NCB-250 Outdoor Wood/Coal Burning Stove

i recently purchased and installed a NCB-250 outdoor wood/coal burning stove. it is supplying heat and hot water for my home (3500sqft) and office heat. I wish I read your forum first.... but here wer are. I am probably experiencing the growning pains of using coal (chestnut). Does anyone out there have any experience using one of these stoves for coal???

Nice looking unit but I don't see any reference to it being able to burn coal on their website?

i auctually think that the website was changed. when I was looking into these furnaces, the site spoke of using coal as well as wood. also the distributor sold two different brands of furnaces and when I contacted him with my full intent of using coal, he highly recommended the natures comfort unit. I am really in a pickle now. I have my oil burner in the home set at 110F with the outdoor furnace set at 150 and my oil burner has to assist several times a day to maintain 110!!! the fan is running constantly. I cant seem to get the fire burning hot or effiently enough. I am at a loss right now

In the NCB 06-08 Installation manual it says "If you primarily burn coal there is an adapter grate that will sit in place of the center firebrick(s)"...Do you have this grate?...and.. "coal should be piled and mixed with wood to help air pass through"....This doesn't seem ideal for burning coal, especially hard coal.
I can't find much detail about the firebox design other than basic dimensions. Could you give details about the firebox, grates, etc. or get photo's and post them?
I'm assuming yours is one of the 06-08 models..? I couldn't find anything in the '09 installation manual about coal.

i do have this grate... it is acutally two grates a long and short one. the "idea" is that you burn the coal on top of the grates and stick a hoe or some other apparatus in between then and shake back and forth... this is impossible. 1. the grates separate and a bunch of burning coal and ashes fall down, and 2. after a few days the grates get so jammed up with coal and ashes, they are immobile. one of the designers I spoke to on the phone told me they are having similar problems with alaskan coal as it is poor quality and he designed an insert that can be put in place of the grates and will shake and grind at the same time. I live in luzerne county pa, we have some of the best anthracite coal in the world....i shouldnt need this insert, but it may work like a regular shaker grate...i just started a wood fire to burn for the night to give some heat... that works fine. but there are ordinances against wood in my township that don't exist with coal... so wood is an extremely temp solution. it is becoming increasing evident that this unit was never designed for coal, despite their eagerness to sell me it. I am actually thinking of demanding that they take it back...and finding a unit that runs coal period. any suggestions???

If it were my money I would get a full refund...
They said it was a coal burner and it is not...
Misrepresentation or fraud...
Full refund...

I agree with you about this unit not being well designed for coal as are most wood boilers I've seen.
I think the insert put in place of the grates is mentioned on their website.
Check this link. http://outdoor-wood-furnace.us/outdoor-wood-furna ... d-answers/
The grate at bottom right I think is the grate you have..? The top right grate is the "prototype shaker roller grate" that you mentioned that can be put in place of the grates you now have. It also mentions modifying the firebox to get it to work. Maybe you could get them to give you this new prototype grate because I think it would work a lot better.
If you do get the new "shaker grates" be sure the entire coal bed rests on the grates so the coal will burn properly.. To do this you may need to position firebricks around the grates.
By the way...is the FD (forced draft) fan situated to blow air in the firebox above the grates or below? For hard coal to burn well you need air supply from below, feeding oxygen up through the grates to the coal bed.
There are other ideas I have as well, but I think to start with you should try to get this new "prototype grate". It's the least they could do for you.

the grates you see on the bottom of that page are the ones I have. the shaker/roller grates are what I need. that pic looks like it would work. I plan on calling nature's comfort in am and finding out what exactly I need to do to modify the angle bracket. will keep you upto date. thanks
btw- the forced draft comes into the ash pan and up through the grates.

Look Whistlenut another Furnace heating water.

Burn time if you know Depends on the load put on the unit. One dealer who had an NCB-250 and loaded coal 6-10” high obtained 24 hour burn times with one breakdown and shake halfway through using bituminous. Very few customers are burning coal, so we don’t get a lot of feedback except from those who mix with wood and love it, and some who don’t like how difficult it is to “shake” using the standard grate when using anthracite and harder coals. The roller grate is being field tested using anthracite and we are looking forward to finding how well it works.

Like I said get your money back...
Buy a Boiler designed to burn Anthracite Coal

PM / call me

Timm

I have a NCB250 and have been burning anthracite succesfully for some time. The grates that NC makes are worthless, sorry to say but that's where you need to start. The dealer I bought it from modified the grates from another manufacturer and put them in and it burns coal beautifully. The stove itself is very well made, the grates suck. They sent me there "prototype" grates and I didn't even bother . They needed an inch ground off the sides, and goofy bolts and mounting nuts drilled in, and you had to reach a long handle in the ashpan door to catch the rollers, quite a feat when its 10 below and snowing and cold. The dealer made real shaker grates that you shake with a pipe right inside the ashpan door, hinged the ashpan door to the stove and put a bolt in the main door to hold the ashpan door tight. There is no more silly ashpan that is to short. He also cut the chimney pipe up about a foot. I run the water temp at 180-190 and it burns great. The ashes come out the bottom as they should. I also found that I have to keep the stove burning more to allow the blower to come on more often for the coal. So now I keep my shop at 70 instead of 45 and use alot of hot water. The only thing I get from NC is religous e-mails that they somehow think will make me happy??? E-mail me. It's a pain, but burning coal is well worth the fuss. It will work and does work very well.

that is interesting that you can run temps that HIGH!!! I can occasionally get it above 160 but lately has been a big struggle. when did you get your NCB250.. I have this years(2009)model and have the newer draft fan assembly. I have an awesome fire.... but it is not heating the water well. I have been getting frustrated. I think I have too much draft... I tired to lower the opening in the draft but cant get it lower then 1 inch. I have recently made some interesting modifications.. .I added a front and back boiler plate... rather high in the back and the front about half way up the opening.. I did this to create more of a "firebox of coal" then just a heap running out of the door. I have talked with others that have made this stove work but I cant. I am sure, hopefully, it is something stupid that I am doing wrong. I experimented for about 2 weeks turning off the fan completely and using the ash pan opening as my draft.. at first it worked good and I actually made temps of 170-185... but this was on 30 degree days...where are you running this (part of country) and how many square feet are you heating and what kind of heat in the house (radiators, baseboard, radiant floor, ect..) just to let you know I have had the temp bottoming out at 100 degrees and cant get the bastard any higher.... but the fire is raging... today I kicked the draft fan back on and have placed a rubber disc over 3/4 of the opening in an attempt to limit the heat blowing out of the chimney. Has anyone been able to effectively monitor stack temp in a outdoor furnace???.. this info might be useful if accurately done. has anyone experimented with hooking a rheostat to the draft fan so one can raise lower fan speed rather then a simple off and on??? I have a boatload of money tied into this thing and I am still kicking my oil furnace on at night to assist becuase my childs room is cold!!! my wife is working of the fattest "i told you so" if I cant get this thing to transfer the raging heat from the fire to the water! HELP!!!!!
btw- I am using stove coal for the past few weeks which burns much better and is a higher quailty coal. I get 3/4 ton at a time directly from the stockton anthracite mine which is excavated not strip mined...good stuff!