Pot belly stove - need a flue damper?

[woodlumn]

Hi all,

I have a small, old pot belly stove that would like to install in my living room. This is definitely not an air tight stove! It has the usual airflow control that a pot belly would have (sliding vent at the bottom, rotating wheel on the door). It uses 6" stove pipe, which I have going into a masonry chimney which is lined with stainless pipe.

Is it okay to install a flue damper with this? I'd like to have as much control as possible, but wonder about any potentially bad side effects from damping down a leaky stove.

Here it is, test firing outside with a piece of pipe sitting on top for draft:

Thanks!

 

[brenndatomu]

This type of stove probably NEEDS a flue damper.

Only bad effect I can think of would be letting a little smoke into the room if you dampen it too far down. You'd just have to experiment to find where that point is.

Doesn't look like she'd hold much wood...

 

[woodlumn]

Thanks for the info.

No, she doesn't hold much wood at all, but I can get a good bed of coals going and I think it would be enough to take the edge off in the house on those extra cold days. Small house...800sf, open floor. Ceilings and walls and floors insulated.

Plus, it's free

 

[unclemoustache]

Yah, that's a small house. Shouldn't need much more than that.

Brenndatomu said it all. put one in and get to know how it works.

 

[Jakers]

Thanks for the info.

No, she doesn't hold much wood at all, but I can get a good bed of coals going and I think it would be enough to take the edge off in the house on those extra cold days. Small house...800sf, open floor. Ceilings and walls and floors insulated.

Plus, it's free

just a curious question but why do you need a pot belly stove when you have an OWB in your avatar pic? or is that not really your OWB in the pic

 

[woodlumn]

The owb powers our hydronic floor heat system. It's an old house with thick wood floors. Not the most efficient heat for the situation, but it does just fine most of the time. On extended cold spells (especially gray-sky ones), the house can still be a bit chilly, so the pot belly hand-me-down would be a little treat.

The owb is awesome and I don't regret building the system that we built. For one, the house is so small that we really didn't want to sacrifice space for an indoor stove. Also, I can burn any type of wood in the owb without worry or extra maintenance. I've managed to heat our house on scavenged/waste wood for the last 5 years...can't beat no-cash heating!

 

[savageactor7]

Sure why not? A damper would help lock down any chimney fire besides throwing more out more heat.

 

[stihly dan]

That owb should be able to heat that house easy. Even if it had no walls or a roof.

 

[woodlumn]

That owb should be able to heat that house easy. Even if it had no walls or a roof.

Love the handle, dan. Tell me what you have in mind. I already have the floor heat. Like I said, not the most efficient set up for an old wood floor house, but generally does okay. Don't tell me forced air, I don't wanna hear it. The other thought I did have though, was to pump some of that water through copper pipe baseboards.