OWB Motorized flue dampers

[Marklambert61]

I'm thinking of putting a motorized flue damper on my heatmor to save wood during off cycles of the burn.
Has anyone tried this before?
Thought? results?

Mark

 

[motoman3b]

Shouldnt need to as long as your door gasket and blower gasket are sealing things off air tight, fire cant happen when its oxygen supply are cut off. I think you would find creosote to cause problems in a motorized flue damper anyways!

 

[OH_Varmntr]

Shouldnt need to as long as your door gasket and blower gasket are sealing things off air tight, fire cant happen when its oxygen supply are cut off. I think you would find creosote to cause problems in a motorized flue damper anyways!

An open flue is a source for oxygen. He's talking about closing it as well to keep the fire from smoldering with the damper shut down. I see the theory behind it, and I know it happens because my OWB will smoke a little bit during idle and I believe that to be from feeding the fire from the flue.

I burn year round, and during the summer I like having it smolder a little between cycles because in the summer there are long periods of time between fire cycles because all I'm heating is my hot water. If the fire goes completely out between the cycles, it won't re-fire or it will take a long time to do so. If the fire keeps going on a small scale, it doesn't take long for the fire to get going again when it is called upon. In the winter, where there's little time between cycles, I'm not sure how much it will help wood consumption.

Like said above, creosote would also pose a problem.

 

[lapeer20m]

i've considered a motorized flue damper that closes even when the draft control is open. When heating with a woodstove, once the fire is going good i tend to leave the flue damper closed and use the draft control to alter the temperature of the room. I find a regular indoor woodstove without a damper to be noticeably more inefficient than the same stove with a damper installed. For this reason, i would like to install one on my owb as an experiment to see if more heat gets transferred into the water rather than lost up the smokestack.

I think it would take some fiddling, and perhaps some logic controls to decide what the proper combination of draft and damper settings provide the longest burn times. Variable draft/damper control motors would be ideal.

 

[zogger]

i've considered a motorized flue damper that closes even when the draft control is open. When heating with a woodstove, once the fire is going good i tend to leave the flue damper closed and use the draft control to alter the temperature of the room. I find a regular indoor woodstove without a damper to be noticeably more inefficient than the same stove with a damper installed. For this reason, i would like to install one on my owb as an experiment to see if more heat gets transferred into the water rather than lost up the smokestack.

I think it would take some fiddling, and perhaps some logic controls to decide what the proper combination of draft and damper settings provide the longest burn times. Variable draft/damper control motors would be ideal.

When I want a longer burn time, I just throw a much larger diameter piece of wood in. I don't even own a damper, stopped using them around..hmmm..73 or so.

Never used or fed an OWB so can't comment on if they need one or not. Haven't had a lick of trouble from regular woodstoves though, since I stopped using a damper. Used to putz with the stoves and pipes all the time, trying to get them to burn well and not be smoky and gunk up stuff, got sick of it, yanked the damper out, started paying better attention to my wood supply, make sure I have a real large variety of species and sizes instead of trying to make a piece of wood burn the way I wanted it to. Wood burns best wide open and..that's it. If it is too much, cut the quantity down or switch to a less dense species, etc. Need more heat, smaller splits or rounds of better wood.

and etc

works for me.

Now I could very well change my opinion on that if I was using some epa stove or owb, so I can't really say there. I have only run various incarnations of the zogger smogger....

 

[idahohay]

I'm thinking of putting a motorized flue damper on my heatmor to save wood during off cycles of the burn.
Has anyone tried this before?
Thought? results?

Mark

There are a number of OWB's that use motorized dampers but one of the things that made me decide on the heatmor was it's simplicity. There are some horror stories on the internet involving motorized dampers on OWB's that got stuck partially open and led to over heating. With some basic maintenance, the damper on a heatmor is pretty foolproof. A minute with a small wire brush and it is good to go. Mine doesn't really burn anything in the off cycle, the fire just smolders and I'm sure would eventually go out if the pump was shut off. Does your temperature continue to rise after shut down?