Will a stove create draft without a flue?

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ThorazineShuffle

New Member
Dec 24, 2009
2
Indy
I just bought my first stove, it's for my garage. It is a 1981 Ember Hearth insert. The stove was pretty dirty inside when I brought it home. So I decided to take it outside, and get a good hot fire inside before I installed it. It seemed to draft well with the doors open, but when I closed them the fire would die down, and it would start pumping smoke out of the exhaust. Any Ideas???
 

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The answer is no, it needs a flue of appropriate length to operate properly. Even for a "test run" or curing a new finish, you should stick at least a 6' section of stovepipe on it. Also at issue is your intended placement of it in a garage. It's quite common that solid fuel-burning appliances are not allowed in garages. Best check into the local regs concerning such installations before proceeding. Rick

ETA: With a used stove, you really don't know what the heck you're dealing with until you've very thoroughly cleaned it out and inspected it. Could well be that other factors are keeping it from burning well in addition to the fact that you provided no flue for proper draft.
 
fossil said:
The answer is no, it needs a flue of appropriate length to operate properly. Even for a "test run" or curing a new finish, you should stick at least a 6' section of stovepipe on it. Also at issue is your intended placement of it in a garage. It's quite common that solid fuel-burning appliances are not allowed in garages. Best check into the local regs concerning such installations before proceeding. Rick

ETA: With a used stove, you really don't know what the heck you're dealing with until you've very thoroughly cleaned it out and inspected it. Could well be that other factors are keeping it from burning well in addition to the fact that you provided no flue for proper draft.

Pretty much summed up everything I would have said . . . a) it needs a flue of some sort to maintain the fire, b) garage placements may or may not be allowed and c) while I might suspect the reason the fire dies is the lack of a flue there could be other issues associated with buying a used stove.
 
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