Rebuilt Fireview and Chimney Draft Question (baro or not)

Hey Guys and Gals,

I had an awesome CL score this summer on a relatively new fireview, must say it is a beautiful stove and Woodstock was superb at supplying the parts and info. I went through and updated with the new SS scoop and combustor along with replacing all the gaskets.

Now, I set it up on another chimney in my house, has 21 feet of 6" stainless steel liner, insulated and have a standard rain cap on top with a wind band on it. 4 feet of black stove pipe coupled with two 90 degree elbows and a pipe damper to boot, probe thermometer and outside magnetic thermo.

After breaking it in with some smaller fires, I had been running it with a half load of good dry splits, measured the draft in the pipe as well as the combustor probe hole was reading around. .09" on about .80 primary air setting. Stove top was reading about 450 degrees. Chimney pipe was reading 400-450 externally.

Today, I measured just chimney draw without the stove buring (No fire)and air setting at 1 it was reading .05 to .10" on the manometer with no fire! Granted we are having one of those windstorms, gusts up to 40 mph, but here in minnesota that can happen a lot during the heart of winter. I messed with the pipe damper and took readings, it helped some but not what I am looking for. From what I know, chimney draw with no fire should be about .02".

I called Woodstock and they gave me a spec of .04 to .06 when it is running as a normal draft reading.

Anyone have any luck with wind directional chimney caps, I have been all over the net and calling trying to see if there is a draft reducing and wind inhibiting chimney cap with no luck. I tried restricting the cap with some foil tape, it helped bring draft down some, .05" to .08" but again no fire in the box, but I do not think that is the solution. I put a giant sheet metal band around the whole mess too without any great results, yes I know laugh. And yes, there was no fire going!

I can also tell with the few fires I have had that those draft swings on a low air setting have caused some woofing, rush of air, wind dies down and boom, can almost predict it when the manometer is probed in the pipe.

Now, has anyone installed a barometric damper on a fireview or cat stove? I get the fact that you are drawing in room air. possible chimney fire issues and creosote, but it is not going to have a lot of burn time and possible combustor/scoop damage with the amount of air rushing and possible back puffs with the wild wind swings.

Anyone have any issues with the baro leaking smoke during a shoulder fire startup? I guess you could put a cap on it and take it off once a fire is going good and when it is not windy.

Thoughts, comments and expertise greatly appreciated!

Readings are with the combustor engaged both with a fire and without. Thanks.

Todd said:

I would wait til you get a more familiar with the stove before adding dampers. Most people burn somewhere around #1 but many people with excellent draft will burn as low as .25. Very small adjustments of the air can make a big difference and this wind we are having kicks up the draft as well. Today I'm burning at .75 when usually I'd be at #1 because of the wind.

Something to check is your air lever slide, sometimes they jump out of track during shipping or moving around. Mine was off and burned the whole first year right around 0. After I found the problem she was a totally different stove.

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Thanks to reading a post of yours, saved me a lot of hassle. I checked mine before I had fired it up, slide was off track.

When I tried backing the air control down further to compensate for the strong draft, I'll get some back puffs with the stove, which forces a higher air setting. I can watch the manometer surge when it happens, my guess would be the strong pull of wind and then fall back as the gust dies and poof!

Frustrating, stove does have great control though!

Update:

I went out and got a Barometric damper tonight, have it set in place. Good test run with these major wind blasts we are getting. I set it to .06" with no fire, wind is pulling enough draft to open it. I'll have to test fire it tomorrow and see what the results are.

Of any of the gasket issues that come to mind would be the bypass damper gasket. In the install manual it said put a piece of paper in it and as you pull there should be resistance and it should curl up. There is three adjustment points on the damper, the u-bolt, and the two set screws. Seems that the front half of the damper is tighter than the back half of the damper, but it was a PITA the adjust it right. Non the less the gasket passed the test.

For some reason, blessing or curse both my chimneys here pull a lot of draft.

Haven't been running the fireview yet with the baro, but it is regulating these wind blasts very nicely, gonna fire it up later and see the results.


How far up from the stove is anyone running their baro?

I bought a block off cap for the baro as well, so if it is a calm day or shoulder season burn I should be able to cap it.

I more of less want it for these windy days and when the temps start dropping.

I am going to set the baro at about .065" to be on the safe side. The chimney is not super hard to clean out, have a nice valley on the roof to walk up and it is on the peak. My ice fishing cleats work great in the winter!

Update:

Thanks for peoples input on this one. Some observations while running a baro. I have run the stove 3/4 of the time since the original post.

I have the baro damper set at .065" of water.

The stove has much more control. Combustor scoop glowing is an non issue now.

I am getting longer run times out of it and more heat.

I have not ruled out putting an OAK on it yet, most of my home is log and it is a touch leaky. I have suspicions that I experience some positive to negative room pressures, but never have measured a positive pressure in the chimney has always been on the over-drafting side.

Back puffing is not an issue anymore, I think the baro is smoothing the draw a lot better so you do not get the lack of air and air buildups which contributes to back puffing in my case. If I turn the air down too far though it wants to teeter on back puffing. You can really watch that baro flap!

Temp observations:

Wood: White elm

Moisture: 13-17 %

Split small, med, and large

Full load stove top temps: 530 degrees

Stack temp external before baro: 330-400 degrees

Temp after baro externally: 169-260 degrees

Air seting: .75- 1.0

I have checked my chimney at the top and have not noticed much for creosote build up and am going to clean it in the next couple of weeks.

I am tempted to adjust the baro down to .05" but am hesitant to with it seeming to run clean.

Just wish I could get more coals when I wake up, but I am asking a lot from white elm I guess ha.

I'll keep posting to see what I find with the chimney. Thanks again for your guys input, love this site.

It's pretty hard to gauge the creosote issue, mainly because I have been doing a fair amount of start up fires. With my wife and I both off to work for up to 12 hours at a time, it's not easy to feed it.

I went up top to check the chimney liner and it was pretty clean, it is not a new liner, but I did not notice any buildup. The stove pipe outlet had just a touch of sooty stuff in the first elbow, but nothing to major IMO. I am guessing I have ran about 1/3 of a cord through the fireview so far this season.

I have a glut of elm, been the story of my life for the last 25 years. I only cut the dead standing stuff and when I am lucky I get a few red elm trees in the mix. I try to avoid using green elm, just not worth the effort to me. I do have a half a cord of Red oak split but at 18 percent to 20 percent moisture, I might want to save it for next season. I didn't have that pile covered.

Back Woods, I'd love to get my hands on some good dry ash or Oak to see if I can repeat your results. When you are hitting those temps do you have any flame in the box or are you just squelching the primary air down and driving the cat hard?

I found for my wood and setup so far that I need some flame in the box.

Winter is here in Minnesota, supposed to be zero degrees Monday night, and we have 5 inches of snow on the ground.

Thanks for the response back to question. Impressive, sounds like you really have that stove dialed in. Hands down, love this stove.

I am guessing you are running with the draft below .75 when there is no flame? I get the variables involved, just curious.

I'm running with the stainless steel combustor scoop and ss cat. The bottom of the ss scoop will glow faint red when the cat is lit off good and some flames. Wish the ceramic cat was in better shape, would like to compare between the two.

I think I need to look into getting my by pass door tighter yet as well, it passes the dollar bill test, but the one corner is a little less taught than the rest of it. It is a total bugger to adjust because the u-bolt is on the right side and there is two lock bolts on the pivot side. Any leak beyond the cat=less heat output.

Tis the joys of rebuilding a stove that someone else ran, but hey one man's junk another mans treasure!

Good point, I initially suspected that, but wanted to do everything on the conservatitve side.

I am going to order one today just to be on the safe side, I believe it is pretty inexpensive. I have no idea how the people before me ran it, quite possible they ran it in bypass mode which could have put a lot of heat stress on it.

Todd, I remember you stating that you have had issues with the load of wood burning left to right. Did you ever resolve that issue? I checked my air wash plate and it is pretty dead on. When I had mine tore down, it seemed like the air favors entering on that side the way it is built.

Yup, we are some fussy wood stove owners, ha.

Kevin, I noticed you rebuilt your woodstove as well. Did you happen to adjust your bypass cover?

There are two bolts with locknuts on it. I have dug through all the woodstock literature regarding the bypass and their rebuild manual and find nothing stated in it. I did notice it changes the pressure of the bypass cover from side to side some. I wish I could have remembered where they were set at when I took it apart!