High Winds/Cold Temps in MA - Stove Performance

[Caw]

We had been in the 40 degree day 20 degree night cycle (perfect sugaring weather) but of course it's New England and overnight it dipped to 7 degrees and it's only 11 right now. There were also steady, high winds overnight with some even bigger gusts mixed in and its still going on now.

Anyone else in the area have an interesting night with the stove? I can hear the wind turbo boosting my draft when I reload. Im able to cut the air in half the time and shut it down completely and still hit borderline uncomfortable temps like 700-750 STT where normally I cruise at about 10% open and 600-650 STT. Because of that the stove chews through wood and I'm getting 4-5 hour burn times instead of the usual 6-7 hrs. Pretty annoying when it's this cold and you want more heat.

I just find it interesting how much high winds can affect a chimney. Mine is strong under normal conditions, it's 24' external and the stove vents straight up, no bends, in a good spot on the roof/yard, but with big winds it's a damn Hoover! Im curious if in the future I should do smaller loads to avoid the borderline nuclear temps? That will give even shorter burns but less anxiety. We only get winds like this every so often so I'm not gonna modify the stove at all, plus have an Osburn 1600 insert so a key damper isn't really an option anyways.

We lost 2 sumac trees that I'm not upset about, (they are just big weeds really), our small trellis got smashed by said sumac, and branches all over. Not too bad. My son will enjoy cutting up the sumac with his bow saw. That's going straight to the dump tho, it burns gross/smelly is very sappy. I wont even use it in the fire pit.

 

[danham]

We had been in the 40 degree day 20 degree night cycle (perfect sugaring weather) but of course it's New England and overnight it dipped to 7 degrees and it's only 11 right now. There were also steady, high winds overnight with some even bigger gusts mixed in and its still going on now.

Anyone else in the area have an interesting night with the stove? I can hear the wind turbo boosting my draft when I reload. Im able to cut the air in half the time and shut it down completely and still hit borderline uncomfortable temps like 700-750 STT where normally I cruise at about 10% open and 600-650 STT. Because of that the stove chews through wood and I'm getting 4-5 hour burn times instead of the usual 6-7 hrs. Pretty annoying when it's this cold and you want more heat.

I just find it interesting how much high winds can affect a chimney. Mine is strong under normal conditions, it's 24' external and the stove vents straight up, no bends, in a good spot on the roof/yard, but with big winds it's a damn Hoover! Im curious if in the future I should do smaller loads to avoid the borderline nuclear temps? That will give even shorter burns but less anxiety. We only get winds like this every so often so I'm not gonna modify the stove at all, plus have an Osburn 1600 insert so a key damper isn't really an option anyways.

We lost 2 sumac trees that I'm not upset about, (they are just big weeds really), our small trellis got smashed by said sumac, and branches all over. Not too bad. My son will enjoy cutting up the sumac with his bow saw. That's going straight to the dump tho, it burns gross/smelly is very sappy. I wont even use it in the fire pit.

Here on Cape Cod, the temps are not as extreme (18 this morning), but Provincetown recorded a 76 mph gust earlier. We didn't bother to burn last night, as it was above 40 until late. But we will be burning later today.

For my Jotul insert, strong winds definitely affect draft, but in somewhat unpredictable ways. Shifts in direction make for very different results, ranging from what you describe, to having to run wide open to keep things happy. Two-story house with internal brick chimney, steel liner, blockoff plate, cement "roof" over both flues.

-dan

 

[Caw]

That makes sense about wind direction changing the draft in different ways. Here we have a strong W to E prevailing wind and my chimney is near the woods on the E side of my house so it pretty much always gets the same wind.

 

[PaulOinMA]

Lost power a couple of times last evening. Came back on after 10 - 15 seconds both times. Went out again at 11 PM and didn't come back on until 2: 30 AM.

I was out on the porch having a cigar. Glad I took a couple of flashlights with me.

Had a fire last night that was burning down at 11 when the power went out. Went to bed. No issue with draft in high wind.

 

[wagdog]

I’m a bit north of you, on the QC border.

Temp was -7 with 30-40 mph winds. Brutal.

I could hear the wind pulling through the stove, so when I reloaded at 11pm. I shut the air down early (400 internal flue temp) and kept a close eye on it. Got up to 700 flue temp and leveled off, dropping slowly through the night. Reloaded at 9am with plenty of coals and a warm house.

I’ve found in a high wind, I need to shut the air down early to prevent it from getting away from me. It’s one area about my new stove (nc32) I’m not comfortable with yet; when it gets cooking, it doesn’t shut right down like my old stove. I’m finding using less wood and shutting the air off earlier to be the best way to control it.

 

[PaulOinMA]

I might have enough wood in the garage for tonight. Will move firewood from the backyard to fill the hoop in the garage if the wind dies down a little more. Supposed to be 40s tomorrow.

 

[MR. GLO]

had big gusts of wind and as stove was climbing and around 350 degress i got a puff back of smoke out the inlet and pipes for a quick one second. never seen that before.

 

[Caw]

Churning through some wood with the continued high winds and only 20 temps right now. 3 of my 10 sap collectors are MIA lol...can't find them anywhere! At least we're back to better temps tomorrow.

March is such an annoying month for burning here. Lots of cold start fires mixed in with the heat pump.

 

[PaulOinMA]

A person on my town's Nextdoor page posted a picture from Amazon that her package was delivered. It was a mailing envelope left on her front step. Gone in the wind. She asked if anyone in her neighborhood has found it.

 

[gthomas785]

We lost power last night. Went to light my backup stove and the draft through the door kept blowing my matches out!

 

[Woodsplitter67]

We had some pretty stiff winds last night. We have had winds of of over 50mph many times and no amount of wind changes the burn time. it's always the same..

 

[Caw]

I think this situation is a good example of how every chimney and stove reacts differently to different conditions!

 

[gthomas785]

My stove definitely responds to the atmospheric conditions when the air control on is open, but once I've choked it down it's pretty consistent.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

My stove definitely responds to the atmospheric conditions when the air control on is open, but once I've choked it down it's pretty consistent.

Maybe if I burned open alot I'd notice a change in burn time but I don't. Once the stove is up to temp the damper gets closed and once the cats up to temp the air goes to half way, and at night gets shut all the way down. So my stove may run differently if I had different burning habits, I guess the way I burn the wind has no effect..
I did get up at 1am Tuesday night and check things out.. wind was blowing hard

 

[Tar12]

The wind makes 0 difference in this BK....

 

[Caw]

I personally dont think individual burn habits matter at all, assuming you're burning in a modern stove and running it properly. I'd say wind effect is more the product of many things such as your chimney, cap type, chimney location, stove set up, and geographic situation etc.

 

[gthomas785]

I don't know if this counts as "individual burn habits" but I was pushing the intrepid harder than usual Monday night - we usually run the furnace in the front part of the house and supplement with wood occasionally, but the wind plus power outage meant the tiny little stove was doing some pretty heavy lifting. With the air control half open I could definitely see an effect on the fire every time a wind gust blew through. However before the power went out I had a low & slow fire going and it was not affected by the wind.

Makes perfect sense to me, a bigger air intake opening means more air can rush in when there's a transient pressure spike.

 

[Caw]

Yes the more open the air the more the effect makes perfect sense. More air, more effect.

I was thinking more about the "wind doesn't affect my stove" or "I burn low and slow so it doesn't affect me" lines of thinking in my last post. With modern EPA stoves having the air always at least partially open there will always be room for wind to affect the performance of of stove. Some people may notice it more than others, some hardly at all...but its based off of a lot of conditions rather than anything that the user is doing. I'm assuming we're all competently burning our devices here for maximum efficiency.

I think my situation is a clear example. My stove runs perfectly 99% of the time. However, with 40 mph+ winds I can shut the air down much sooner and have completely shut but still see higher temps and shorter burn times with a standard load of wood. There isn't anything I can do differently as a user to change that other than use less wood...which would also give shorter burn times. So "the way I burn" isn't changing the effect, the chimney is simply over performing.

Im not an expert so I could definitely be wrong. The effect being almost entirely environmental makes a lot of sense to me.

Edit - make sure to tell my wife I said I could be wrong!

 

[Manly]

Here in NW CT we experienced the same windy frigid conditions. Our 22 year old Jotul 3cb handles it just fine.

 

[Wiess]

Im curious if in the future I should do smaller loads to avoid the borderline nuclear temps?

We load less wood when winds are high, mostly using larger rounds during those times.

 

[baerjo]

New to wood stoves and have definitely seen my flames roar a bit more in heavy winds. While sleeping it did something new...apparently the strong wind was hitting it just right and I woke up to my CO alarms blaring all over the house. Now I'm trying to figure out if my other issues are negative pressure problems, or the leaky doors.

 

[MR. GLO]

Where is the stove located? Heated area? Or cold basement?

When did co alarm go off...end of cycle with coals?

Get ulra low co detector. Home depot or supply house has them 50.00.

 

[baerjo]

Where is the stove located? Heated area? Or cold basement?

When did co alarm go off...end of cycle with coals?

Get ulra low co detector. Home depot or supply house has them 50.00.

Stove is in basement, in the corner. Basement is heated though of course colder than the rest of the house. CO alarm went off with two logs of charcoal pretty much left and hot glowing embers, temp about 300-350F. This would have been the end of a normal cycle in my book as I was due to get up soon and add wood anyway. Today with high winds was the first time I've had the CO's go off. Going to guess I'll need some sort of wind resistant chimney cap.
I do have both an IR heat gun and a CO detector tool on order.

 

[MR. GLO]

Since it wasn't a cold chimney with coals and you say the stove was 350. I'd investigate to see when it happens again and did you have dryer or bathrooms fans and kitchen fans contributing.

How'd you get alarm to go off? And did you remove the coals?

Measure your flue temp next time goes off
Coals with no draft or loss of draft can set off alarms even 8 hours after you stop using stove.

Some basement or cold areas you remove coals or burn 24/7 to keep flue warm with a draft.
Many basement stove owners don't know because standard co detector and never see low readings.

 

[baerjo]

Since it wasn't a cold chimney with coals and you say the stove was 350. I'd investigate to see when it happens again and did you have dryer or bathrooms fans and kitchen fans contributing.

How'd you get alarm to go off? And did you remove the coals?

Measure your flue temp next time goes off
Coals with no draft or loss of draft can set off alarms even 8 hours after you stop using stove.

Some basement or cold areas you remove coals or burn 24/7 to keep flue warm with a draft.
Many basement stove owners don't know because standard co detector and never see low readings.

No fans or other air movement devices going. Nothing different than usual besides the wind roaring outside.
I opened the basement windows nearby and all over the rest of the house to vent the CO, placed detectors on the window ledges till they stopped.
I cleared ash and coals from the stove once it cooled all the way down and disposed of them outside, then close the windows and put the detectors back.
Since I can't get the thing to burn long enough to sleep overnight with my normal wood, it's impossible for me to keep it going 24/7 unless I'm waking up. One difference this time was a harder wood from an outside source that probably burned in total 9-10 hrs by the time it was cold enough for me to shovel out the coals. I usually turn cat on and flip temp lever to low before bed, then wake up with it cold or just enough coals to restart. I have a feeling harder wood burning slower with the lower temp setting cooled it faster even if it had fuel left. That added to the wind down draft created a perfect storm is my theory. Never realized how much of a pain getting a wood stove would be. Here's hoping we can figure it out so we're not out all that money.