Windy shut-down

[jlawson]

Have a six year old Whitfield Advantage ll-T Classic FS pellet stove. Has a horizontal chimney out the northwest side of the house. Works great EXCEPT when the wind is blowing hard out of the north and out of the west. Stove will start-up O.K., blowers etc...and red "feed" light will come on, but will not drop any pellets. I believe the pressure switch is sensing back pressure. The ONLY happens when it's windy. I have in the past, (have fought this since new), pulled the orange rubber hose off the pressure switch and it will feed under windy circumstances. I can feel a breeze through the pellet feed whole when windy, unfortunately, I have yet to find anyone locally that knows much about these things. Spoke to the vendor I purchased from, he said he knew a guy that build a blockade around his chimney exhaust. Put an elbow on the outside last year, and this weekend put up some metal shelving around three sides of chimney. Cleaned the exhaust tube, pulled firebrick and vacuumed out, all to no avail. Very frustrating, had a blizzard here in Lincoln NE over Christmas and was not able to use my stove until yesterday when the wind finally died down! Do I need to put up some type of "igloo" contraption around my exhaust?
-I'm by no means any expert on these things, so any words of advice or references would be extremely appreciated.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

You might have some luck by placing something that can act as a baffle several feet from the vent. This should cause the wind to go around the vent instead of directly at it.



* *
* *
* *
vent * baffle
* *
* *
* *


Just make sure that the baffle is at least 2 feet from the end of the vent. I'd also recommend that the vent be pointing downward at less than 90 degrees.

The goal is to provide a wind free zone around the vent. You have to pay careful attention to anything that can channel wind towards the vent, in other words the baffle has to actually be in the winds path near the vent.

If you have an OAK you will need to do a similar thing only this time it is to stop the wind from blowing across the OAK intake.

 

[WoodPorn]

How abput one of these?

Vacu Stack Wind Caps

 

[WoodPorn]

Or one of these if you've got a 4" vent

This one actually creates vacuum when the wind blows

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Are those for use as horizontal termination caps?

 

[WoodPorn]

Oh...My bad, missed that part.

 

[Fish On]

Smokey love the diagram!

That should work for you.

 

[imacman]

IMO, changing from a purely horizontal pipe setup to one that includes 3-4' of vertical, and a proper cap should help this. Even better if the end could be above a roof at least 1-2'.

 

[Fsappo]

How about a 4-5' vertical with a 90 away from the house and a jet cap?

 

[jlawson]

Folks,
Thanks for all of the good suggestions.
This A.M. I installed a 3ft vertical pipe with a 90 degree elbow. Now this evening, we are in another winter storm with strong NW winds and once again the stove has stopped feeding pellets with the red feed light on as usual. I'm totally bummed and at a loss. One question I have is that the "cap"I have on it resembles the ones that would be on the outside of your house for your dryer. Is that a "Jet Cap"? If not what is a Jet Cap? Maybe that's what I still need.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Can you post a picture of the vent, vent cap, and the area the vent is in.

Not likely that what you are describing is a jet cap.

You still have your vent pointed into the wind, you need to protect that vent from being actually hit by that wind.

 

[WoodPorn]

I would say more vertical run with a vertical cap. (is this not possible?)