Clean air intake

Hello everyone;

Been a while since I've been here, but I need some expert advice. Generally, I take your suggestions and talk them over with my husband, so we can decide on the best way forward. What I've learned from this forum has been so helpful to us. Here's the question.

We have a big stove, a hearthstone equinox. It is our primary heat in the winter in Alaska. We can get some pretty long cold stretches, had a few weeks of minus 30 this winter. We have an mid 70's house, that is pretty well built but there were gaps around the windows and doors.

So, we are weatherizing the house, sealing up lots of air leaks, replacing all the windows and doors. We have no secondary air intake for the stove and one of the window guys suggested adding a fresh air vent under one of the windows. I'm very concerned about indoor air quality, and welcome any suggestions. So far, we have not had any draft issues but there were gaps under the doors and around the windows that gave us plenty of fresh air exchange.

Right now seems like the best time to do this, so I'm looking forward to hearing your suggestions and experiences.

Don't know what your other heat source is, but it can make sense to have an air intake/filter system if the house is quite airtight. Obviously if you just let in outside cold air you'll be losing some heat (and not really filtering).

Lots of options, but a place to start reading is on air exchange systems that try to reduce the amount of heat loss (basically by bringing air in and passing it through a heat exchanger to pre-warm the new air using the heat of the air that's expelled - with filtering/cleaning to improve the air quality). The very airtight houses the Germans make rely on these types of systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_recovery_ventilation

I guess if it's not properly balanced it could affect the draft, but on the other hand, they don't need to be pumping a lot of air to keep it from getting stale.

Are you talking about an OAK? (Outside Air Kit?) That will make your woodstove much more efficient. Instead of drawing cold air through the leaks and cracks in your Home. It will suck it into the OAK (through the woodstoves intake) and out the Chimney. Making your stove a sealed system. Which eliminates the drafts in your home. IMO

Have you heard about trickle vents? They seem like they would be fairly easy to install, and might be what we need. Not the ones for the windows, but ones that go through walls.

Hi tlingit.
Search for "OAK" or "Outside Air Kit" here and you'll find lot's of discussion on this topic.

Even though you've tightened up the house, given its year of construction it likely still is quite leaky in winter, given how cold and thus very heavy the outside air is relative to the warmed inside air. Air at -30 F is about 23% heavier than air at +70 F. A woodstove draws far less combustion air than does a fireplace, so that it takes a very tight house to keep the shell from leaking enough air for the woodstove. Still, an OAK does reduce the inward leaking of cold air, making areas around doors, windows, and any of the myriad place where air leaks in less uncomfortable.