Barometric damper when using storage?

A barometric damper's role is to even draft, which would increase efficiency. I don't run a gasification boiler, but our furnace requires one. If smoke is a problem, temporarily close the baro to increase draft while loading. If the manufacturer recommends one to keep draft within spec, I wouldn't remove it. Someone on here at one time talked about running a long cable with a pull that would close the baro while loading. We don't have any problem with smoke, but we don't run a boiler.

My Tarm would smoke a lot every time I would load it. I cut a piece of plywood to make a shield almost the same width as my door. It is 4 inches high (height would be determined by the height of your door), and I added a single piece of wood cut in the shape of a triangle that I put on the back, in the center of the shield. This way the wood leans in toward the firebox. This allows the wood to stay in the doorway, without having it fall forward or backward. It was a cheap, easy fix, and has worked well for me.

My BD does not have a perfect seal, even with the flap shut - there are a couple of ways for a small amount of air to get into the stack. If your's is also like that, try covering the BD with tin foil - tight over the opening and also wrapped up the sides 2-3 inches. Do that for a while just before opening to load, and you will then know if it's the BD causing the smoke, or something else such as chimney too short (not saying, just a for instance).

A tall chimney if sized correctly will produce more draft than a shorter chimney. You could disable the baro temporarily and verify draft with a manometer to see where it stands. If our draft wasn't so strong, I wouldn't run a baro.

I added a damper last year. I found that my draft was over 09 sometime higher than that with the wind. The damper lowered it and maintained it at 05 or so which is where my tarm needed to be. Since then I seem to have a much better burn throughout the enti burn.

A BD keeps your draft the same all the time. With no BD when its windy it will suck the heat past the HX drawing hotter temps up the stack. With a BD if its calm or windy your draft stays the same. Check out my link to see my BD in action.


Rob