OAK Hooked up to Englander 13

[Captain]

Well I wanted to share my experience with my outside air kit that I have been using for a week now. I'm having great results! I mainly did it to make the stove run a little better in terms of maintaining secondary burn, but I didn't really see a whole lot of difference there, maybe a little.

But without question, the biggest difference is how much warmer the house is! I truly was not expecting a difference in this area. For example, last night was the coldest night so far, it got down to 7°, and I loaded it up around 11:00 last night, woke up at 8:00 and the LR was 72° and the bedroom was 67°. That's without the blower running! I could never have done that before without the blower on. Temps that low used to bring this stove to it's knees in overnight burns; usually before the temps were about 67° in LR and 62° BR when I woke up. My glass seems to be staying cleaner as well. I'm very impressed with the results so far.

 

[OpenWater]

Hey Captain - Curious as to why you think there is a difference pre and post OAK. I've got a 30, got the kit, but have not installed it. Almsot forgot I had it! Would you say the temps are higher b/c you are drawing air through the OAK rather than elswhere?

Thanks,

Chris

 

[Captain]

Well what I think is that it was sucking air out out of the house, and the air that has to replace it is pulled in through the cracks and openings throughout the house. There are some good articles out there that suggest that this can happen. I honestly didn't think this would be true had I not experienced it myself, as it doesn't really seem to suck THAT much air, but apparently it is.

 

[jcims]

Thanks for posting this, I really need to do the same thing.

OpenWater, did you get the OAK from Englander directly? I have the same stove and am seriously considering installing one. It's not surprising that they help, after all, every cubic foot of air that goes up the flue needs to be replaced by cold outside air.

 

[Wiseguy13]

I too just installed the OAK on my 13NC and noticed a difference right away. I did not purchase it from Englander their price was over $70.00, the kit consists of a 3" by 6' aluminum vent pipe, a hose clamp and 2 wall plates, I bought the vent pipe and hose clamp at the local hardware store for less than $10.00 and made the wall plates the best I could from the picture.

Hope this helps.

James M. Wise
Englander 13NC with OAK

 

[jcims]

I too just installed the OAK on my 13NC and noticed a difference right away. I did not purchase it from Englander their price was over $70.00, the kit consists of a 3" by 6' aluminum vent pipe, a hose clamp and 2 wall plates, I bought the vent pipe and hose clamp at the local hardware store for less than $10.00 and made the wall plates the best I could from the picture.

I'm thinking about going the same route. My run is a little longer than the factory kit can handle because i don't want to core a concrete wall. I think I'm just going to use a dryer vent (with cage rather than flaps to allow intake) and whatever duct will give me a 90 that will fit into a 2x4 stud wall.

 

[jcims]

I too just installed the OAK on my 13NC and noticed a difference right away. I did not purchase it from Englander their price was over $70.00, the kit consists of a 3" by 6' aluminum vent pipe, a hose clamp and 2 wall plates, I bought the vent pipe and hose clamp at the local hardware store for less than $10.00 and made the wall plates the best I could from the picture.

I'm thinking about going the same route. My run is a little longer than the factory kit can handle because i don't want to core a concrete wall. I think I'm just going to use a dryer vent (with cage rather than flaps to allow intake) and whatever duct will give me a 90 that will fit into a 2x4 stud wall.

Just hooked up my DIY OAK. I had a 14' run all told, so 2 3"x8' aluminum flex pipe + 4 hose clamps + one exterior dryer vent = ~$32. Took about a half hour to install due to cruddy location, but two people could have had it done in ten minutes. The amount of cold air streaming in through that pipe was pretty significant...in fact, as soon as I hooked it up the temperature in the house instantly rose 5 degrees.



OK, maybe not, but something tells me it will at least save $32 of propane over the course of the next ten years.

On a side note, the flame had a decidedly different hue (more blue) after the hookup...not sure what that was about. I'm assuming the 'push' of air into the stove had something to do with it...not sure.

 

[bluefrier]

This is very interesting. Please keep us posted on how the OAK is working. I would have to drill a 3" hole through a brick chimney but it may be well worth it.

 

[jcims]

This is very interesting. Please keep us posted on how the OAK is working. I would have to drill a 3" hole through a brick chimney but it may be well worth it.

As far as overall effect on home temperature, the jury will probably be out for a few days. I'm only expecting slight changes, maybe a bit fewer drafts upstairs and a big higher ambient temps, but we're having a cold snap so it's going to be very difficult to say.

However, I can already say it made very noticeable changes to the way the stove runs. It seems to have more air with the same intake setting...the coals in front of the 'dog house' are really bright, and the stovetop temp started going up a good bit. I had to shut the air almost completely off and it's still humming along at 550. I didn't really expect any changes in this regard, so that's a bit of a surprise.

I was thinking today what a 'fully instrumented' wood stove would look like, so that it would be easier to see the performance impact of little changes like this. Temps are pretty obvious (indoor, outdoor, stovetop, flue), but things like humidity, fuel weight, fuel moisture, intake setting, stove weight, intake cfm, flue cfm, etc would all be interesting. Wouldn't it be cool to watch the stove get lighter as the fuel burns?

Anyway, getting off topic.