OAK?

[fmsm]

Whether the hot air in your flue comes from the house or the outside , you are paying for the pellets which heat it.
If you preheat this air with a concentric flue system the stove will be a percent or so more efficient : you will burn fewer pellets.
I prefer to have an OAK to avoid cold drafts around my feet , a question of comfort , but does this matter in a basement ?

When you burn without an OAK the air is replaced from outside. This not only creates drafts but is also very inefficient.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

The OAK arguments can get quite "heated" <n'yuk> at times, and most often quite comical. Every warm blooded animal or person in a house breathes in oxygen, and breathes out carbon dioxide. Yet no one addresses how to get that much needed oxygen replaced in a sealed up tight house. The clothes driers also need air in and expel heat outside of the house. Where does that air come from? The cooking range fan takes heat out of the house. A gas hot water heater needs air for the burn, and it too has a chimney taking heat out of the house. A fire place which is very common in houses does not have an OAK, and they take a lot of heated air up the chimney.

Yet, never a mention of these issues, just the poor pellet stove takes all of the............."heat".

 

[fmsm]

The OAK arguments can get quite "heated" <n'yuk> at times, and most often quite comical. Every warm blooded animal or person in a house breathes in oxygen, and breathes out carbon dioxide. Yet no one addresses how to get that much needed oxygen replaced in a sealed up tight house. The clothes driers also need air in and expel heat outside of the house. Where does that air come from? The cooking range fan takes heat out of the house. A gas hot water heater needs air for the burn, and it too has a chimney taking heat out of the house. A fire place which is very common in houses does not have an OAK, and they take a lot of heated air up the chimney.

Yet, never a mention of these issues, just the poor pellet stove takes all of the............."heat".

The only item you mentioned that “pulls in” a significant amount of volume is a clothes dryer, for mine I have a Panasonic fan that also pulls fresh air in through baffles next to the extinguished air that moderates the temperature while replacing the exhaust. A house that is sealed too tightly is not healthy.