Why did you install an outdoor air kit?

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I was tired if watching the curtains blow around and of feeling a draft over my moldy old toes.
 
I had my oak installed first because I had to clear the distance to a window outside, using a horizontal run. Then, I re-vented my stove vertically with a Ventis DT pipe (exhust and oak in one pipe). Great product.
I do have a newer and rather tight home, but due to its size I probably would have been just fine without one. I just never tried without...
A large factor in my decision to use a DT pipe was due to this forum and the large support for oak's around here. It just makes sense to me, especially if you can use a DT and save on the extra hole in the wall!
 
I was tired if watching the curtains blow around and of feeling a draft over my moldy old toes.
This was me with my first stove - the basement dwelling P61a. I got all kinds of cold drafts on my main floor, from the stove running (and this was by no means a "tight" house). After a couple of months of that, I put in an OAK and the cold drafts stopped.

When I put in the main floor stove, I had to put in an OAK for clearance, but I would have put it in anyway from my previous experience with the P61.
 
Regardless of what anyone says...
The stove is drawing outside air. Period.

It is not running on just inside air.
It is running on inside air, being replaced with cold outside air.
So you can pipe the air into the stove, or you can have what
amounts to a window partially opened all the time..

I am not one for making more work than necessary. Believe me.
I had to put a 4" hole through an 8" masonry wall to run my oak..
I never once considered not doing it.

Though I do not run an OAK, what you say about the stove drawing outside air no matter what, is 100% fact. The part about a window open is not however. The part about outside air no matter what is a constant. Where the outside air comes into the house from is not.
 
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Because everyone else on this forum said its a good idea. Being that I can not form a opinion of my own I had to do it.

That said the house seems warmer with it.
 
Question. I have a Quad E2 on a brick hearth, in my living room, on an outside wall that the brick goes up to the ceiling. Can I run my OAK over the brick hearth, down into the basement through a hole in the floor and then horizontally outside through the sill plate. I don't want to cut a hole in the living room wall, so I want to do it in the basement. Any issues going down vertically and then outside horizontally? Total piping about 8'
 
Question. I have a Quad E2 on a brick hearth, in my living room, on an outside wall that the brick goes up to the ceiling. Can I run my OAK over the brick hearth, down into the basement through a hole in the floor and then horizontally outside through the sill plate. I don't want to cut a hole in the living room wall, so I want to do it in the basement. Any issues going down vertically and then outside horizontally? Total piping about 8'

see no issue with that arrangement,
I do some what similar, about a 6' run, and it works very well
 
I have been known to stir the burn pot a little. Why did you install an OAK? ...
Please let me know if I forgot to list a response.
Eric

Eric, you pot stirrer you! Forgot to mention if you have an OAK on your stove at home... Fair is fair, if we are sharing so should you. Why the interest in the first place?

I have an OAK that was installed a couple of weeks after the stove was installed. Lots of reading here convinced me it made logical sense and our house is actually more air tight than one would expect (had a blower test done). Much happier with the OAK installed...

As to rusting out the stove, that's why you cap things in the summer and put damp rid in the fire box...
 
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If this thread is to stir up the burn pot I'd like to add:

DneprDave is most probably more than happy with a breeze coming from the dog door cooling down the room, spending more $$$ than he needs to heating the space he inhabits...after all, my bet is that he owns a motorcycle that needs 3 hours of maintenance for every hour of riding.

Poke poke...stir up the embers....poke.

Actually, the Dnepr starts with one kick, it's been pretty reliable. The dog loves it!

DogandDnepr200k.jpg
 
Have an oak for the St Croix in the basement. Can't really see any difference as we ran it 2 years without.
Quadra Fire in Living room doesn't have an oak hooked to it and likely won't. It is run during the shoulder season and really cold evenings. It is for a little added heat and ambiance.
Seems to me a bottle of wine and would make the Quad more efficient for the ambiance part ?!
 
Actually, the Dnepr starts with one kick, it's been pretty reliable. The dog loves it!

View attachment 174395

I've been lusting after a Ural for sometime...maybe this year. But it will be a recent one.

Still stirring the pot: Viva the election! This should be a good one...
 
It came free with my englander. Why would anyone not use something they got for *free* (a $65.00 value!)

All joking aside, taking already heated air, heating it up even more as it passes through the pellets, reclaiming a percentage of that and sending the rest out the vent seems silly.

While i dont have a cat, my friend had a great use for her oak. She connected it to the top of her cats litter box. those ones with the snap on tops. she said it works great - sucks all the smell right out!.
 
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,............
 

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My stove is installed in a finished basement, we ran last year without one and had issues with heat NOT rising (we have a central completely open entrance to the basement). I did a lot of looking into it and fiddling and found interesting info on 'stack effect' or pressure differentials in multi level homes and basements/first floors are typically in vacuum which explains the heat not moving up. Having a stove sucking in air along with hot water heater and occasional furnace were not gonna help the situation. So I ran an OAK to take the stove out the equation, and an 8" cold air return duct from the top floor to the basement (with a variable 750cfm duct blower) and it works great.
 
OAK, makes sense to me..
 
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Eric, you pot stirrer you! Forgot to mention if you have an OAK on your stove at home... Fair is fair, if we are sharing so should you. Why the interest in the first place?

I have an OAK that was installed a couple of weeks after the stove was installed. Lots of reading here convinced me it made logical sense and our house is actually more air tight than one would expect (had a blower test done). Much happier with the OAK installed...

As to rusting out the stove, that's why you cap things in the summer and put damp rid in the fire box...
I have an XXV in the front room and a Qudra Fire Isle Royal in the dining room. NO OAKs.

Eric
 
a oak should be installed to prevent a back flow of CO from other appliances. That is why it is code. (Haven't been on this site in about three years. Good to see hyour still stirring the pot.)
It's only code by local zoning or manufacturer. Eric
 
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