Currently shopping for a wood burning stove for a new construction. Will most likely go with a Hearthstone Green Mountain GM60. Watching various videos of folks staring their wood burning stove, I notice they leave the front door cracked while the kindling and smaller logs are burning. Does having an external air-intake eliminate the need of cracking the door open during start-up?
Question on exterior air intake
- Thread starter kevk
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stoveliker
Minister of Fire
The cracked front door is done because of the following.
When the chimney is still cold, the draft is low. To make that low suction still get enough air in to get the fire going, one may have to decrease the resistance that the air encounters when flowing into the stove via the normal (small, tubes) air inlets. One can do this by opening the door, allowing more air with less resistance to get in, making the fire go larger sooner.
An outside air kit in fact increases the path the air has to take to get into the stove, and will increase the resistance the air experiences to get to the fire a bit.
Yet this (an outside air kit) can be beneficial if one's home is so tight that not enough air can leak into the home to replace the air that is sucked into the stove (and thus out of the chimney).
If the home is leaky enough, that's not an issue, and in principle an outside air kit might force you to have the door open just a little longer than if you would not have an outside air kit.
An outside air kit will be a bit more efficient even if you don't have a tight home, because you are not sucking warm room air into the stove and out the chimney (that has to be replaced by cold outside air leaking in through the cracks and leaks in your home) - the outside air kit sucks air through a duct directly into the stove. My advice is to put an outside air kit in if it's feasible (near an outside wall, and the duct can be put in with the opening outside at or below the stove a bit), and if that duct is not aesthetically problematic. (B/c they generally are ugly), i.e. if you can hide it.
I hope this helps in understanding the issues a bit.
When the chimney is still cold, the draft is low. To make that low suction still get enough air in to get the fire going, one may have to decrease the resistance that the air encounters when flowing into the stove via the normal (small, tubes) air inlets. One can do this by opening the door, allowing more air with less resistance to get in, making the fire go larger sooner.
An outside air kit in fact increases the path the air has to take to get into the stove, and will increase the resistance the air experiences to get to the fire a bit.
Yet this (an outside air kit) can be beneficial if one's home is so tight that not enough air can leak into the home to replace the air that is sucked into the stove (and thus out of the chimney).
If the home is leaky enough, that's not an issue, and in principle an outside air kit might force you to have the door open just a little longer than if you would not have an outside air kit.
An outside air kit will be a bit more efficient even if you don't have a tight home, because you are not sucking warm room air into the stove and out the chimney (that has to be replaced by cold outside air leaking in through the cracks and leaks in your home) - the outside air kit sucks air through a duct directly into the stove. My advice is to put an outside air kit in if it's feasible (near an outside wall, and the duct can be put in with the opening outside at or below the stove a bit), and if that duct is not aesthetically problematic. (B/c they generally are ugly), i.e. if you can hide it.
I hope this helps in understanding the issues a bit.
In tight new houses there can be competition for combustion air. Exhaust fans (bath and kitchen, and radon) a dryer, gas or oil furnace, etc. are potential competition. A high volume range hood can definitely compete if it is exhausting 500+cfm. Check with the inspecting authority. In WA state an OAK is required for any installation in new construction.
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