How to best rig an OAK for basement use on a PH

[John Lehet]

About five or six years ago my neighbors’s house burned up in an instant. It was a very windy day. I guess we saw the smoke and walked to the corner. We beat fire trucks, and the house was already gone. His story was that the draft reversed, flame came out of the stove intake. IDK anything about his stove or chimney details, but I remember the wind that day. A reverse draft happened to him for whatever reason, and it was as real as a heart attack.

There are diagrams out there on the internets of wind blowing against the side of a house opposite the side the OAK is on, causing negative pressure in the house and the draft to reverse. The idea of an OAK has some appeal to me in terms of efficiency, but that is too scary for me. It’s definitely not anything to mess around with, and the OAK has to be lower than the stove. Personally I wouldn’t even do it then unless the stove wouldn’t work without it.

I’ve got a PH too. I find it isn’t drawing much air that I can feel, really ever. When the range hood is on, I can feel that. I can feel cold drafts pulling in from all sides, very clear from the range hood. With this stove I don’t notice it at all. Low CFM I guess. I think the old Jotul had a higher CFM, because I think I could feel drafts when that was really pulling. And Woodstock overall does not seem to be a fan of OAKs in the little bit I’ve talked to them about it.

 

[DBoon]

You definitely don't want the air inlet (via and OAK or otherwise) to be higher than the bottom of the stove to avoid encouraging a reverse draft situation (my understanding - others can elaborate better).

I too heard the tepid response from Woodstock about the OAK. Mine works fine. Maybe Woodstock is wary of them because people install them wrong and then they are blamed when the house burns down?

My OAK comes horizontally in through solid masonry and the inlet (on the outside) is surrounded by solid masonry for many, many feet. There is no scenario where a backdraft might cause the house to burn down (unless the OAK inlet pipe burned through on the inside of the house, and even then, that is surrounded by solid masonry - I'd have smoke and a mess, but an intact house).