wood in till next fill up.There is a learning curve but thats half the fun of burning wood.I may have burned 5 cords of wood but i did'nt burn 1 drop of propane.

[kjw58]

I looked at all three that you mentioned and a few more and went with a Natures comfort gassifier, The Legend stove is basically a Taylor Waterstove. The guy building them used to work for Taylor in North Carolina, And the Legends are built there as well.  The fit and finish and craftsmanship is pretty good but the design is very inefficient in my opinion, and they smoke like a locomotive.
You don't have to look to far on this or any other forum to find out all you need to know about Shaver stoves. I looked at one and I could not believe anyone would buy one.  They look like they where built by a Jr. high school shop class. Good luck with your decision.   

[Scott7m]

ok..  if you say that a legend is a copy of a taylor, thats enough said.   

[wood nut]

The legend is a improvement of  the taylor stove my stove does not smoke after the first couple of minutes after start of fan the key is to use dry wood no matter what brand of stove you have

[Scott7m]

The legend is a improvement of  the taylor stove my stove does not smoke after the first couple of minutes after start of fan the key is to use dry wood no matter what brand of stove you have

very true......   

taylors are a very crude piece i think..  the legends look a lot better, just wasnt sure if they performed the same, i'm glad they made some good changes!

[jerkash]

Thanks for the info
Wood Nut - I would like to hear some other ideas you came up with on the Legend to save wood.
I leaning towards the legend 4135

[wood nut]

I did not have any ideas you just have to learn how to feed the monster and the only way to do that is through experience. It will burn what you put in it you just have to learn (and i am still learning) how to feed it based on the weather.You only want enough wood to make it to the next time you check it. I have a 4135 heating about 1600 square ft  poorly insulated house.

[koutsman]

I have had a Legend 6180 for 3 years and couldn't be happier with it.  I'm heating 4800sq. ft. of house and garage 2-50 gal. water heaters and 500 gal. hot tub with no trouble at all. It does a great job, it has the double smoke passage before the smoke  goes out the chimney, it has the fan that comes on blows on the fire by a thermostat, it has a big fire box with a door big enough to drive a Peterbilt through , it also holds 500 gal. of water. It smokes very little, mostly after adding  fresh wood, just like everyone else furnace does.  It may not be the prettiest or the most expensive on the market it just does a good job!!!   Isn't that what we all want??     

[yoderheating]

 I'm simply going off observations and what I hear from being very involved in the market for a number of years. If I had to rate those three furnaces on a scale of one to ten with ten being the best outdoor furnace ever produced I would give Shaver a 3, Legend a 5 and NC a 7. Like I said, I have not burned any of them but I do hear a lot because I sell furnaces full time.

[rhugg]

I started with these three and two others in my evaluation.

After seeing the Shaver I decided to spend a few $ more.  It really is hard to believe in this day an age that anyone thinks that is acceptable build quality but they sell a lot and many people make them work.  Some people build ther own and with two days of welding training and the plans I could build a Shaver.

The Legend has a big door and firebox and holds lots of water which acts as a buffer.  The double pass flueis easy to clean, I don't think it smokes that much and the large water reservoir reduces the starts and stops which is when it puffs out th emost smoke.  I bought the bigger one because of the bigger firebox and water because it reduces my woodcutting (longer peices) and loading.  The legend has a bit thinner box than some, I think it helps with efficiency (heat transfer to water) but some will tell you you should ave 5/8" steel (Shaver), in which case more heat goes up stack.  The other think I liked about the Legend is that very little empers come out the stack (safer), If I burn paper in it with the blower going I might see slight embers in the dark.  The double pass reduces the hot ember issue.  The Shaver is direct stack and made me nervous.  I forget what NC does with the exhaust.  I didn't know what to think about the 'anti stainless steel' rhetoric.  I suspect the good stainless steel models are proven but there must be some issue with some stainless and stress corrosion cracking.  I could find no complaints about the Legend or the NC.


The Natures Comfort would have cost me more both in price and shipping, had I been closer to where the NC is made the decision might have been different. These OWB's tend to be regional due to shipping costs so what is preferred in Vt is different than NorthCarolina.  The NC has a smaller firebox both in height and depth as well as a smaller reservoir but it does look like a nice unit.  If I had a smaller house it would have been more interesting.

You start with a Shaver Budget and then end up having to limit yourself at some point.  One thing I saw was that the piping, pumps, etc on my project practically doubled the cost of the Shaver.  See a couple burn, look at the brand Yoder sells also.  I always have 'buyers remorse' but so far I am happy with my Legend 6180.  I'd consider a gassifier if I lived closer to neighbors but I doubt they really smoke much less at startup and idle.  Also they are relatively new and I like simple/proven.  If you buy wood I'd suspect a gassifier has a 'payback'.  I figure a payback inside 5 years with a happier wife and at least a ten year life.  And some better health from doing some 'real mans' work.

[mikenc]

Which is best in your opinion?

I would say Natures Comfort given what I have read and seen between the two. I have a NCB 175 bought in 2009. Had ordered Shaver , and after talking with someone that had shaver installed  I canceled order and bought NCB-175. Cost more but worth price differance to me. Lots of improvements have been made in outdoor wood boilers in the last several years. Can't commment on legend never seen one. There are a lot of Natures comfort in my area. Good quality workmanship 3/8 firebox, ash pan, simple controls are a plus to me. Just my oppinion.