wood stoves

[jimpen]

I run a pellet stoveto heat my 1400 sq ft home in the winter. It keeps the the house at 70F most of the winter, down to about 10F outside. I do run a space eater in the bathroom just to make it a little warmer for showering, but that is about 20-30 minutes. You can buy a ton of pellets for about $200. The extra electric adds about $25-30 a month.

Just a thought....

 

[Egon]

No EPA certified stove is "air tight". Quite the contrary. They are very leaky indeed based on how the EPA has defined the test. Every certified EPA stove I have had will exceed 1000F flue temperature with the air control fully closed given my 20'+ of vertical indoor chimney. The flue damper is the only way to tame the chimney draft to the point that the air control on the stove is of any use at all. Now obviously I am talking about winter conditions with 20F or less temperature outside and 70+ inside which creates a strong stack effect.

If you have a leaky air tight you could reduce it to a puddle by judicious use of the air inlet and flue damper.

 

[8N Ren]

We get way colder than 20f her, try -40. Makes me cold thinking about it.
I know my in-laws don't have a pipe damper, just think so draft lever on the stove, no complaints about it. I will definitely ask the installer about it before he starts.

 

[MossRoad]

Ours specifically says not to install a flue damper as well. I can close the air inlet and bring a full blaze down to 300 in about half an hour.

 

[westcliffe01]

Of course it says not to use a damper, since that would not be in compliance with how it was tested in the "Florida bungalow" test as dictated by the EPA.

It is always amazing how board members living in Canada, where EPA laws do not apply, want to tell us how things work with product we buy here in the USA and USE for multiple winter seasons.

Believe me, if it is cold outside, you have a straight 16+ foot chimney, most of which is in the heated home envelope, you are going to have an excessive draft problem with any certified EPA stove. The worst offenders will be the secondary air type stoves. Catalyst type stoves can burn clean at a lower temperature thanks to the platinum and palladium so they do not require the same amount of excess air.

The OP will discover the runaway behavior soon enough, come the next winter. I have experienced this behavior with a Morso and a Pacific Energy T5, both identical which is not surprising since the chimney was the same...

 

[Egon]

Well it's just us Canahodians Hillbilly types eh . Many of us live in cold climates and use wood for heat.

My Regency with proper diameter twenty four foot stack has tendency to go out when the inlet air is shut off. Course if the door gets opened things can go "whoosh".

Installation instructions did not call for a stack damper. Not sure but a stack damper may not meet code. Not handled properly they make for chimney booms or feed smoke back into the house.

Yahoo! - 301 Moved Permanently

There are regulations in Canahodia by gar. You might like to check out some of the standards eh.

 

[KennyG]

Well, I live in SW Michigan and maybe our air is different from SE Michigan but I have two wood stoves, both EPA with outside air intake and no chimney dampers (only the combustion air dampers built into the stove). Both have stove pipe magnetic thermometers. The one in the house is in the basement and the top of the chimney is over 30 feet above the top of the stove. It stays right in the recommended operating range with only minor adjustments of the supply damper. The one in the pole barn has a vertical chimney about 18 feet above the top of the stove. It's a cheaper stove (single wall) and requires a little more tweaking but it will always shut down to below operating temperatures if I close the combustion damper.

 

[westcliffe01]

Kenny, what type of chimney do you have ? Type 1, 2 or 3 ? A type 2 chimney will never gain as much draft in cold conditions as a type 1. A type 3 will have less draft than a type 1 due to the extra bends in the system.

I have a damper about 18" above the stove in a type 1 flue and other than lighting the fire, it is otherwise fully closed all the time and I seldom have the air intake of the stove open more than 20% during an extended burn.

Egon, have you looked at the size of the intake air opening on an EPA stove when the control is fully closed ? Do you know that the intake for the secondary air system is a fixed orifice that is larger than a 5c piece ? Do you know that the fixed air intake for the air wash for the glass in the door is about 1/2" in diameter? Basically, if you add it up, if you have the air intake fully closed there is still an opening feeding the stove than is more than 3/4" in diameter which one has no control over at all.

This is a topic that has been beat to death on hearth.com There have been many articles written by very knowledgeable people on the subject, yet much ignorance remains....

Florida Bungalow Syndrome

 

[KennyG]

The link is an interesting read but it just doesn't match up to what I have experienced. In my house I have a clay lined masonry chimney. I have about 5 feet of sloped single wall pipe above the stove that goes into the masonry wall. It goes 2 or 3 feet horizontal and then turns vertical and goes up about 30 feet to clear the peak of a steep roofed 2 story house. I guess that would be the "Type 2". If I leave the combustion air wide open my Osburne will exceed the recommended operating temperature but won't get frighteningly hot.

In the pole barn I have about 9 or 10 feet of single wall pipe that then transitions to 9 feet of Class A double wall pipe through the attic space and above the roof. I suppose that would be a Type 1. It's a US Stove and it will run hotter than the Osburn if left wide open but it's easily controllable to stay in normal operating range.

Apparently some people have problems like this but I know a lot of people with wood stoves and I have never heard of the issue before. I have only had these two "airtight" stoves, one rather expensive and one about the cheapest one available and they both work perfectly for me with no control other than the stove control.

 

[rockinmywaypa]

I would install the damper wether it's used or not and this is why. gaskets on doors wear out and can leak a bit before they get replaced. One time a block of wood caught the door here and knocked a section of cord loose. having the draft as a back-up to shut the fire down to a manageable level is nice to have in a pinch.