venting. up or down?

[crazytrain]

hello all! newbie here. We had our stove installed in Feb. 2011. HUGE savings over fuel oil. We bought the Harmon p-45 multifuel. We have been burning wood pellets thus far. Now for the question. When the piping was installed it goes straight out and a cap on the end with vent pointing down. Now a lot of heat is escaping through the vent so I wondered if i took the piping vertical and capped the top( with small gap) would that send more heat back out to the blower in the front? Or, if there are any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate any help.
Thanks in advance for your time.

 

[DexterDay]

Going vertical on your flue will only improve your draft and "Maybe" the way your stove burns. But the amount of heat should not change. By "Small gap", I hope you are not referring to restricting your airflow in the flue. This could be dangerous. Maybe I mis-read the post. But the flue pipe is meant to be Wide Open. Your heat output comes from your Heat Exchanger. Keeping your stove clean and on a steady maintenance schedule will give you the most heat

 

[arnash]

Unfortunately, pellet stove design allows a lot of heat to "escape" via the exhaust system. The only way to capture some of it is to have a fair amount of vent pipe inside your house and a few small fans blowing on the pipe to draw the pipe heat into the air inside the house. I do that and my exhaust temp. is cooler as a result than it would be otherwise. But my set-up is experimental and temporary. Next year I'll be lacking the additional heat. The best heat extractor would be some kind of water jacket surrounding the pipe, but such a device doesn't exist.
As DexterDay warns, you can't increase the heat exchanger output buy restricting the vent exhaust because the "wind" in the combustion chamber is the same "wind" coming out the exhaust. Restricting it would back-up the air in the whole system, so the burn pot/grate wouldn't get the amount of fast moving air it needs to produce that hot, clean pellet stove combustion. Also, the stove has a separate blower for the heat blown out of the front of the stove, it passes through the heat exchanger and doesn't go into the exhaust.

 

[johnnycomelately]

Hey Crazy train- "All aboard. Ha Ha Ha Ha HaHaaaa" O.K. Just goofing. But seriously.
Do not try to alter the installation or restrict the cumbustion air flow. I hate pushing heat outside too, it just sucks. But ist just all part of the game. Congrats on the new stove and way to go with the Harman. Nice taste. Enjoy the heat.

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

Do not alter the way the pipe was designed to be installed. Follow all the manufacturers installation instructions. Going straight out the wall is approved for many pellet stoves and works fine as long as you have power, but it doesn't allow for a natural draft if your power goes out. This can result in smoke coming back into the house if your exhaust fan quites working while you still have pellets smoldering in the burn pot. For this reason, I recommend going out the wall and up at least a few feet so you have a natural draft to carry the smoke out if you loose power. People have experienced smoke damage in a room from this happening.

 

[kinsmanstoves]

75% of our installs the pipe will go straight out. If there is a problem with wind then add a vertical rise. A lot of dealers will press the vertical rise because the more pipe you buy the more profit they make. Just like car dealers and all the add ons they attempt to sell you at closing.

Eric

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

can the combustion air be adjusted?

On some stoves there is an intake air damper, on others the combustion fan is in complete control and there is no damper, some stoves can operate in both modes, some stoves have a none variable combustion blower that runs wide open all the time air control on these stoves is strictly via the damper and it needs to change for each heat setting.

In other words it depends upon the specific stove.