Wood burning stove gurus: is an outside air intake kit worth the trouble? If I close the catalyst damper fully my fire will go out or sometimes "''back puff"...
I'm reasonably sure its negative pressure, since I cracked a window the tiniest bit last night and the stove chugged all night long on a load of wood on low and was still hot this morning with a big bed of coals..normally it would have.gone out and left me with a load of lump charcoal that I could easily plop into my big green egg and cook dinner with.
My house is RELATIVELY modern. I have good windows and insulation, about 1200sq ft ranch on a slab, with a sunken living room / dining room / kitchen. We are Lucky enough to profit from shale drilling and Fracking with stupid cheap natural gas forced hot air, water heater, dryer, and a 30k btu NG wall mounted blue flame space heater. I have 15 foot ceilings in the living room my wood burner and gas heater are in, but I circulate air with 2 ceiling fans set in " winter mode".
My only chink in my armor for winter when it gets REALLY cold and windy or damp is my back wall of my living room is 30 feet of older sliding glass doors. They suck the heat out.of the house (but aren't drafty, just through sheer thermal transfer through the glass and aluminum frame).
The shoulder seasons and most of the winter (if its mild) the space heater keeps up (and actually heats most of the house reducing the load on the forced hot air). The thermostat for the furnace is in the hallway and then living room can have any icicles forming but due to a weird home design it is kind of isolated from the living areas... It mostly just services the bedrooms and bathrooms and hallway.
My Wood stove is not the main source of heat in the house, its more of a luxury to walk around in Bermuda shorts and flip flops when its 5F outside. I live 5 miles inland on the jersey shore so the water is both a blessing and a curse: is warmer generally but we are cursed with higher winds and if the nor easter times it just right it intensifies the storms and beats us to a pulp. We are still burning deadfall from hurricane sandy.
Sorry for the long post but I'm not sure what's relevant other than i have other appliances competing for air within 15-20 feet and I haven't been getting clean burns up until I started fiddling and trying to figure out why my blazing hot fires fall on their face and die when I close the catalyst and set the air to medium or low. I did not purchase the stove or install it, it came with the house when I bought it.
My other question is an OAK still available for my stove (which likely went out of business)? I couldn't seem to fins a part number anywhere and my circa 1992 stove manual states one exists. Is it even worth bothering with since I don't run the wood burner 25/8/366/forever/use as a dimensional portal to other worlds?
I'm reasonably sure its negative pressure, since I cracked a window the tiniest bit last night and the stove chugged all night long on a load of wood on low and was still hot this morning with a big bed of coals..normally it would have.gone out and left me with a load of lump charcoal that I could easily plop into my big green egg and cook dinner with.
My house is RELATIVELY modern. I have good windows and insulation, about 1200sq ft ranch on a slab, with a sunken living room / dining room / kitchen. We are Lucky enough to profit from shale drilling and Fracking with stupid cheap natural gas forced hot air, water heater, dryer, and a 30k btu NG wall mounted blue flame space heater. I have 15 foot ceilings in the living room my wood burner and gas heater are in, but I circulate air with 2 ceiling fans set in " winter mode".
My only chink in my armor for winter when it gets REALLY cold and windy or damp is my back wall of my living room is 30 feet of older sliding glass doors. They suck the heat out.of the house (but aren't drafty, just through sheer thermal transfer through the glass and aluminum frame).
The shoulder seasons and most of the winter (if its mild) the space heater keeps up (and actually heats most of the house reducing the load on the forced hot air). The thermostat for the furnace is in the hallway and then living room can have any icicles forming but due to a weird home design it is kind of isolated from the living areas... It mostly just services the bedrooms and bathrooms and hallway.
My Wood stove is not the main source of heat in the house, its more of a luxury to walk around in Bermuda shorts and flip flops when its 5F outside. I live 5 miles inland on the jersey shore so the water is both a blessing and a curse: is warmer generally but we are cursed with higher winds and if the nor easter times it just right it intensifies the storms and beats us to a pulp. We are still burning deadfall from hurricane sandy.
Sorry for the long post but I'm not sure what's relevant other than i have other appliances competing for air within 15-20 feet and I haven't been getting clean burns up until I started fiddling and trying to figure out why my blazing hot fires fall on their face and die when I close the catalyst and set the air to medium or low. I did not purchase the stove or install it, it came with the house when I bought it.
My other question is an OAK still available for my stove (which likely went out of business)? I couldn't seem to fins a part number anywhere and my circa 1992 stove manual states one exists. Is it even worth bothering with since I don't run the wood burner 25/8/366/forever/use as a dimensional portal to other worlds?
