Stove pipe dampers

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So I have an insert and there is no damper on it. I have pretty good control of the intake so my stove doesn’t suck in too much air, but nothing to slow down the heat from leaving the stove. I burn five cords a year and was wondering:
1). Would I save wood?
2). Anyone know about the cost of a project like that?
Anybody have any experience they could share about a similar situation?

Thanks peeps...
 
So I have an insert and there is no damper on it. I have pretty good control of the intake so my stove doesn’t suck in too much air, but nothing to slow down the heat from leaving the stove. I burn five cords a year and was wondering:
1). Would I save wood?
2). Anyone know about the cost of a project like that?
Anybody have any experience they could share about a similar situation?

Thanks peeps...

It doesn't matter, if you can cut the air going in, it will also cut the heat going out the pipe. Having an intake damper is a much better set up then a pipe dampener. Pipe dampeners can leak smoke, so you would smell more smoke in the house.
 
There are instances where and exhaust damper is possibly needed. There are times at my own place where the 30-60 mph winds cause an excess draft. Considering that most epa type stoves have multiple intakes of which only one is (partially) controlled - reducing exhaust flow via a damper on same is the only method available . In the case of excessive draft it would/could extend burn time and quite possible increase btus radiated from appliance as less btu's would be sucked up the flue.
shortly before installation of stove- flue was in place- I had it capped off in side with a wade of plastic bags. That wad magically disappeared one day- it had been sucked up the flue by the weather system that passed through that day ( tornados and straight line winds of excessive speed)
 
Depends on the kind of stove but if you have full control of the air going in then you wont need to control it leaving. I tried a stove pipe damper on my non EPA stove, for the same reason you are asking about and it didnt make much difference unless you closed it a lot then there was a lot of smoke in the basement. So I didnt bother putting it on the new EPA stove. I dont have control over the secondary air but if I shut the primary all the way it goes out right away.

There are other parts of the stove like a baffle plate that keep the heat from going up the chimney by redirecting it away from the flue pipe.
 
Thank you for your replies! I have an EPA stove in the secondaries were wide open, so I did a lot of messing around with it to close them down some, Not shutting them off but having it slow down to a degree I feel comfortable with that also wasn’t hampering their function. I will stop entertaining the idea of a damper on the stove pipe. Again, thanks!
 
With my stove I dont understand how you could have to much secondary air. If I close the primary it dies. I guess if you were able to close the primary and it was still roaring away then you might want to limit that chimney draft. But that sounds like a dangerous stove. I didnt think the secondary air really burned the wood but reburned the chemicals released by burning wood like a catalytic stove does.
 
With my stove I dont understand how you could have to much secondary air. If I close the primary it dies. I guess if you were able to close the primary and it was still roaring away then you might want to limit that chimney draft. But that sounds like a dangerous stove. I didnt think the secondary air really burned the wood but reburned the chemicals released by burning wood like a catalytic stove does.
I had no control over the secondaries, and even though I could shut the primary draft down, The secondaries were wide open. I did some research on it came across some other people who have the same thing. After I closed the secondaries off some, my fires last a little bit longer and my stove gets just as hot. Easier to shut the thing down in case of an emergency. I’ve tested it over and over again, and put hours of experimenting into it to get the right amount of air to lead through to achieve good secondaries and a clean burn. My wife thinks I get a little crazy about it, but I get bored during the winter time. I don’t know why it works, but I think without so much air coming in, the heat has just a little bit more time to transfer to the room. Anybody want to help me out with that, love to hear some theories!
 
I'm going to try re directing my primary air to the back of my stove in the fall. It seems like with all the air coming in the front it burns the entire front of the stove and starts cooling down before the back is burned. The back of the stove stays black and the rest is clean. I'm thinking about putting a stainless steel pipe from the front middle primary hole to the back to get the air back there and burn more evenly. I'm hoping that will make longer burn times and let that back secondary light off. That last tube is directed forward so when it doesn't light off I wonder what that excess air does for burn time.
 
Cool. I’d be interested to know if it works out for you, though the burn season isn’t for a few more months! I’ve messedaround with my stove, with draft controls and adjusting the secondary tubes to point in different directions, and I think I’ve improved it some. I wonder if emissions testing requires the manufacture To design it in a particular way which burns clean, but perhaps isn’t the most efficient way of getting the heat out of the wood. I don’t know.
 
All the primary air is in the front and I believe the idea is that with the air wash and primary holes to force the air to the back of the stove then the secondary directs the flue gasses to the front of the baffle. But for me it only burns the front half of the stove unless I get a good tunnel to the back. I'm hoping to create that "tunnel" with the tubing. I got the stove in March when I upgraded so I'm still new to it. I think when I get a consistant burn pattern then I can adjust the incoming air better.

A lot of the new wood stove/furnaces were doing whatever they needed to do to meet the EPA regulations weather it was worth anything or not. My furnace is the same firebox as the existing EPA stove that Englander sells so theres not a bunch of bs trying to meet a regulation.
 
I had to install one on my Kuma Sequoia. I have 25 feet of 8” pipe that is straight. Wicked draft. The pipe damper helped me out.
 
Englander Furnace / NC 30 with an air jacket ( well darn close any way) yep setting up loading to allow for a tunnel from he 2x hocky sticks front to back and leaving a gap at the rear( fuel not jammed against back wall makes a big difference in the burn - I also have thought about a pipe to direct dog house air to the rear - never implemented it. I do remember one of the members here or else where messing with various amounts for blocking on the secondary intake as well as the 2 front intakes for the air wash ( I do not know where those might be on the furnace though).
 
I have the same problem with my EPA insert, pipe of about 30', draft is pretty (too much) strong. I thought about modifying the primary air control so that I can close it further by grinding the "slot" so that the lever can go further in the close position. But there's only 1/8" between the slot and the end of the metal piece. (if I grind it further the slot would have an open end). Gonna have to find something else I guess.

IMG_1791.jpg
 
My primary slot wasn’t getting covered all the Way, so I took a strong magnet and covered up part of the hole. It help me gain a little bit more control over my fire. If you can’t get the plate to slide over, that might work.
 
Englander Furnace / NC 30 with an air jacket ( well darn close any way) yep setting up loading to allow for a tunnel from he 2x hocky sticks front to back and leaving a gap at the rear( fuel not jammed against back wall makes a big difference in the burn - I also have thought about a pipe to direct dog house air to the rear - never implemented it. I do remember one of the members here or else where messing with various amounts for blocking on the secondary intake as well as the 2 front intakes for the air wash ( I do not know where those might be on the furnace though).



My furnace has a 3 inch air intake that brings in all the air to it. I could throw a manual damper in that and limit the secondary air some what. The dog house holes and air wash come from the same hole where the damper is. I have no idea where they separate in the stove.

It's like 2 different stoves if you can get the back of it to burn. Usually I end up with a lot of good wood in the back that I have to move around then the secondarys light up again and it starts heating back up. I got the idea for the pipe from another member telling me that the drolet tundra has a pilot hole in the back to allow the primary air into the back of the furnace. And that would be real easy to do but I dont want to modify it. I figure if I can get a consistant tunnel then I can have a more consistant burn and it wont matter how its loaded. Seems like you need the consistant burn before you mess with air/draft.
 
I use a temp gage on the stove and the stove pipe near the ceiling. This way I control the heat and burn time in the stove and how much heat escapes up the chimney. I do one hot burn in the morning that eats up what ever creosote I may have. I’m in control on how hot it gets. I’m burning about 2/2 1/2 cords of wood right now but the winters have been mild. Even buying my wood is about $220 per cord. I have oil heat and it’s cost is around $3,000+ per year. It’s $500 wood vs $3 k to oil heat.

I find these castiron dampers dont last long. There probably made in China. I replace it often.

At my old house I lived on top of a mountain. Never a draft problem but I needed a solid damper on the stove pipe. I was thinking about two dampers on the stove pipe. One normal damper with the holes and one solid damper no holes. But one must use the gages to make sure the right amount of heat goes up the chimney so no creosote will build up.

I been burning wood since ‘79 that’s all my experience. I’m using the older top loader woodstove. In the basement. It’s very controllable.

I’m thinking of using a Vermont castings fireplace insert up stairs. So we can enjoy viewing the fire without sucking the heat out of the house.

Woodstove pipe size. Rule of thumb the chimney pipe should be 25% larger than your stove pipe to prevent backdrafts on windless nights. That’s a 8” chimney for a 6” stove pipe.
 
only time i ever had problems with reverse flow in a flue was basement install - cold flue and a bunch of loose newspaper didn't work out. Had to go to blower into baro damper to get things going correctly. At the current residence damper could be utilized just because of high winds and a fairly tall flue, apx 25 ft resulting in excess draft- point hit home during installation as I did not have stove in place yet and tornado came through close by -sucked the big wad of plastic bags I had stuffed in the unconnected flue right up to the cap and that was a pretty tight fit of bags. I ran stove all winter sans any extra damper seemed ok- pretty normal burn lengths (nc30) even in the -31 deg F temps we had , so I will hold off.
 
In my basement stove we light it first with a rolled up piece of newspaper held near the stove pipe to get the draft going. The minute the heat goes up the pipe the draft kicks in. On windless nights.

Onetime I smoked up the basement my cat Rambo let me know I was upstairs.
 
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