outside air kit?

[ad356]

im heating my house with a uss stove company 5510. my neighbor did the install last year. he has the same stove and told me that the outside air kit isnt necessary. im fairly happy with the stove but i struggled last year when the outside temp was sub zero. i was wondering if the outside air kit has any merit and what its purpose really is. will it make the stove any more efficient, produce any more heat or make it burn better? my house is a 1,500 sq ft farm house and is fairly drafty. the stove is my only real source of heat since my furance is an old oil burner that was converted to natural gas long before i bought the house, its really an old piece of junk that i dont even bother to keep the pilot lit on. its only used in extreme emergencies. thing is that my wife is now pregnant and i want to make sure this old house is warm enough by next winter for the new baby. the previous owners were using an old wood stove to heat the house but we removed it becuase the chimney is unsafe since it has seen many chimney fires. the previous owners were too bright and they were "cleaning" the chimney by intentionally allowing chimney fires to burn..... very dangerous.

anyways i was wondering if the outside air kit would give me an improvement. as it is right now in the coldest days, we can keep the house in the low 60's on the coldest days with the stove running on max. i would like to get the house to be in the high 60's, low 70's on the coldest days.

if i cant achieve that, then probably by next winter i will buy a us stove hotblast furance and burn coal in it. i refuse to invest in any natural gas furnace, national fuel is a total rip off in ny state. they pump the gas full of air in the winter and charge even more for it when you need it most. that orange flicker you see on your gas stove burner explains it all. i would prefer to continue to use my pellet stove as my only source of heat since it almost paid for in full but want this house warm enough for a newborn child next winter.

if worst came to worst i would use the pellet stove as a secondary source of heat or maybe install it in the garage if i decide i need more heat.

the thing i love about the pellet stove the most in filling the hopper every day or two and forgetting about it. it takes care of itself, only requires cleaning every 4-5 days. on the other hand a hotblast would be nice since it can use forced air ducts.


right now the outside temp is in the low 30's, stove is on medium, and the house is a comfortable 70 degrees, if i could get that temp all of the time i would be thrilled.

ps
i did also replace 5 additional windows last year but it hasnt been cold enough to tell the difference. i think it helps already, but its not single digits yet. i only have a couple original windows left now

 

[imacman]

...... i struggled last year when the outside temp was sub zero. i was wondering if the outside air kit has any merit and what its purpose really is. will it make the stove any more efficient, produce any more heat or make it burn better? my house is a 1,500 sq ft farm house and is fairly drafty......

If the house is already very drafty, adding the OAK will not help the stove much.......spend the $$ on insulation and sealing air leaks.

 

[save$]

I agree that adding OAK to a very drafty home will have little impact on improving the heat output of the stove. The stove is getting all the air it needs from all those leaks. But I do think your home will be warmer, Not because of improved functioning of your stove, but by reducing heat loss. You see, without OAK, your stove is using room air that you have heated and intended to keep your home warm. All the exhaust going out the stove's chimney is heated room air being pumped outside. It is replaced by cold air being sucked in through all those drafty leaks. Would you put a fan in an open window or leave a bathroom exhaust fan running 24/7 when you are trying to heat a room? You can get an OAK kit for about $36 from www.dynamitebuys.com. I have a well insulated home. But I have no delusions that I can heat my home during outside sub zero temps with only my pellet stove I do have forced hot air that will kick in for a few minutes when the outside temp goes below 15 F. Only runs a few minutes, but without it, I am sure the house would get very cool and have a hard time ever getting up to temp. There are many low cost things you can do to limit or stops air leaks. They are often quick and easy. I would jump right on those and then plan to do other interventions to have your home properly insulated. That will be your best dollar spent, and bring you your best comfort level regardless of your heating source. Once that is done, then your stove will burn better with OAK

 

[North of 60]

they pump the gas full of air in the winter and charge even more for it when you need it most. that orange flicker you see on your gas stove burner explains it all.

:lol: Thats quite an imagination you have there. That outcome at the burner you just described is not remotely the characteristic's you would see. It aint happening. BUT If your Country's government had standards that slack in the weights and measures department on fuel that private utilities can fool there own American people on a tight budget that heat their homes with, then I would say ,your in TROUBLE and I would be embarrassed. :red:

 

[ad356]

i will steer clear of anything fueled by natural gas. i have heard far to many horror stories on the expense of heating a house with gas. anyways, when i bought the pellet stove i really thought it would be enough. the pellet stove that i own is rated for 50,000 btu's and is supposed to heat a house that is 1,750 sq feet, unless that is false adervertising? it will keep the house at a livable temperature, but when its extremely cold outside the house will remain cool. how much would it cost to install a hotblast furance in my house? i like that idea, but i dont know how much the piping would cost? if i had something like that, i would have 2 sources of heat. the hotblast furance is 130,000 btu. the cost of the furance isnt bad, tractor supply usually has them for around 1,000 but i have feeling that the chimney will cost more than the furance.

not only do i not like the gas company, but my basement is old and damp. i dont think a modern gas furance loaded with electronics would like it. oh, yeah and the temperature goes down suddenly they over-estimate our gas bill. we use the same amount of gas summer or winter, it does not matter. november rolls around, and they bill us and estimated 60 bucks for november when we only used $35. i will use gas only to heat hot water.

how does coal heat and how does it compare to pellets?

 

[tjnamtiw]

how does coal heat and how does it compare to pellets?

When I lived in Pa., we had a small, 1200 sq ft home that was built very poorly. I put a free standing, Franco Belge (sp?) coal stove in the living room and vents in the ceiling to the upstairs. Using 3 tons of coal, I kept the house at 80+ all winter. Coal today in the Reading, Pa area is about $180 a ton if you pick it up, which I used to do.

If you take any of the heat calculators you find referenced here (search), you will see that coal beats EVERYTHING by a long shot. It's also a very steady heat. The stove I had, however, just kept heating with no on and off control. You could control the fire with the draft, but you had to keep a decent bed of coals. Also you had to make sure you got good coal with a low ash content or it would clog the grates.

There is nothing prettier than a bed of coal burning with the blue flames dancing over the red coals. If I could buy coal down here in Ga, I would toss these pellet stoves in a minute. Well, maybe not toss them...........but sell them. :red:

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

i will steer clear of anything fueled by natural gas. i have heard far to many horror stories on the expense of heating a house with gas. anyways, when i bought the pellet stove i really thought it would be enough. the pellet stove that i own is rated for 50,000 btu's and is supposed to heat a house that is 1,750 sq feet, unless that is false adervertising? it will keep the house at a livable temperature, but when its extremely cold outside the house will remain cool. how much would it cost to install a hotblast furance in my house? i like that idea, but i dont know how much the piping would cost? if i had something like that, i would have 2 sources of heat. the hotblast furance is 130,000 btu. the cost of the furance isnt bad, tractor supply usually has them for around 1,000 but i have feeling that the chimney will cost more than the furance.

not only do i not like the gas company, but my basement is old and damp. i dont think a modern gas furance loaded with electronics would like it. oh, yeah and the temperature goes down suddenly they over-estimate our gas bill. we use the same amount of gas summer or winter, it does not matter. november rolls around, and they bill us and estimated 60 bucks for november when we only used $35. i will use gas only to heat hot water.

how does coal heat and how does it compare to pellets?

You need to understand that that heats a x square foot figure is a heats up to x square feet depending upon climate and HOUSE construction. If you have a drafty house you are for all intents attempting to heat the out doors.

The OAK will help reduce the amount of outside air infiltrating your house. It will also prevent some of the air you are heating with that stove from going up the vent.

No matter what you do if the net heat output of the heating device (those figures btw are gross input firing rates not net heat output) does not meet the heat loss of your house at the lowest temperature for your location it won't be able to hold temperature let alone raise it on those cold days.

 

[curtthegreat]

Are you using any ceiling fans to move the heat off the ceiling? I have an old farmhouse also, and no OAK. Our house is somewhat insulated (but some cold spots yet), with new windows. We heat the place with pellet stove only, and house is always warm/hot (wife). If someone shuts the ceiling fans off by mistake, the temp will drop quite a bit in the other rooms, and someone gets an ear full (wife).

 

[Don2222]

Hello

It is true an outside air kit (OAK as we call it) does not change the stoves performance. However I have found that with an outside air kit, the stove heated my house up faster because it was not pulling cold air in the house from all the cracks and then sending it up the flue. Therefore I have installed an outside air kit on my Oil Boiler and the Pellet Stove.

The issue I have found is that when the Wood Pellet Stove is on the lowest heat settings, it does not like cold air for the fire. I have a little ash build up in the burn pot. Therefore I recommend a longer inside run (10 - 15 feet but no longer) to temper the air before it goes into the pellet stove for the very best results.

My boiler expert recommended a 10 foot OAK for the oil boiler also.

Now warm air does not have as much oxygen in it as cold air. So if the air in the OAK is tempered, then the intake air setting on the pellet stove should be opened more.

Note: This only applies to the lowest heat setting or 2 lowest heat settings and this is why many stoves have trouble burning the pellets to completion on these low settings. Moisture in the outside air is also big factor. Heating the air does dry it out!

A multi-fuel stove with a pot stirrer helps this situation but not always. The trick is warm air is needed.

My Avalon Astoria has a 1.5 square hole in the intake air plenum inside the stove to pull in heated air. That is their secret that makes even lower quality pellets burn to completion and all the ash jumps out of the burn pot.

That is my 2 cents, but if anyone who does not have the opening in the intake air plenum know of a better way to economically heat the intake air at low heat settings please let me know. Thanks

With the hole open in the air intake plenum there is no ash in the burn pot after any length burn.

Below is a picture of ash in the burn pot after a 24 hour burn with the square hole in intake plenum blocked.
Only a few air holes are still visable!