Wood-burning stove

Beowulf said:
Does anyone here use a barometric damper on the flue? It makes a difference, you know.
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What does it do?
 
Audiofuzzy said:
Maybe in US the laws are different, that's why.

Fuzzy
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Yes, the laws in the US are different. Some parts of the country maybe you can't use woodstove, I don't know, but most places I know about, it's fine.

When we first built our house we put in radiant floor heat with a corn boiler- the corn boiler burns corn in the garage, and then heats water which runs through the pipes in the floor. It was nice when it worked, but we had trouble with it all the time. My husband felt like he was babysitting it all the time he was home.
Now we have a woodstove. Our wood is free, it grows on our property. We live about 90 miles from Chicago, and have a really huge house, so it's not that warm in here. We wear sweaters, warm socks, and our soon to be 16 year old likes to have a heating pad under her covers. Sometimes we use hot water bottles under the covers, or socks filled with buckwheat and heated in the microwave and then put under the blankets.
 
diehardbiker said:
I am not sure about it, I do have small issues and not sure if barometric would solve the problem. The problem is backbuffing. I hate backbuffing because it create so much smoke around my house. It does not happen often. maybe once or twice a month. I never had issues with backbuffing with other woodstoves that I dealt with in the past.
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What is backbuffing?
 
Its like reverse flow though chimney. we are not exact sure why it is happening with my stove. I never seen like this before. Research and there is not much answer out there. Hope find out what cause it and fix it.

I am aware of carbon monoxide and do have two carbon monoxide detectors and one of them have the digital read out and I monitoring it so far. If anything goes wrong, it will trigger both alarm system causing whole house flashing.

Reba said:
What is backbuffing?
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diehardbiker said:
Its like reverse flow though chimney. we are not exact sure why it is happening with my stove. I never seen like this before. Research and there is not much answer out there. Hope find out what cause it and fix it.
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Maybe the original flue was not engineered right?????
 
Reba said:
What does it do?
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If the suction in your chimney is more than you need, the wood burns faster. The damper rotates open and closes the valve inside it, so the wood burns longer.
 
diehardbiker said:
Its like reverse flow though chimney. we are not exact sure why it is happening with my stove. I never seen like this before. Research and there is not much answer out there. Hope find out what cause it and fix it.

I am aware of carbon monoxide and do have two carbon monoxide detectors and one of them have the digital read out and I monitoring it so far. If anything goes wrong, it will trigger both alarm system causing whole house flashing.
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Does your flue go straight up through the roof?
 
No, gone though wall to outside and gone straight up.

Its brand new, and its been installed correct and strictly followed manufacturer guidelines.

last week and two weeks ago it works perfectly and had no issue. Until last night when mercury decided to drop too far. Noticed more back puffing. Made sure upstairs windows are closed and crack open downstairs window. Thought negative pressure may be issue, but it seems not helping. I had to "Almost close" the draft entry and it gets better but the stove cools down too fast. I have the flue damper and have always been and always leave it close during normal operation. Now I had to crack it open few degrees and it seems to help a bit.


Beowulf said:
Does your flue go straight up through the roof?
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diehardbiker said:
No, gone though wall to outside and gone straight up.

Its brand new, and its been installed correct and strictly followed manufacturer guidelines.
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But that's the problem. I finally solved the backbuffing problem by making the flue go straight up. And yeah, I know the flue is expensive, something like $25 a foot.
 
Beowulf said:
But that's the problem. I finally solved the backbuffing problem by making the flue go straight up. And yeah, I know the flue is expensive, something like $25 a foot.
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Or you may be starting the fire too quickly. If you have a cold wood stove and get it hot too quickly, it creates a vacuum inside. Slowly build the fire up. Heating a wood stove too quickly can warp it.
 
Beowulf said:
But that's the problem. I finally solved the backbuffing problem by making the flue go straight up. And yeah, I know the flue is expensive, something like $25 a foot.
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Straight up means poor efficiency, though, doesn't it?
 
Yeah, 25 a foot is lowest cost! You might be right, because the stove pipe goes up about 3 feet and goes 90 degrees into the wall and it is about 6 feet long before going up. I am thinking of possible make it two 45 degree so less horizontal travel, more of going lean up. Wait! friend of mine is worse than me, He set up flue horizontal little more than twice longer than mine and he don't have issues. He got little moe "All nighter" stove Real nice one.

Having it going straight up is not good option for me, because code requires protective enclosure in between floors which kills expensive real estate space.

Beowulf said:
But that's the problem. I finally solved the backbuffing problem by making the flue go straight up. And yeah, I know the flue is expensive, something like $25 a foot.
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Not really, because woodstove have more radiant space exposed to inside where fireplace, there is not much radiant space to exposure. Woodstove, it radiant front, back, both sides and top, while fireplace radiant from just front. That is how the efficient of woodstove improved significant over fireplace.

Tousi said:
Straight up means poor efficiency, though, doesn't it?
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Beowulf said:
If the suction in your chimney is more than you need, the wood burns faster. The damper rotates open and closes the valve inside it, so the wood burns longer.
Click to expand...

Our wood stove has a vent on each side to regulate the rate of burn along with a flat damper to control the amount of suction up the flue. In the evening, I close the side vents and the fire dies down.

The fireplace damper was completely removed to prevent it from accidentally closing. There is no place to add an automatic damper like the pictures.
 
TinCanSailor said:
Our wood stove has a vent on each side to regulate the rate of burn along with a flat damper to control the amount of suction up the flue. In the evening, I close the side vents and the fire dies down.

The fireplace damper was completely removed to prevent it from accidentally closing. There is no place to add an automatic damper like the pictures.
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Interesting.
By the way, we have been calling it back buffing. It is back puffing. :Oops:

It has been a couple years since I used a wood stove, but I found an intereesting site, and I hope it helps everyone here: Sweep's Library - Woodstove back-puffs when banking the fire
 
Tonight is the worst night with woodstove, and it is the coldest night as well. Right now it is 5 degrees outside. Last night was 14 degree and I was able to manage though ok with some back buffs, and maintain 78-80 degrees. Now my house stuck at 73-74 and more back buffs. Interesting, because I thought the greater relativity with temperature, chimney should suck harder but apparently the opposite.
 
Exactly what I mean, yeah interesting. Sometimes I do feel like stove is trying to vibrate when freight train passing by (That is when it back puffs).

Apparently I did solve half of the problem couple months ago by not open two doors at same time. I have two front door that swing wide open. Hmmm thank god I don't have glass window because if whuffing gets bad, it can break the glass and Im stuck with "Oh shit!"

Guess Im going to experiment more.

Beowulf said:
Interesting.
By the way, we have been calling it back buffing. It is back puffing. :Oops:

It has been a couple years since I used a wood stove, but I found an intereesting site, and I hope it helps everyone here: Sweep's Library - Woodstove back-puffs when banking the fire
Click to expand...
 
Beowulf said:
Or you may be starting the fire too quickly. If you have a cold wood stove and get it hot too quickly, it creates a vacuum inside. Slowly build the fire up. Heating a wood stove too quickly can warp it.
Click to expand...

I wasn't thinking when I wrote this. :roll: Building a fire too quickly doesn't create a vaccum. I meant to say too much smoke, up to a point.
 
Looks like I finally got it running smoothly, guess since outside is darn cold, meaning need open the draft wider to produce more heat to deal with colder outside. Meaning more logs would be needed. Oh well.

I have two magnetic thermostats on the flue that enables me monitor aflue temperature for two reasons, creosote and chimney fire. If the aflue on bottom constantly in creosote area, I will be buying trouble later on. On the top one, make sure it is not over fire too long since it is like flirting with chimney fire.
 
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