Progress Hybrid: Thoughts on Outside Air Kit

[jzampieron]

Question: I noticed a lot of cold air draw up our returns when running our PH last winter.

I'm figuring that because the house is pretty tight and the returns are open down to the garage that the stove is consuming so much air that the only make up air is coming up that way.

I don't really want to be drawing cold air into the house, least of all from the garage where there is car exhaust, dust and other contaminants.

I'm thinking that buying the outside air kit and hooking it up to the PH adapter will solve my cold draft problem.

Do folks here agree? Any tips on installing the OAK?

 

[JA600L]

Absolutely install it.

 

[toddnic]

I've got a fairly tight house but have not experienced the issue that you described. I would definitely consider installing the OAK. It would not hurt and would pull cold air from outside your home versus pulling warm air from inside. Please let us know if this takes care of your issue.

 

[Rearscreen]

I insisted in installing an OAK for my PH, which, took quite a bit of work to accomplish. But it in my opinion it was that important. Some say to keep the input below the height of the stove however, I was worried that snow at sometime might block it. My input is about 5 feet above the stove and have had zero problems starting or running. I did downsize it one inch (because of the stone chase it went through) and had no problems.

 

[Highbeam]

the house is pretty tight and the returns are open down to the garage

Are you serious? This is not legal or safe. You must not mix garage air with house air. Seal those returns to the return air plenum of the furnace and seal all openings between the garage and the house. The barrier between the garage and the living space is supposed to be a firewall, with fancy sheetrock and firerated door. Whoa!

Aside from that, outside air connected to the stove is always a superior installation. Sometimes you don't need one for the stove to function but it never hurts. It is often just an effort that the installer would rather skip.

 

[jzampieron]

All the duct work is properly installed and up to code (at least 1986 code). It is taped and sealed and most of it is double insulated and enclosed in framing and drywall. The garage itself is sheetrocked, stucco'd (or that textured plaster stuff) and there is a fire rated door between the house and garage and the utility room and garage.

That said, the furnace itself is not hermetically sealed or anything between the utility room and the blower motor for the furnace.

My original note was a best guess that the air is coming from the filter access door of the furnace, which is basically just a trashy metal thing without any kind of gasket.

The whole situation is kind of suboptimal b/c of how the house is built on top of the garage. You'd really want to close off the utility room from the garage with another fire rated door, and keep it nice and tight but you can't b/c there's no air intake for the furnace itself. And you can't do passive make up air in that room b/c there's plumbing that could potentially freeze, so you'd need an OAK for the furnace. The furnace draft inducer already draws air from the garage for itself, and probably shouldn't. The water heater is electric so it doesn't consume air.

All that considered, best I can figure: I need a decent gasket for the furnace air filter door and an OAK for my PH.

In this case the installer was me and given the house construction I'm having cosmetic issues with the OAK as it is. See next post.

Are you serious? This is not legal or safe. You must not mix garage air with house air. Seal those returns to the return air plenum of the furnace and seal all openings between the garage and the house. The barrier between the garage and the living space is supposed to be a firewall, with fancy sheetrock and firerated door. Whoa!

Aside from that, outside air connected to the stove is always a superior installation. Sometimes you don't need one for the stove to function but it never hurts. It is often just an effort that the installer would rather skip.

 

[jzampieron]

I need some thoughts on how to install this OAK for a PH. I was working on it last weekend and ran into a parts sourcing issue.

I ordered the PH OAK and got that on the stove no problem.

My issue is that, due to the construction of the house, I have to go through an insulated wall, into a "doghouse" that encloses the chimney up the side of the house (its about 2.5' by 5' rectangle) and then out the bottom of the doghouse to free air below. This is how the original outside air intake for the ZC Preway that I removed was routed, except the Preway was recessed into the doghouse so it was just metal dryer vent.

So I'm looking for ideas (parts links) on how to, in a cosmetically agreeable way do the following:
1. Turn a 90deg 5" to 4" duct.
2. Go through 2x6 framing with several inches of stone veneer planned in front of it.
3. Connect the "through the wall" part to the dryer vent part.
4. Vent.

3 & 4 are hidden inside the doghouse, so I'm using the cheap standard semi-rigid metal dryer vent stuff. Its 1 & 2 that have me stuck. All the stuff available at home depot is too large, galvanized (looks cheap), etc.

What I really want is something like a 4" version of my duravent through the wall kit.

Ideas?