Did anybody install outside vent?

61snowrider said:

Fellow pellet bro. I have a St Croix Pellet stove for 6 years now. Works great, love it, main source of heat for house. How many of you connected an outside air intake to the back of your stove. My dealer installed it and did not do this, said it wasn't necessary. Problem is,.... when the power goes off and nobody is home, the smoke comes into the house from this air intake damper tube. If I installed this pipe to go outside it would eliminate this smoke from going into the house. How did everyone else hook theirs up? If it does get outside air, does it burn any better? Also with the draft,... do you have it open a little or a lot? Thanks

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I have an OAK on my St. Croix. The draft control should have been set by the dealer that installed it. I have mine open about the thickness of a pencil.

I have OAK on both my stoves. I had to insist that the dealer install it on the Mt Vernon. I'm glad I did.

Ours has an oak. The venting came that way - all in 1 set up.

I think the smoke coming into the house would depend more on if you have a straight out the wall pipe or a verticle rise on your venting.

Old saying in Pellet Town.

If it smokes you must OAK.

61snowrider said:

Thanks guys. I love this forum. I could set here all day and read these forums., but don't have time for that.

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Which is why there is a search available, the OAK topic has been hashed out dozens of times. You have several choices how you handle smoke back. You can add a rise in your vent system, this makes the system longer which can by itself lead to burn issues (and to correct that you have to go the next size up in venting) . This can also cause issues when it comes to cleaning things. None of this addresses the fact that for the smoke to reverse flow when you have a power outage is an excellent indication that you have a slight negative pressure inside your house which even if not causing smoke to exit is having a negative effect on the burn.

Your choice, I made mine before even buying the bucket of parts called a stove.

I thought ALL pellet stoves needed and OAK? Reason being (from what I understand and PLEASE correct me if I am wrong) that with relatively "air tight" houses there wouldn't be enough air flow/oxygen for the stove and would create a "negative pressure"

I don't have an OAK on my Harman P61A. Both Harman dealers I shopped at both told me they never install them. Thing is, I have a vertical vent pipe right up through my roof and so never have a problem venting with power outages. About two weeks ago I was home sick and had the stove blasting when the power pole down the road was clipped by a car and I lost power for about 4.5 hours. It vented up fine without power. I would suspect though that if you have a horizontal direct vent out the side of your house that you may want to consider installing an OAK if for no other reason then to improve venting during a power outage.

Maybe someone with such a set-up will chime in and offer their experiences.

Chain said:

I don't have an OAK on my Harman P61A. Both Harman dealers I shopped at both told me they never install them. Thing is, I have a vertical vent pipe right up through my roof and so never have a problem venting with power outages. About two weeks ago I was home sick and had the stove blasting when the power pole down the road was clipped by a car and I lost power for about 4.5 hours. It vented up fine without power. I would suspect though that if you have a horizontal direct vent out the side of your house that you may want to consider installing an OAK if for no other reason then to improve venting during a power outage.

Maybe someone with such a set-up will chime in and offer their experiences.

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And your stove has a self closing air intake damper, power goes poof and your stove blocks that possible path (provided it isn't stuck open).

You also understand that Harman recommends that an OAK be installed, despite what your dealer says.

"You also understand that Harman recommends that an OAK be installed, despite what your dealer says." Yep, and I mentioned this to both dealers. One of which is rated by Harman as a "Platinum" dealer, the other rated by Harman as a "Gold" dealer. They both said it's not necessary since I had a vertical venting set-up already in place from my previous stove. Also, when I visited both showrooms, none of their stoves had OAK installed. Also, the Lopi FoxFire Pellet stove I had operated for many years previous to the Harman P61 A did not have an OAK installed either and I never had any problems with venting.

P61a here with OAK installed. My dealer says they burn just fine without it but thats easy to say when he also sells pellets. Easy to just turn the knob and burn more up than to fix the problem and save pellets.

Chain said:

"Platinum" dealer, the other rated by Harman as a "Gold" dealer. They both said it's not necessary

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I think they are just being lazy. There isn't much profit for them in an OAK so they would rather not spend the time.
There is equipment in virtually every house that causes it to have negative pressure. Clothes dryers, kitchen range hoods, bathroom vents, boilers, furnaces all run sucking air from the house and pushing it outside. While a pellet stove may draft adequately it is competing with the other equipment for air. Something has to lose the contest. Which port do you think it will be? I don't want to guess. The OAK is inexpensive, why not do it?

I insisted on an OAK, the dealer didn't want to install it. I'm very glad I did, especially since the stove is on the windward side of the house, and we get lots of strong wind here.

heat seeker said:

I insisted on an OAK, the dealer didn't want to install it. I'm very glad I did, especially since the stove is on the windward side of the house, and we get lots of strong wind here.

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I have a question, when you talk about OAK, what exactly are you referring to? Thanks so much Sandy

Outside Air Kit ..... another hole in the house and metal piping between it and the air intake on your stove.

The stove draws its combustion air in from outside directly.

"Outside Air Kit" - pulls air for combustion from outside house, rather than pulling it from the room where the stove is located.

Outside Air Kit. It draws air from outside the house to use for the fire. Otherwise, the fire would use air from inside the house, that you've paid to heat, and causing cold drafts in the house where outside air is drawn in. In addition, the stove would be competing for air with any exhaust fan, such as the dryer, furnace, stove hood, etc. In extreme cases, smoke could be drawn into the house from the stove. There has been lots of debate on this forum, for and against OAKs. I am staunchly for them. Many dealers (including mine) don't want to be bothered installing them - too much work for too little $.

SmokeyTheBear said:

Outside Air Kit ..... another hole in the house and metal piping between it and the air intake on your stove.

The stove draws its combustion air in from outside directly.

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Thank you Sandy

Yep... OAK only INCREASES your stoves efficiency! So why would you do that??