NO DRAFT...

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Well worth reading

http://www.woodheat.org/chimneys/evilchim.htm

Finally got picutres will do my best to descibe them.


The above picture shows the height of the chimney from the roof. Keep in mind that the top of this chimney is roughly 35-40 feet from the ground. The bricks and stone was the top of the chimney that i just took off to see if that would help at all with the draft. I will know more tomorrow when I start a coal fire.


The above picture is at eye level above the chimney top. Notice the tree tops. I am facing North at this point so trees are right in front of me and then also to my left.


This pictures is facing North/East. I just wanted to show you that the chimney is no where near the roof line from that direction.


This shows the height of the chimney. Notice that it clears over three stories. Don't mind the fact that I need to fix the siding. If you notice the hole on the right that is the coal bin. Just haven't had time to build the door. It serves great. I just load the John Deere with coal and take it and dump it. Filters down into a 16'' by 16'' square where the auger sits. It holds approximately 1.5 tons. This picture is facing South. Again notice the trees to the right. They are extremely high. Skidder will be here tomorrow hopefully to eliminate some of them.


This is to show the distance between chimney and trees. Next picture will give you a little better idea.


Shows a good view of the distance between chimney and trees.


This is the inside of the house. This is not an airtight house. I checked it by opening the man door right next to the boiler. I need to clean the unit up, I was just able to get it up and working. Notice duct work comes out the back goes up and hits the T. The left of the T is the barometric draft. Which is set at .045. The duct continues to the right where it hits a clean out T then goes out to the chimney.

Hope these pictures worked well. So please start feeding me more information regarding the chimney/draft problem.

In my opinion the chimney is too short compared to the roofline. I can't say if that is causing your problem, but it sure isn't helping the draft any.

I would also lose the two T''s in the stove pipe and just run an elbow on the back of the boiler, and a piece of pipe up to another elbow going into the thimble. You would also have to relocate the draft control onto the straight section of pipe.

Your expansion tank is mounted upside down, the air will not be able to escape.

Straighten the flue pipe by putting an adjustable elbow atop or behind the boiler and one at the chimney thimble. Then run a straight pipe between the two. Your barometric damper should go on this pipe near the chimney.

Is the boiler breach smaller than the stovepipe? If so, reduce the size of the stove pipe to the breach size. Hard to tell from the photo and it's unclear if the boiler breach is on the top or rear.

You will also need an air scoop. The expansion tank needs to be correctly mounted. It's upside down and gets full thermal conduction of the hottest boiler water. Not good.

The air scoop/expansion tank should be before the pump (pumping away from the expansion tank , not towards) or their will be a pressure drop when the pump starts.

markvii is absolutely spot on. the chimney is far too short in relation to the roof. the building is competing with the chimney for draft, and with an outside chimney, it's almost winning, hence the meager draft. Trees arn't the issue, don't waste your time with them. If you want to stop playing around, the solution is to bring that chimney about a foot higher than the peak of that roof to the left in the pics, be sure to leave the tile liner sticking up about 6" higher than that- above the crown and TAPER the crown nicely away from the tile (or just buy a precast crown at any masonry supply house that has the proper taper). Then 45º that pipe coming off the boiler and put that T with a baro in the body of the pipe, get the baro out of it's current location.

That expansion tank is the second tank in the system, don't know if that makes a difference or not. I have 2 tanks in the system. The one that your looking at is for a heat exchange coil only. The tank for the other side (hot water) sits where the circulation pumps are.

No reducer on the back of the boiler as of right now.

I am going to call my heating and plumbing person and have him move my pipes so that they are more direct into the back of the chimney, which will also move the barometric draft some as well.

Trees are going regardless because they are way to close to the house.

I am going to look into some for of extension on the chimney. Anyone have ideas or suggestions?


Thanks for the help guys. Your thoughts are right on with what we thought.

markviii wrote: the chimney is too short compared to the roofline.

I would also lose the two T''s in the stove pipe You would also have to relocate the draft control onto the straight section of pipe.

The barometric damper should not be in the "bull head tee" location that you have. Field Draft Controls does not recommend that location for solid fuel....

Click on this link.
barometric damper tee

I am going to look into some for of extension on the chimney. Anyone have ideas or suggestions?

Yes, call a mason and have the chimney brought up 1' above the roofline. There is a reason the old homes always ran the chimney through the house and up through the peak, it was to provide good draft.

Okay so i removed the cap which was a stone on top of the chimney about 10 inches above the top of the flue. It had not effect on the draft problem.

I fired the coal tonight and within an hour and a half the smell came right in.

I climbed the roof and found that i was about 5ft inch radius two feet below the top of the chimney. So i went and bought another 2 feet of clay flue liner. I'm going to set it inside the chimney on top of the previous liner. That will raise me above the 10ft radius at a 2ft drop from the top. Hopefully that will do the trip.

I also have started eliminating the tree problem. Skidder is up and running and working now that the weather breaks. I don't know if i mentioned that i still think the trees have an impact on this draft problem because the house sits down in a valley and then the trees still go much higher than the house. I'm not saying that trees are the whole problem but do believe it is part of the problem.

I'll let you know about any advancements.

I was curious if it is okay to place stainless steel on top of this chimney or if i had to stick to clay liner and brick. Might not brick the rest of the way up. Might just set it in and mortar it to the top piece.

I don't see any problem with setting a SS liner on top of the chimney.

The standard advice always was that the top of the chimney should be 2 feet higher than anything within 10 feet.

The 10/2 rule is a minimum recommendation, not a target spec. I would stay with clay tile and brick. The materials are inexpensive, and if you are going to get the tools up on the roof you might as well go for the gusto and get the chimney up over that roofline.

Don't forget to streamline the stovepipe from the boiler to the thimble, the way it is now is far from ideal.