How do your stoves burn in high winds?

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FionaD

FionaD

Feeling the Heat
Dec 20, 2013
363
Scotland
Today we've got the fourth storm in a month. Winds outside are gusting close to 80 mph.

I live on top of a hill, and when it's windy here it sounds really loud in the chimney and also in the stove.

The fire inside the stove is very affected by high winds; even with the primary air closed right off, wood burns really hard and fast and, when there's a strong gust, the secondary air gets pulled so strong through the tubes that they look as though they sort of get blown out. The flames are waving wildly inside the fire box. On the strongest gusts the smaller splits are moving a little!

I'm wondering how others' burning experiences are affected in high winds and how they compare to what I've described?
 
This is my first year burning and haven't seen winds near that, but the draft definitely increases with increased wind speed. Max winds so far have been ~40 gusting at 50mph. I had a small fire going that burned strong and quick, but not at all scary/out of control.
 
Burned right thru hurricane Sandy, the eye of which passed directly over my house. No problems, although I did worry what collateral damage might happen if a large tree fell on the house and wiped out the chimney.
 
Ashful said:
Burned right thru hurricane Sandy, the eye of which passed directly over my house. No problems, although I did worry what collateral damage might happen if a large tree fell on the house and wiped out the chimney.
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Can you say what the difference was during Sandy, or any other high winds, to how exactly the stove behaved?

....glad you didnt blow away! :)
 
My little stove is really affected by wind, for the most part in a positive way, to a point. Anything besides a wind coming out of the east IIRC just makes the stove run better in milder weather. Seems to make it go too wild when cold, maybe in the -20 C/ -8 F or colder range. Which is weird in itself, as my stack is very short. I too live on a hill, although I have trees around.... perhaps this accentuates the wind?

I also have to throttle the air back to 1/4 or 1/3 open? off the hop (reload) when really windy, otherwise it just seems to turn the wood to coal and not fire. I just need to vary how much the door is open, and the wood chars and ghost secondaries happen quite quick.
 
FionaD said:
Can you say what the difference was during Sandy, or any other high winds, to how exactly the stove behaved?
Click to expand...
Burned a little hotter than it might normally, when the wind was roaring like a freight train, but not so much that I worried at all.
 
Ashful said:
Burned a little hotter than it might normally, when the wind was roaring like a freight train, but not so much that I worried at all.
Click to expand...
Ah, ok... I wouldn't say I was worried either. Although I was when I first got the stove, my first week of burning ever was during 80 mph winds! Quite an initiation!

Just wondering if anyone had any different tricks or techniques when burning in these kind of conditions - other than getting a damper (I'm watching this year,to see if I need one) or closing off a portion of the secondary intake, which I find awkward to do physically, as a temporary measure, with my set up, and which doesn't seem to have the desired effect either, to be honest.

Guess I just hate getting through fuel twice as quick!

saskwoodburner said:
My little stove is really affected by wind, for the most part in a positive way, to a point. Anything besides a wind coming out of the east IIRC just makes the stove run better in milder weather. Seems to make it go too wild when cold, maybe in the -20 C/ -8 F or colder range. Which is weird in itself, as my stack is very short. I too live on a hill, although I have trees around.... perhaps this accentuates the wind?

I also have to throttle the air back to 1/4 or 1/3 open? off the hop (reload) when really windy, otherwise it just seems to turn the wood to coal and not fire. I just need to vary how much the door is open, and the wood chars and ghost secondaries happen quite quick.
Click to expand...
I have also recently started to throttle the air back by 1/4 to 1/2, depending on the strength of the wind, pretty much right on reload. In fact you've reminded me that one of the other reasons I do this is paradoxically, it makes the wood flame up quicker if I turn down the air some right away - even when there's no wind actually (chimney has a strong draft). I think this is becuase the downward flow of primary air in the front of the stove is so strong, it kind of blows the flames on the surface of the wood out when they're wanting to ignite, as soon as I turn the air down a 1/4, under any wind conditions, the wood at the front ignites on the surface.

Other than that I save my slightly punky, 24ish% MC oak for high winds, as it burns great then!
 
During high winds my PE Summit will heat up quickly. Filling it completely with wood will cause it to come very close to overburn. My flue goes straight up. No elbows or bends to restrict air flow a little. Basically during high winds I just fill it up with a few splits...
 
I have the same situation with my PE Summit as well...higher wind=higher flue temps=shorter burn times
 
FionaD said:
In fact you've reminded me that one of the other reasons I do this is paradoxically, it makes the wood flame up quicker if I turn down the air some right away - even when there's no wind actually (chimney has a strong draft). I think this is becuase the downward flow of primary air in the front of the stove is so strong, it kind of blows the flames on the surface of the wood out when they're wanting to ignite, as soon as I turn the air down a 1/4, under any wind conditions, the wood at the front ignites on the surface.
Click to expand...
I don't understand why it does that on my stove either. It also seems to cause more smoke or steam for about 10 minutes (in my case anyways). Of course, I'm the chimney sweep, so I'm not too concerned when I do that.;)
 
We experience a lot of extremely strong winter winds in our mountaintop location, especially in December. It often sounds like a jet if flying nearby as the wind whips thru the woods behind our house and on the strongest days the house shakes quite a bit, like a mild but continuous earthquake. Fortunately my chimney is very tall. I have about 1.5 meters of single wall stove pipe, then two class-A 45s, about 2 meters of class-A horizontal which goes thru the wall, followed by a class-A T and then about 7.5 meters of class-A running straight up the side of our house to the top cap. Last winter was our first season and I never observed any effect of wind on the stove or the fire. My biggest concern was whether the chimney would withstand the wind but it held up just fine.

DSC07076.jpg
DSC07078.jpg
 
I see very little difference in performance of our stove. If the winds are really gusty I may be able to notice the draft becoming slightly gusty but nothing that has every concerned me. We burn a Jotul F400 Castine.
 
FionaD said:
throttle the air back by 1/4 to 1/2....paradoxically, it makes the wood flame up quicker if I turn down the air some right away. I think this is becuase the downward flow of primary air in the front of the stove is so strong, it kind of blows the flames on the surface of the wood out when they're wanting to ignite
Click to expand...
Yep, that works to get the wood in front burning quicker, as the heat and flame can stay near the wood and heat it faster. In my cat stove, which has a bypass, cutting the air a bit will also heat the front of the stove more and allow for a quicker cat light-off. With the air more open, the heat and flame are drawn back to the flue exit and I have to be careful that I don't overheat the pipe.
saskwoodburner said:
I don't understand why it does that on my stove either. It also seems to cause more smoke or steam for about 10 minutes
Click to expand...
That may partially be an illusion caused by more smoke dilution when you have more air going through the stove. Of course bigger flames may also have the effect of burning the smoke more completely, so it's probably a combination of these two factors that results in less visible smoke.
 
We are on the east side of the mountains here so our strong wind events are post cold front so it is normally with dropping temps and crashing dew points. I hear the wind in the chimney when I am loading the stove and I do have a stronger draft so maybe it runs a little hotter. I am not sure the change is wind speed related or more the drier air and high pressure.
 
It depends on the wind direction for us. Most strong winds are from the south and our chimney is on the north side somewhat sheltered by the roof peak. We don't notice much change with the prevailing S & SW winds. But every once in a while we get a freight train barreling in from the north and that does liven up the fire a little.
 
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