high winds effect on wood stove/furnace?

[CowboyAndy]

Last night we had 30+ mph winds, and it wreaked havoc on the fire. I went through my normal routine, 1 1/2 hours before bed get the house up as warm as i can, then at 10 load ithe furnace to the gills, smoke a cigarette or 2, then turn the air down half way. I got in bed, but couldnt sleep with the blower still running (had been about 30 min continous). I went down to check and it was roaring, way more than it usually does at taht point. I shut off ALL the air completly and the blowers still ran for another 10 min! finally it died right down, and i opened the air to just under halfway.


what is the effect of high wind on a wood furnace?

 

[BJN644]

High wind = High draft.

 

[bluefrier]

High winds cause increased draft by creating a suction in the chimney. That explains why the fire kept going
strong when you shut the air control. Just try to compensate for the extra daft by closing the air to 1/4
instead of 1/2, you will also notice a stronger draft of a clear cold day(high pressure day).

 

[CowboyAndy]

so bluefrier, when we get high wind days, how long should i wait before shutting it down some? this is a furnace, so i am used to just running it wide open, especially when the mercury gets below 15* or so.

 

[beau5278]

High wind will usually increase the draft significantly,the wind blowing across the top of a chimney or through a chimney cap does the same thing as stepping on the throttle pedal of a car,it increases the amount of air being pulled up the chimney,so to compensate for that,you don't need to feed as much air at the stove intake to create the same fire.I've also had high winds cause backdrafts also,usually that only happens if the winds are coming from an odd direction.My upstairs stove was acting up a little on Sunday,the wind was blowing directly out of the south and must have been causing something weird to happen when the air went over the roof peak,the chimney is on the north side of the peak,I was getting a puff of smoke occasionally when I had the door open to put wood on,I don't usually have that happen.

 

[bluefrier]

so bluefrier, when we get high wind days, how long should i wait before shutting it down some? this is a furnace, so i am used to just running it wide open, especially when the mercury gets below 15* or so.

Andy, I don't know about a furnace but on my stove I just watch the flames and stove top temps to keep things under control.

 

[eernest4]

Sometimes I get the wind comming directly from the back of my house & blowing straight at the road, which is 100 ft from the house.

If my stove is making any smoke ,this wind blows the smoke right into the middle of the road
where most of the city has to drive through it in their cars.

When I see this happening, I immediately do every thing I can to get the stove up to temp fast & initiate secondary burn.

Once I get secondary burn going, I know that there will be no smoke in 30 minutes or less.

Last winter, I had the bad luck of having a police officer pass by when I had just put a full load of cold wood into a cold stove & was starting the first fire of the evening as the stove had been off in the warm afternoon.
(no ember bed left)

Well, being the cop that he was, they(cops) think the worst first & act on that assumption rather
than finding out what is going on before making fools of themselves.

Its ok for a cop to make a fool of himself but when you or I do it,we get arrested or worst.

Officer Quick Draw MacGraw called in a possible chimney fire to the fire department before knocking on my door & asking me if I had a chimney fire, which of course I did not have.

I told the cop that I did not have a chimney fire and that I had just lit a cold stove with cold wood and that it usually takes 20 to 30 minutes before the stove gets hot enough for the secondary burn to kick in at which time the stove will burn the smoke up inside the stove as fuel and the chimney would stop smoking for the rest of the day.

His answer to this was that if that was so ,then I would be ok.

He neglected to mention that he had called the fire dept on me.

I should not have been suprised, then, when , 10 minutes later,there are 4 fire engines in my drive way, as well as a ambulance and two fire marshals.

So I went over to the fire trucks and asked them what they were doing here & they asked me did I have a wood stove & did I just light the fire & I said yes & yes & then i told them about the secondary burn, as I mentioned above.

So they hung around the 20 minutes it took for my stove to stop smoking and then one by one ,they all left & when back to their fire house.

anyways ever since then, I am very carefull about wind comming from the back of my house
when it blows the smoke into the road.

This is yet another way that the wind can affect the opperation of a stove.