Any danger with burning during high winds?

[rudysmallfry]

It's colder than crap out today, especially compared to the 62 degrees we hit yesterday. There's also winds gusting at 50 mph.) Every time it gusts, I see the fire depress and then shoot up to the top. Is there any actual danger to burning in high winds? My draft is minimal. Even with a good wind, it's only .03. (I'm told .06 is optimal and 1.0 is overdraft, at least for my stove.) I'm thinking other than the extra wood burned, it's probably a non issue. It's just messing with my head a bit.

 

[Mike Wilson]

With high winds you'll have one of two things happening, sometimes both. First is that the winds kill your draft, so the flame can depress, and the firebox will sometimes fill with smoke. The other issue is the high winds accelerating the draft, basically pulling the air through the stove faster. The result of that is a cooler firebox, and accelerated wood use. You seem to be experiencing the former, and my advice in that situation is to not overfill the stove, and keep it burning hot, so you keep a good draft pressure going. I usually have the accelerated draft problem here (my chimney is 200' from the beach on the northeast, and its been blowing like hell for the past 36 hours), and what I do is lower the air intake. I wind up lowering the intake much lower than I normally have it, to reduce the air coming through.

YMMV, but that's mine...

-- Mike

 

[begreen]

Yes, we had a 53 mph gust as this system crossed us. I kept the stove burning, but would occasionally get a puff of smoke back at me when reloading.

The good news is that the weather here is still cool, but pretty mellow now.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

High up here in the rockies we often see 100mph gusts on a regular occasion. Be aware of reasons mentioned above, but there is no danger burning in high wind.