Outside air intake

[MossRoad]

Still getting acquainted with the set up at the new place... existing cat wood stove insert with blower and stainless pipe to daylight...

The stove puts out a tremendous amount of heat and burns the wood to white ash... the glass stays amazingly clean but this is the first experience with this type of stove dating to 1993 install.

The outside air damper works very well...

That said I don't understand why there is a slight lingering smoke smell lingering in the living room when using it???

Door gasket nice and tight and the stainless looks great and I can inspect just about all of it...

Is it typical for there to always be at least a hint of lingering smoke odor when heating with wood?

Nope. I'd say, about the only time you would smell smoke in the house would be if there's not enough of a draft going up the pipe, the pipe is obstructed, there's a heavy wind during light-up, etc....

We've burned for about 10 years now. Only time we had smoke smell was if I opened the door quickly on a colder smoldering fire instead of cracking it open first to get the air going in and up the pipe.

 

[Industrial Toys]

If I have an incident where I can't get draft, but have attempted to start a fire in the downstairs stove, and smoke just pours out of the stove, I just go crazy and open up every door and window possible regardless of temperature. I am very adverse to having the basement smell like a burned out building. Really, the only time I smell smoke inside is if there are odd conditions that make the smoke come down from the chimney, settle around the house, and get back in the house that way. But never enough to cause a lingering odour.

 

[goeduck]

Only time we had smoke smell was if I opened the door quickly on a colder smoldering fire instead of cracking it open first to get the air going in and up the pipe.

Same here. Tonight we went out to dinner and I wanted to add wood so it would still be going when we got home. I usually let the stove burn down to coals before adding wood. But this time I rushed it and opened the door too quick and got a little smoke smell in the house as the opening door drew the smoke off the fire and into the house. The smell was gone by the time we got back.

 

[ultrarunner]

I will need to watch it closer...

Had not been fired in 8 months... Buck Stove Cat "Insert" style but all stainless flue... guessing 22' as it is right at peak and then some...

Noticed where the thermometer goes the shaft is very loose when cold... as stove heats up it is tight as can be from expansion.

I push in lever for CAT as per thermometer... memory is 550F

I have seen thermometer register to top of operate zone... memory 1800? just under overfired...

Of course turning on the blower causes fast and noticeable temp drop.

Again... first time owning a Cat stove...

I was told the previous owner seldom used it but did on Holidays in violation of Spare the Air days... Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years...

 

[nyone]

Ultrarunner your basicly running it in damper open mode until it reaches 550f flue temp? Wheres the themometer? 1800f running temp is to hot. **** i hardly ever see over 550f alone.

Stove pipe thermometers should be 1ft above the stove as per the two i own.

 

[PILOON]

A mason friend that installed many wood stoves advised me not to connect to outside air.

He observed over time that outside air simply introduced much humidity causing all the metal components of the modern units to rust often to a dangerous safety level.

Many more recent fireplaces used steel fire boxes rather than all masonry, also many converted to metal inserts for efficiency.

 

[arrow]

I assume you dont keep it 64* most of the day? We like 69-73*, i didnt cut, split, stack and then drag the wood inside to be cold in my living room. Our stove is about 10ft from our couch. Any basement stove i have used always takes major time to get the heat into the living area. My father says it takes about 2 days for a major temp change, we have the same wood stove. A vermont castings defiant. I have gone 24hrs without loading this stove.

Arrow do you have vents cut in the floor/ceiling? I find moving the cold air to the stove really moves the hot air to the coler place yet dosnt cool the hot air.

You are correct. Circulation is key especially with a stove in the cellar. Perhaps I do not have enough grates cut into the floor. We are comfortable in 65-67 degrees. We learned to be so. My cut-off point for discomfort is 63*. My daughter when she comes over, "freezes" in our house as she s a 72* girl using gas heat. If I had to do it all over again, I should have been using a wood fired boiler. With a questionable amount of years left that I care to burn wood, $10,000 for one doesn't correlate well in my mind at this time..
No stove in the cellar is going to heat the space any near as well as a stove in the living space. The trade off is all wood mess is confined to the cellar. It is so handy to simply open the bulk head interior door and dump the wood into a cart and wheel it to the stove.
Heat rotation occurs by leaving the cellar door open as well as the upstairs laundry chute door. There is a hood and ducting directly above the stove vented to living room capturing convected heat from the stove top. Perhaps I should "motorize" this area with a fan of some sort...but then there is that pesky wood stove drafting to be concerned about with a duct fan that an oai might cure. My word this is fun....(not really)

 

[MossRoad]

Our stove is in the basement, too. It's the only place it would fit. It's near an outside stairwell with the bulkhead doors outside, so I just stack the wood in those stairs in winter. Nice in that it holds about 3 weeks of continuous burn wood, plus 5 days in the house.

To get heat upstairs to our living room on the other side of the house, I ran a duct from above the stove to a floor register at one end of the living room. In that duct I installed a high-temperature booster fan. That is connected to a thermostat mounted in the ceiling of the room with the wood burner in it. When the temperature of the wood burner room gets up to 78, it kicks on the booster fan, sending hot air from directly above the stove up to the living room. When the woodburner room temperature drops to 76, the thermostat cuts out and the blower goes off. Works great.

 

[Industrial Toys]

And I bet the cats have a nice interesting place to sharpen their claws too.

 

[MossRoad]

And I bet the cats have a nice interesting place to sharpen their claws too.

We don't let the cats into the room with the wood burner. Two reasons. First, they're cats! Inevitably they'll knock something over that will fall on something else that will roll on something else that will fall on the stove and burn the house down. Mayhem! :laughing:

Second, the other half of that part of the basement is our laundry room, and, being cats, they'd sleep on our clean laundry, shedding all over it.