Controlling draft during blizzard?

[danham]

With power out to hundreds of thousands in our area (our own going on/off for 30 mins at a time over the last 12 hrs), the insert is more than earning its purchase price, especially today with the outdoor temp dropping fast on the back side of this amazing storm.

But a question about draft. Winds here have gusted as high as 77 mph overnight and are "only" gusting to about 55 now. During some gusts the fire gets a bunch more air regardless of where the draft control is set. So far no problems caused by this, other than using up more wood, but curious if there are any tricks I should know about to deal with these conditions.

Thanks,

-dan

 

[pen]

With an insert, not much you can do other than control the amount of fuel you load into the stove.

In this situation with high winds and potential for power outage which means you'll lose your blower, I'd be loading the stove with less fuel at a time. Hate to see you overheat the unit on a full load if you lose the use of that blower.

Just took me an hour and a half to clean up the 8 inches we received. Good luck dealing with much worse in your area.

pen

 

[Dune]

I topped of the load at 1:00 a.m.
I set the air lower than normal due to the high winds.
At 6:00 a.m., I was chilly and checked the stove, figuring I hadn't lowered the air enough, but the opposite was true.
The firebox was mostly full.
Sometimes you just guess wrong.

 

[danham]

Thanks - good advice. Power is on right now, but it's been off for 30+ minutes at a time intermittently over the last 15 hours and 51% of our town is out (93% of neighboring town).

I yanked some of the "tin" off the insert to improve air flow but gotta say the difference - both via IR gun measurement and seat of the pants - is negligible. Maybe that dual-wall insulated chimney liner is doing its job [g].

-dan

 

[ddahlgren]

With an insert, not much you can do other than control the amount of fuel you load into the stove.

In this situation with high winds and potential for power outage which means you'll lose your blower, I'd be loading the stove with less fuel at a time. Hate to see you overheat the unit on a full load if you lose the use of that blower.

Just took me an hour and a half to clean up the 8 inches we received. Good luck dealing with much worse in your area.

pen

I ONLY have 28 inches and supposed to snow for a couple hours around noon and start blowing again. I have food wine and cigarettes and a bunch of wood in the basement.

I do think there is a lot to be said for a free standing stove instead of an insert if you are looking for a lot of heat. I think thre is a lot to be said for my grandfather's hand fired coal stove. Half the time he used a kerosene storm lantern the a electric light. He treated electricity like it would make you sick if you used too much. At least no candles on the Christmas tree..