Key Damper With Rear Vent Wood Stove

[kvesi122]

Hi All,

Pardon the newbie question but is it safe to run a key damper on a rear venting wood stove? Quadrafire Cape Cod with a 1.5' rear vent run leading into a T-cleanout and then 24ft of vertical single wall pipe run through a clay lined exterior chimney.

I'm getting really strong draft on cold nights and shorter burn times than expected with 2 year seasoned red oak.

The stove gets nice and hot but I can't control the secondaries with the air shut. If I close things down on a small coal bed after climbing to 450 it can get up to 750 depending on the temp/wind outside.

Thank you!

 

[begreen]

Do you have a temp guage on the stove pipe? It could be the stove needs to be turned down sooner. Stove temp is not a good guide for this on a cold start. How thick are the splits that are being loaded? How tightly packed are they?

 

[kvesi122]

Tightly packed with 4 inch+ spits mixed in with 1-2 6 inch splits. Using an IR gun on the stove pipe just before the T registers a 320-350 degree temp.

If I turn down the stove sooner it slowly creeps up to a strong secondary burn that can't be shut down (45 mins later).

 

[bholler]

You absolutely can run a key damper with a rear vent stove. But with 24' of external clay lined chimney you should not have to at all. I would check all of your gaskets etc for leaks. Something just doesn't add up

 

[begreen]

It is the nature of secondary burn to get hotter as it kicks in. Try starting to close the air in increments when the surface stove pipe temp is around 200-250º.

 

[kvesi122]

I'll give that a shot! Thank you

 

[Woody Stover]

I have a surface meter lying on the stainless tee snout on my rear-vent setup. I also have a key damper but don't use it, with only 17' of chimney.

24ft of vertical single wall pipe

That's rigid stainless chimney, right, not connector pipe?

 

[kvesi122]

The single wall pipe leading to the T from the back of the stove is rigid. About 1.5-2 ft above the T is where the stainless flex liner was fed down from the top and connected. ~24 ft of 6” vertical flex liner running inside the clay lined chimney (exterior) uninsulated.

 

[Woody Stover]

Tightly packed with 4 inch+ spits mixed in with 1-2 6 inch splits.

Thicker splits will off-gas slower, and slow the burn some.

 

[kvesi122]

Thank you all for the advice! I loaded larger splits and cut the air down sooner on loads facing E-W and the burn is way more controlled.