How will strong wind affect draft...for the better or worse

[Ratherbfishin]

My hunch is it would improve draft. I live on the top of a mountain and boy it is windy up here all winter long. I could look at the weather for my town and it will say winds are calm or less than 10 but up here more like 25-30mph and I just shake my head. So is that going to alter the performance of the stove? Should I be concerned about the wind blowing down the chimney and working against the draft? I did do a search but yielded no direct posts on the subject so I'll throw it out there.

Steve

 

[astrodon]

I don't know if it makes the draft stronger or weaker, but strong gusty winds do make the draft inconsistent and thus make the stove harder to dial in. It seems like I had a few times last season where the wind seemed to "snuff out" the secondaries on me. It was most bothersome at start-up or reload. Once up to temp and cruising along, the stove seemed to handle it better.

 

[bluefrier]

I guess it varies but when it's windy around here my chimney drafts like a vacuum.

 

[Archie]

Almost always, wind improves the draft. Wind may blow down but it's pretty rare. The only time I have draft problems is when the air is deathly still, it's not real cold (say 40 ish), and foggy / humid.

 

[cmonSTART]

It really depends on a ton of factors. Wind can create both positive and negative pressure zones around a structure and where the chimney terminates in relation to these zones will determine whether it helps or hurts your draft.

 

[LLigetfa]

It really depends on a ton of factors. Wind can create both positive and negative pressure zones around a structure and where the chimney terminates in relation to these zones will determine whether it helps or hurts your draft.

+1
It's not just the chimney that's affected, it's the entire building envelope.

 

[CarbonNeutral]

It really depends on a ton of factors. Wind can create both positive and negative pressure zones around a structure and where the chimney terminates in relation to these zones will determine whether it helps or hurts your draft.

Absolutely - if it was just an even wind blowing straight across a chimney (no cap or any structure near by) then draft would be better as air pressure would be lower. But as this is rarely (never) the case, it's a crap shoot

 

[m0jumb0]

It was my experience last year that it hurt the draft. Mostly when starting a fire though, when I had a good fire going already I mostly didn't notice.

 

[CrappieKeith]

Depending on how tall this mountain is the air density also changes creating a faster draft.
It has been my expierence that the drafts will run faster due to the fire pulling more air ....this happens because the air is less or thinner if you will.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Much also depends upon the trees in the area. We live in the woods and are surrounded with trees; most large but a few short ones too. The big red oaks are the ones that can give problems. Not only do the winds swirl a lot, but wind blowing over the tall oaks has a tendency to want to wrap back. While wrapping, that gives a downdraft which can cause some problems.

With our old Ashley stove, the high winds seemed to cause a lot of back puffing. With our Fireview, this has not been the case. We did put up a new SS chimney though when we put the Fireview in.