Is an outdoor air kit really needed? Let me hear from you.....

[kinsmanstoves]

Let me first say this, YES I am on the outdoor air kit's side of the fence. I do feel they work in favor of the stove most of the time but they do have problems for the stove. Such as condensation and a second hole in the house on certain installs.

Now let me make this point.

Does your clothes dryer have an outdoor air kit? It has a much larger blower that sucks in air from the house and blows it outside (NG and LP dryers have combustion and electric is an element). I am trying to get everyone's thinking on this so, "Sound off like you have a pair!".

Eric

 

[imacman]

<beep beep> Yes, I think OAK's are a good thing.....less already heated air going out the exhaust, and less cold outside air getting pulled into the house. I especially like the wall thimble's that have the OAK built in....only 1 hole to make then. <beep beep>

 

[MCPO]

Let me first say this, YES I am on the outdoor air kit's side of the fence. I do feel they work in favor of the stove most of the time but they do have problems for the stove. Such as condensation and a second hole in the house on certain installs.

Now let me make this point.

Does your clothes dryer have an outdoor air kit? It has a much larger blower that sucks in air from the house and blows it outside (NG and LP dryers have combustion and electric is an element). I am trying to get everyone's thinking on this so, "Sound off like you have a pair!".

Eric

No, my dryer doesn`t have an OAK . Neither do my bath fans or oil furnace but just how much more exhausted air can you keep adding before it`s pressure become problematic? Enough is enough.
I think common sense has to prevail.

 

[Shane]

In some cases they work quite well, but I would say 40% that I installed complained about the draft when the stove wasnt running.

 

[Xena]

Things worked better for me with outside air.
You can read more about how [url"https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/25479/']here[/url]

 

[stoveguy2esw]

im a serious OAK supporter.

first, less leakage in through little cracks , actually zero pressure differential ceates positive pressure which further marginalizes leaks , second , why make heat then dump it outside, and third , in a neagtive pressure environment why give the stove an easy method of dumping smoke into the house in the event of a power outage.

as for the dryer, if its less efficient you can just run it longer, but if my dryer had OAK capability , i'd have hooked one to it.

bottom line , advantages far and away outweigh disadvantages when looking at an OAK

 

[stoveguy2esw]

In some cases they work quite well, but I would say 40% that I installed complained about the draft when the stove wasnt running.

what draft? is the OAK directly connected? is the intake a sealed system? where is the draft coming from?

 

[staplebox]

yup - yes - indeed - affirmative- correct - ideally

Site wouldn't let me post a simple 'yup'. Forum not set up for the monosyllabic.

 

[BJ64]

I am required to have the OAK but I did not install one. I get by fine with out it but that is my situation and everybody else has a different situation.

I do believe the experts that invented this are right. On the other hand I'm a fresh air guy with a fresh air family. We have the windows open all the time - even now. We hate shutting up the house for the AC.

For me the benefit of supplying my own wood is I can heat the house and have the windows cracked open and it dose not kill the pocket book. I skipped the OAK and it gives the stale air someplace to go. Oops! this is pellet town - sorta like being a cowboy in a sheep herder's bar.

 

[krooser]

I have outside air as recommended by my dealer... but only one hole in the wall since my vent is both intake and exhaust...

 

[crausch]

One other useless point. If your house is tight, then all the air being sucked out is creating a negative pressure. If you have an OAK or a not so tight house, the pressure in your house with stay somewhat equal. In other words if you open a door or window, you wont get a swoosh of air coming in. If your house builds negative air pressure by all the air being sucked out, the pressure creates sort of a imploding effect. If you have a short run direct vent and you have negative house pressure, when the electric goes out, the sucking is released and the negative pressure tries to equalize by drawing air back in. Well, thats probably why some direct vent setups get smoke in the house when the electric goes out.

 

[squib]

after installing my us 6220 corn/pellet furnace i ran it for two weeks using inside room air for combustion, then i installed the o.a.k. & made a direct connection to the furnace WOW what a difference it made on combustion & heat output.

with a direct connection i`m not concerned about cold air spilling in the basement when the furnace is off.

for me, it works great..

 

[richkorn]

Well, My dealer said I didn't need one and Travis Industries (Lopi) Tech Support said It wasn't necessary either except for mobile homes. My Leyden sits on the hearth in front of my prefab fireplace and vents 25' up the existing 8" flue with 4" ForeverFlex liner. The only way I could have put in an OAK, as far as I could see, was to run that line around the fireplace and out the wall (How ugly would that be), or cut a hole in the back of the firebox on the prefab and out the back of house. That would alter my fireplace to be unusable and would most likely void my homeowners insurance. I'm sure the building inspector wouldn't have liked that either. Can't go up 8" flue either, it's sealed at the top now.

It's 70 in my house right now in an adjacent hallway to the stove and I don't feel any drafts coming through that I wouldn't normally feel without the stove running-basically none.

No OAK here, no problem.

 

[j00fek]

my uncle just had to unhook his because of condensation buildup and it was being sucked into his stove, leading to bad burns.

so its still a 50/50 thing for me...do i cut another hole to have to unhook it later do to condensation...? it get's under 10deg every night now and if your pulling in air that has 60-70 deg diff youll have problems...

its just one of those things

 

[Shane]

In some cases they work quite well, but I would say 40% that I installed complained about the draft when the stove wasnt running.

what draft? is the OAK directly connected? is the intake a sealed system? where is the draft coming from?

Typically from the intake tube between the firebox and the back of the stove. Several stove models had holes in the tube to accomodate high limit switches etc. Not a solid tube.

 

[Lobstah]

In some cases they work quite well, but I would say 40% that I installed complained about the draft when the stove wasnt running.

The OAK on my Lopi has the equivalent of a damper in it. Feel a draft when the stove isn't running? First, I'd say you've got a leak in the stove somewhere, but beyond that, close the damper.

And yeah...I don't see how anyone can argue against them...just common sense. I don't care how many OTHER things you have that pull cold air into the house?...why add one more?

Jim (...I have a pair of boxers...do they count?)

 

[Lance1]

I'm for an OAK, mainly because the room heat is sucked out without it. The drawback with an OAK on my stove is in teen temps, it takes forever to light with an igniter if I don't have the damper closed.

I have a vent on my electric dryer, but I plug it with some insulation (inside a bag) when not in use. Sounds like a good heat/humidity source disconnecting the OAK. But one would have to pipe it into the room, otherwise the high humidity would rust out the dryer.

 

[canyon453]

My comments may only apply to the Enviro Empress model

Here's something I learned about the Enviro Empress and the OAK input, this may or may not be true for all Enviro models. If I had known this I would not have purchased the Empress stove. I was under the impression that the purpose of the OAK is to provide a sealed unit from the air intake outside the house to the exhaust outlet outside the house, thus not using inside air to feed the combustion chamber. However this is NOT case with the Empress stove. The outside air intake only pipes the air into the shroud under the pellet hopper, this shroud has many, many ventilation slots cut into for room air to be sucked in, this pretty much makes OAK useless in my opinion.

 

[imacman]

In some cases they work quite well, but I would say 40% that I installed complained about the draft when the stove wasnt running.

what draft? is the OAK directly connected? is the intake a sealed system? where is the draft coming from?

Typically from the intake tube between the firebox and the back of the stove. Several stove models had holes in the tube to accomodate high limit switches etc. Not a solid tube.

I don't know if this is true of all Travis Ind. pellet stoves, but my '05 Astoria has a hole (1 1/2 x 1 1/2") in the side of the square air inlet that is for the OAK. It has 2 self tapping screws in holes just above it, that do nothing. It looks like a cover was supposed to be over it, but when I called to talk to the Tech guys at Travis, they said to "leave it open".

So, in essence, I have an OAK that only partly uses outside air.

I can see where some cold air can come in through that into the house when the stove is off.

Any other Avalon/Lopi owners have the same hole on their air tube?

 

[Shane]

They're all that way, so were Whitfields.

 

[alexdrozd]

I have a Quad 1200i installed in a zero clearance fireplace. The fireplace insert was installed initially with a lever inside that opens up a damper to the outside of the house allowing fresh air in. With the pellet stove running, I have opened and closed this damper numerous times and felt and saw no difference in flame size and/or heat produced from the pellet stove. I see no need for it myself.

 

[imacman]

They're all that way, so were Whitfields.

So your saying Shane that ALL pellet stoves have a hole in the "OAK" tube that runs from the back of the stove to the firebox? I didn't know that.

 

[slls]

When I shut my stove down for the holidays, Christmas tree is on the stove. I could feel a draft at the window air wash, so I plugged the intake and vent, no draft.

 

[Dougsey]

They're all that way, so were Whitfields.

So your saying Shane that ALL pellet stoves have a hole in the "OAK" tube that runs from the back of the stove to the firebox? I didn't know that.

Some have a closed system... Harman and Englander for example.

Using an OAK that just connects to the back cover is silly, imo. You may as well just crack a window.

 

[StrangeRanger]

We got our first pellet stove this year. I ran it in Nov and up until 2 days ago w/out an OAK. Sitting on the floor in the room you could literally feel the cool air being sucked towards the stove. This may be good for convection, but it made playing on the floor w/ our kids chilly and made for cold feet. Had the OAK installed 2 days and notice a very nice difference. No cold, sucking, draft feeling All is good.
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