Draft in the Northeast

[jatoxico]

Anyone else in the northeast finding the draft is a little slow the past few days (1/25/13)? It's been a little slow for me the last 2 days. Cleaned out the chimney with the Soot Eater this AM just to be sure only got a cup of the crunchies. Fired back up still not drafting great.

Edit

 

[Bluerubi]

I was actually thinking the exact same thing the past couple of nights, especially if your talking about 1/25/13 and not last year. I'm in NH, and fired up my basement stove for supplemental heat, but the draft that is usually really strong just wasn't cutting it. I know at these temps the density of air is much higher, so perhaps it forms a heavy layer within the chimney. No real idea, but behavior was not the norm for me.

 

[thewoodlands]

Anyone else in the northeast finding the draft is a little slow the past few days (1/25/12)? It's been a little slow for me the last 2 days. Cleaned out the chimney with the Soot Eater this AM just to be sure only got a cup of the crunchies. Fired back up still not drafting great.

We run the Lopi Liberty in the basement, it never has a draft problem, usually the colder it is the stronger it gets.

We're in Northern NY in the foothills of the Adirondacks.

 

[jatoxico]

I was actually thinking the exact same thing the past couple of nights, especially if your talking about 1/25/13 and not last year. I'm in NH, and fired up my basement stove for supplemental heat, but the draft that is usually really strong just wasn't cutting it. I know at these temps the density of air is much higher, so perhaps it forms a heavy layer within the chimney. No real idea, but behavior was not the norm for me.

1/25/12 Doh! I'll edit . The last time this happenedto me there was a nor'easter comimg through. Got weather coming in again tonight/tomorrow maybe that's whats up. Just worried I have something else going on.

 

[Flatbedford]

I have been experiencing the opposite. This cold weather gives me much more draft. My stove was running hotter for longer than ever on less air and was warmer than usual in the am. (1-25-13.) It was 78 degrees in the stove room and about 10 outside.

 

[ddahlgren]

Funny this came up. I have had to burn a fair amount of paper to get a draft and get rid of the cold air backup in the short chimney I have. The chimney is painfully short and no easy way to fix it. It meets all the specs for distance above the roof and higher than anything in a 10 ft radius but only13 ft tall.

 

[Flatbedford]

Maybe I'm not having any problems because we haven't let the stove cool down much since Saturday. It's been running harder and hotter than ever and we are reloading more often at higher temps.

 

[Slow1]

My draft has been excellent, but like Flatbedford our stove hasn't been cold in over a week. I am rather hoping for a warmer day here so that I can let the stove cool enough to remove the dust from the glass and check the cat for any buildup. When that happens I'm sure I'll notice the reduced pull on restart compared to now when I'm reloading on a solid bed of coals and 300+ stovetop temps.

 

[Flatbedford]

.... I'm reloading on a solid bed of coals and 300+ stovetop temps.

That's what we've been doing all week.

 

[Bluerubi]

Maybe I'm not having any problems because we haven't let the stove cool down much since Saturday. It's been running harder and hotter than ever and we are reloading more often at higher temps.

That sounds reasonable. My upstairs stove that runs constantly hasn't been seeing a problem, so probably just due to a really cold flue. My chimney is on the outside of the house, but 35ft tall, so typically I do pretty well on draft.

 

[charly]

I had such a strong draft on start up this morning , by-pass open (1/25/13) that I could only leave the draft open to .75 or the pipe would run away,, stove top was at 150 .. I too have been reloading @ 300 plus.

 

[Badger]

Funny you mention this. I live in MN and I had the exact same experience earlier in the week. It was cold as heck and I expected a strong draft. Ended up with a real weak draft, so bad I thought my cap was plugged.

I shut my stove down and checked everything out. Other than a leak in the door gasket and a quick cleaning I didn't notice anything out of order. Started up the stove the next night and she's been running perfect ever since.

 

[jatoxico]

Funny you mention this. I live in MN and I had the exact same experience earlier in the week. It was cold as heck and I expected a strong draft. Ended up with a real weak draft, so bad I thought my cap was plugged.

I shut my stove down and checked everything out. Other than a leak in the door gasket and a quick cleaning I didn't notice anything out of order. Started up the stove the next night and she's been running perfect ever since.

I'm gonna chalk it up to atmospheric conditions. The weather we expected got here and things have picked up. Could also be due to what FlatBed said. Been burning all day since I swept it out.

 

[jdp1152]

Had significant issues....chalked up most of it to new insert and house though. Probably some combination of all of the above. I do notice that this new insert isn't holding hot coals as long as my other one...probably because it's in an exterior chimney. I did a top down fire using two news paper knots and two fat sticks and had a really good draft today. Hopefully it was just earlier this week that was the problem.