draft/stove door question

[hearthstoneheat]

I noticed when I first start a fire in my stove, if I don't leave the door open for some time, the kindling will go out and it will just smolder. If I leave the door open just a crack until the top of the stove gets warm, it has enough draft to keep burning. Is this normal? I also can't add any substantial sized piece of wood until I have a good base of coals from smaller sized pieces. I did a search here and couldn't find anything. Thanks.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

This is very common so nothing to worry about. Some folks even find they have to crack a window open near the stove. Mostly what causes this is the flue is cold and, as you know, cold air likes to go down. So, until you get the flue warm, you have to do battle with the air. Some folks find if they stuff a wadded newspaper sheet or two into the flue and light it that will induce the draft. Some have even used a butane torch to start the draft.

As long as it is working to just crack the door open, I'd say keep on doing what you are doing. btw, we do that many times but find it is best to not leave the door open too far. An inch or so usually is plenty.

btw, welcome to the forum.

 

[hearthstoneheat]

Good to hear, I'm new to stoves. Yeah, I've just been leaving the door open a crack and keeping an eye on it. Thanks for the welcome.

 

[Dakotas Dad]

I know my owners manual says that is an OK way to do it, but we find we don't need to. We do light a wadded up sheet of newspaper in the back of the stove if the stove is cold, that gets our draft running right off. It's normal, if starting your fire cold from kindling to have to build up some coals before loading her up for a run.


Oh, and welcome to the forum.

 

[CarbonNeutral]

Has this happened all the time, or just recently?

 

[hearthstoneheat]

I know my owners manual says that is an OK way to do it, but we find we don't need to. We do light a wadded up sheet of newspaper in the back of the stove if the stove is cold, that gets our draft running right off. It's normal, if starting your fire cold from kindling to have to build up some coals before loading her up for a run.


Oh, and welcome to the forum.

Yeah, it's taking more than wadded up newspaper to get it going to where it won't choke out when I close the door. It takes about 10 min or so with the door just cracked to warm the stove to where it will draft properly.

Thanks for the welcome.

 

[hearthstoneheat]

Has this happened all the time, or just recently?

I just had the stove installed last week- so it's been like this from the beginning.

 

[CarbonNeutral]

You may also want to try using wax/wood chip fire starters - I've found that they are much less susceptible to going out when the draft isn't great, and that they are much more successful at getting the stove warm and lit.

 

[REF1]

I'd be curious to know what percentage of stove owners, owning various manufactured stoves, have to crack the door to start a fire. DakotasDad feels badly we have the same stove and mine drives me crazy, while he loves his, but I have to question air intake systems which force someone to open the door to start a fire. That just seems like inadequate air flow to me.

 

[firefighterjake]

Pretty normal for many folks to keep the firebox door ajar when starting the fire from a cold start . . . as Dennis mentioned you have to establish the draft and sometimes this means helping it out a bit. It may be worth mentioning . . . leaving an ash pan door ajar to start a fire is however a bad idea . . . unless you don't mind possibly damaging your stove . . . but the firebox door is OK.

I suspect this is not so much a stove issue as it is a chimney issue . . . and there are many variables to consider including outdoor/indoor temps, outside vs. inside chimney, etc.

 

[Dakotas Dad]

Has this happened all the time, or just recently?

I just had the stove installed last week- so it's been like this from the beginning.

Everything I have learned tells me this time of year, known as shoulder season, is when you will have the most trouble getting a cold stove to fire up. So what you are seeing now, is different then what you will see next winter when it counts. Not much temperature differential for the flue to work with, and the farther from "perfect" chimney you are, the harder it will be. But there is no doubt, getting the flue warmed as soon as fast as possible is the goal.

 

[REF1]

Well, how about this observation. If you can take a large wad of news paper and light it and watch it flare up quickly and its combustion dash up the exit of the stove up the flue in a cold stove, why would one have to crack the door to start a fire? I understand chimney and atmospheric issues kicking in. All things being equal, it seems wrong that the door should be opened to supply a stove with enough air to ignite combustion and keep it going sufficiently to establish and stabilize a fire.

PE boats of a system that 'boosts' air into the box to start a fire. I don't know what that is, but the problem of having to open the door to start a fire seems particularly present with stoves relying on secondary systems to supply air to the box, which all come from the same air intake.

 

[PLR822]

If the problem persists and you want this done automatically/mechanically you can get an Auto-Draft Inducer which reverses the down flow of the cold air down the pipe and creates and upward draft. Tjernlund makes one www.Tjernlund.com, model AD-1 or just google it. There's has a speed control so you can adjust the speed of the fan to create more/less draft or not have it on at all. I have had one for 8 years and it still gets the job done every time.

 

[begreen]

The Craftsbury has a shallow firebox. As temps outside get warmer, it may have a tendency to spill some smoke. Many folks see this when it is 50 outside, but have no issue at all when it's 35. In these conditions, open the air control, then open the door slowly to reduce splillage. If the flue setup is marginal, adding a little length can sometimes make a nice difference.

Rob, can you describe the complete flue setup from stove to cap including details about rear or top exit, elbows, thimbles, pipe size, etc. involved.

 

[fossil]

If the problem persists and you want this done automatically/mechanically you can get an Auto-Draft Inducer which reverses the down flow of the cold air down the pipe and creates and upward draft. Tjernlund makes one www.Tjernlund.com, model AD-1 or just google it. There's has a speed control so you can adjust the speed of the fan to create more/less draft or not have it on at all. I have had one for 8 years and it still gets the job done every time.

OK...joined today and put up 5 posts all including your link or a video. You obviously are either not familiar with the guidelines for pushing a product on these forums, or you're choosing to ignore them. Keep it up and you won't be a member here for long. Rick

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I hope Craig boots that joker off this forum fast. I'm tired of seeing his ads.

It really makes me wonder about those idiots. Once people see it is spam I highly doubt anyone would buy anything from the idiot.

 

[Battenkiller]

Well, how about this observation. If you can take a large wad of news paper and light it and watch it flare up quickly and its combustion dash up the exit of the stove up the flue in a cold stove, why would one have to crack the door to start a fire? I understand chimney and atmospheric issues kicking in. All things being equal, it seems wrong that the door should be opened to supply a stove with enough air to ignite combustion and keep it going sufficiently to establish and stabilize a fire.

I general, I agree with what you are saying. However, in warm weather there is not much temperature difference between inside and outside air. Draft can be non-existent, or even reversed. Rapidly burning materials such as newspaper will need very little draft to burn, but the heat generated will rise up the flue and warm it up enough to jump start the draft. That doesn't mean it will be strong, however. A closed stove has a lot of internal resistance. The intake alone on some stoves presents 4-5 times the resistance of the entire chimney. With a cool flue there isn't a strong enough draw to get the air through all the openings and channels, plus all the passages between the splits. A slightly opened door will reduce this resistance to a fraction of what the closed stove has, and the fire will take off easily.

All that said, I virtually never have to resort to that "trick", even in the shoulder seasons. I start the fire with the smallest of kindling (match size) and quickly work my way up through the sizes until I am adding splits about 1 1/2 - 2". Once they are going well, I close the doors. I can almost always hear the air velocity pick up withing a few seconds, and I'm good to go. Flue temps are usually close to 200º by then, so an adequate draft has been established. Five minutes later, I'll come back and I have a small bed of coals to build the fire up on. Flue temps will be up to 500-600º by then, so at that point, the warmer outside air becomes irrelevant to the strength of the draft.

I burn in a pre-EPA stove, so I don't have all the baffles and burn tubes and all, so there is less internal resistance in my stove than in many newer stoves. Seems the new stoves need a boost from the cracked door more often than the older designs do. However you do it, you need to establish an adequate flue temp as quickly as possible if you want a trouble free startup. How hot? These two graphs will help you figure that out. Consider that the resistance coefficient of your chimney itself is likely to be in the neighborhood of 4, whereas the closed stove can be as high as 20 with the bypass damper closed. By comparison, an open door cuts that number down to about 2. A cracked open door is somewhere in between depending on how far it is open.

 

[Fsappo]

If the problem persists and you want this done automatically/mechanically you can get an Auto-Draft Inducer which reverses the down flow of the cold air down the pipe and creates and upward draft. Tjernlund makes one www.Tjernlund.com, model AD-1 or just google it. There's has a speed control so you can adjust the speed of the fan to create more/less draft or not have it on at all. I have had one for 8 years and it still gets the job done every time.

Tjernlund should send THEIR spammers away for grammar lessons before turning them loose.

 

[hearthstoneheat]

The Craftsbury has a shallow firebox. As temps outside get warmer, it may have a tendency to spill some smoke. Many folks see this when it is 50 outside, but have no issue at all when it's 35. In these conditions, open the air control, then open the door slowly to reduce splillage. If the flue setup is marginal, adding a little length can sometimes make a nice difference.

Rob, can you describe the complete flue setup from stove to cap including details about rear or top exit, elbows, thimbles, pipe size, etc. involved.

Begreen, here are as many details as I can think of:

yesterday afternoon approx. outside temp- 45-50F, slight breeze
outside air kit on stove- intake is on west side of house(generally winds are from the west.
Simpson Duravent 6" double wall pipe straight up-15' total flue/chimney length (ranch home)
Simpson Duravent cap

Also note my home is a ranch(6/12 roof pitch I believe) and the house next to me is a two story, approx 20ft away. The chimney and OAK on my house are closest to the house next to me. ( I can post a pic if it helps). I also live on a hill which can be windy at times.

Once the top of the stove is warm to the touch, all seems fine. So far, I have not had any smoke spillage at all even with it breezy outside.
Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Big Al]

I'd be curious to know what percentage of stove owners, owning various manufactured stoves, have to crack the door to start a fire. DakotasDad feels badly we have the same stove and mine drives me crazy, while he loves his, but I have to question air intake systems which force someone to open the door to start a fire. That just seems like inadequate air flow to me.

I know the Englander manual actually lists leaving the door slightly open as one of the steps for starting a fire. When I first got the stove I didn't understand the priciples of draft and was afraid to leave the door open for fear of smoke spillage, so I would light the newspaper and close the door. I had many fires where the newspaper would burn but the kindling would fail to ignite...VERY frustrating. Now I leave the door slightly open and I have trouble-free kindling fires every time.

 

[begreen]

Sounds like mild temps and local wind currents are the likely issue.

 

[hearthstoneheat]

Cool, thanks BeGreen.