Installing OAK in Pacific Energy Summit

[Romancommander]

Hi guys,

I recently bought a used Pacific Energy Summit and I am trying to properly install it in my home. I am fairly new to wood stoves so please excuse any dumb questions.

My house is a 30 year old very airtight home without any central air. The old owner had a 30 year old Napoleon wood stove which was drawing air through a hole in a brick wall behind the stove. Since I've removed the Napoleon I can feel quite a bit of cold air coming in through the hole it was connected up to. I am fairly certain it is routed outside somewhere.

My Pacific Energy Summit has two holes on it covered up. There is one on the back which has a sticker saying remove cover for room air. The one on the bottom does not have any sticker.

I would like to hook my stove up to the hole in the wall seeing as it is already there.

I noticed some draft problems with this stove after trying it out. I think they may be because the room air cover is not removed.

I feel the best thing to do is to remove the cover on the back and connect it up to the hole in the fall. What is the best way to remove the cover without damaging the stove. It is fairly hard to remove. Also, just wanted to confirm this is the best way to go about doing things as there is some mention of an optional outside air adaptor.

I have uploaded pictures for reference.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Grimlock13]

If you want to connect it to outside air you need to remove the bottom cover and connect. The back cover is used for room air, bottom outside. As an FYI i have a NEO after some experimenting I have found it burns better with the covers on, go figure.

 

[Romancommander]

Hi Grimlock,

Don't the back and bottom covers lead to the same enclosure underneath the stove?

How do I go about removing the covers? I tried a screwdriver but the top and bottom spots are welded on pretty tight.

 

[Grimlock13]

That's what the manual states, as do the stickers on the plate themselves. I guess how the stoves draws the air in effects which hole is used.
I just popped mine out with the back of a screwdriver handle.

 

[begreen]

You can duct it either way, through the base or back. If the hole is already in the base you can attach an elbow there and metal flex duct to the air connection at the wall. The Summit doesn't have a direct connection to the primary and secondary manifolds from the OAK. The OAK air just dumps into the base of the stove.

Pull out the ashpan and see how the stove was previously setup. Both the bottom and rear air holes dump into the ashpan area of the stove. It's possible the previous owner ducted it from the basement and punched out the bottom knockout. If so, and you want to use the rear connection, metal tape the bottom hole over and open up the rear hole and connect the outside air there. Note that if there is a blower you may need an OAK adapter for the rear connection, or go under the ashpan with a 90º elbow.

From the manual:
The use of outside combustion air for residential installation requires the unit to be secured to the structure to prevent dislodging of the air duct. Outside air may also be ducted from outside through the 4" diameter knockout hole in the rear of the pedestal or leg kit ash box enclosure. If this method of supplying combustion air is used in conjunction with the optional blower kit, an outside air adaptor may be required (see Optional Blower section).

 

[Romancommander]

I ended up drilling out the weld spots and punching out the rear cover. The previous owner did not punch out either cover. The 4 inch steel connections I bought were just an inch short... Gotta go back to the store tomorrow.

 

[begreen]

Even without the outside air connected the stove should perform better having that knockout removed.