Practical Advantage to Fresh Air Intake for Pellet Stoves?

I did my own OAK install for $50 in parts plus 2 hours labor. The increased comfort level of the house was worth the expense even if I cant quantify a monetary benefit.

The Harman in my basement was originally installed without the OAK. I got a lot of drafts on the main floor when the stove was cycling (none if this house is airtight by any means either). I installed the OAK myself and found that the drafts caused by cycling were no longer a problem (drafts during windy days, yes, stove cycling no). For your application, that might be the only advantage. And if you don't have any issues with drafts, or with other appliances starving for air (hot water heater), then you will probably be fine. Of course, I'm a newbie, so no expert, so YMMV.

"would not have any real world advantages as it would let cold air into the house along with mice, and would also be expensive to install.."

It only lets cold are into the house, as your stove is in the house. The OAK is to supply fresh outside air for the combustion chamber. Once burned .. it's exhausted out the vent. It's a closed system. If you don't have an OAK, that combustion air has to come from somewhere ... which is from immediately around the stove. Then THAT air is replaced with air sucked in from every leak you have on the outside of the house .. thereby sucking in the cold and making the extremities colder. Not so much of what you want to accomplish.

Mice? ... good .. let 'em crawl in and get smoked in the combustion chamber. ... well, part of the OAK install process is to put a screen in/on the outside end so this doesn't happen. But again .. it's a closed system. They shouldn't be able to go anywhere. The problem here is, you don't want them building a nest in that cozy pipe, and end up starving the fire because of it. If mice are getting in around the OAK pipe, where it goes through the wall .. that would be a very poor/sloppy install job.

Expensive to install? Probably not .. unless you get one of the pre-boxed kits. I made mine out of PVC, and just found out that was a no-no ... so am now in the same boat .. kinda. I'm not debating rather or not to install one ... just sourcing the parts to make it inexpensive .. yet proper. I probably won't go the commercial kit route, but only to save a few $$.

In your case, it might be a bit unsightly, but not only well worth it ... technically, I think it's 'required'.

So, is your stove have it's vent just dump into the clay tile chimney .. or does it have a vent pipe that goes up, inside that liner?

I always thought the vent/combustion air kits would be the berries, as far as having a single install, but I'm not so sure as having the air intake that close to the exhaust would do the stove combustion any favors.

taytowers said:

I do notice a draft along the floor. I may try using a fireplace insulation baffle blanket stuffed around the frame as a short term solution. The fresh air then would be drawn down the existing brick chimney rather than around the frame.

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Where does your convection air enter the stove. And remember that yes combustion air passes through the stove and out your stack but room air also travel back to the stove to be reheated. The difference here is that room air circulates but combustion air has to be replenished. Eventually returning room air should be warmer than it started out being as the rooms come up to temp. However combustion air is generally drawn from a cold drafty place I.E. leak. Combustion air causes a -pressure in the house, convection does not.

The basic concept is this--

fire uses O2.
your house quickly runs out of it.

without an OAK, the stove draws in fresh air from all the nooks and crannies, creating cold drafts everywhere in the house. (negative pressure)
with an OAK, the stove has all the air it needs, and the room blower acts sorta like 'max ac', recirculating warm house air through the convection instead of trying to constantly fight with the cold air that keeps leaking in.

taytowers said:

I do notice a draft along the floor. I may try using a fireplace insulation baffle blanket stuffed around the frame as a short term solution. The fresh air then would be drawn down the existing brick chimney rather than around the frame.

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It sounds like your installer was either misinformed or lazy or both

Wouldn't that mean that you're pulling in exhaust as your "fresh air" (edit: unless you have a metal liner to the cap - not clear in your post and sounds like it just exhausts into the clay liner)? Carbon monoxide If you put a blanket around the frame, are you not also reducing the air to the convection fan?

Dhosh has it right that there is a screen on the air intake (also on the exhaust) to keep critters out year round.

I doubt it will make any difference in actual heating, unless your house is so tight its starved for air. But pulling drafts through the wall could result in perceived difference if these drafts are nearby where you are. Overall I think it should be the same efficiency in heating your house.

A good instal would be well sealed, with screen, and insulated, so pretty much everything you were told was wrong. Putting one through brick could be a hassle and cost though, if thats what your talking about, your specific install could vary. In my case it was required by my stove manufacturer, and my house is very drafty so hopefully it will cut down on that. Kind of unsightly running across my living area though but thats not a biggie for me.

I've had both non-oak for 4 years and oak for going on season 2 now, and the difference is night and day

My englander has had the OAK from day 1, but my harman was installed by the prior owners of our house (incorrectly, at that) and did not have an OAK. When the harman was running I could put my hand by the window trim and feel the cold air rushing in. Hooked up the OAK and that is gone. I find the difference to be night and day.

I had this debate myself, stove installed in front of a fully SS lined fireplace like yours.

The fix, block off plate in the fireplace, short run of OAK pipe halfway up the chimney or less, and a couple of holes at top of the chimney.

Found that here, many threads on it

I'm probably regurgitating known information, but here goes ...(Of course, if I'm wrong .. someone please chime in!)

There are two fans .. one is the vent/exhaust/combustion fan. This gets it's combustion air from the 2" intake on the back of the stove that (theoretically) is piped in from outside, gets burned, then exhausts out the 3" vent pipe.

The other is the room air/circulation fan, that gets it's air just from around the fan (mostly inside the housing, I guess)... and blows out the front. Mine has a row of tubes above the combustion chamber, that this air blows out of, into the room.

Both systems are isolated, effectively.

Is there an outside cleanout to your old fireplace chimney ... or was all done from the fireplace itself? If so, you might be able to use that hole and use the figure 15.1 method.

I would run a fresh air pipe to a nearby blocked off, opened window (with a hole for the pipe, of course), before I'd let it breathe from the inside.

I was correct by another member on my use of PVC for this combustion air pipe, also, as it apparently isn't kosher. If there was a downdraft, or something caused the fire to blow back into the fresh air intake (granted, albeit extremely unlikely .) ... it could be quite hot, and/or start a fire .. burning the pipe, and producing noxious fumes. If you didn't have ANY pipe there, you would have the same flames/potential for fire, being blown right into your house.

If you check out the linked thread, I graph out my pellet usage pre and post OAK. i think the post OAK trend looks promising.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/index.php?threads/Pellet-Consumption-Graph.134185/

A good friend of mine and I both run Harman P61A's purchased a few months apart. We also both live in old semi-updated farmhouses with less than ideal insulation. Last winter we installed the OAK Midway through the winter, and he noticed an immediate savings of almost 1/2 bag of pellets per day.

If you have a tight house a pellet stove may still get enough air for combustion, but consider if you start up a clothes dryer that exhausts to the outside, the clothes dryer will pull air from inside the house creating a negative pressure that will work against the pellet stove. If you have a different heating appliance such as a coal stove and a tight house, the negative pressure from something such as a dryer could conceivably draw CO from the coal stove into the house.

The insert run is a bit trickier. I had scott (@swilliamson on here) come out and install a 2nd run of intake pipe up the chimney to his custom 2-story cap set up (intake on 1st floor, exhaust on 2nd floor). It certainly wasn't $50 like other's said they have done it for, but it was well worth the cost of having it done right, not a half run hack with punching holes

mrbennett726 said:

A good friend of mine and I both run Harman P61A's purchased a few months apart. We also both live in old semi-updated farmhouses with less than ideal insulation. Last winter we installed the OAK Midway through the winter, and he noticed an immediate savings of almost 1/2 bag of pellets per day.

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I might be going out on a limb here but I'd say any measurable amount of savings is either coincidence, within standard deviation, or some other issue with the stove or perhaps changes in local weather. Looking at this from a scientific standpoint the difference in heating should be minute. I view it as more of a safety thing and to ensure a proper burn (is in the case where you had a drier or woodstove also going and competing for air). It'd be nice to see a study of this under controlled environment. I've been running my OAK now for about a week and if my feed rate is on one value it burns at a fairly constant rate. House temperature fluctuates greatly so its hard to discern any meaningful information. I certainly haven’t noticed any change big enough to shut my stove off more, or run it any lower, but temps vary so greatly in my house it would be impossible to detect small changes.

From a scientific standpoint, if you're sucking in cold air to the house, you need more fuel to keep it warm.