Negative Pressure in the House

This post Stove Is Fighting Me got me thinking as others have commented over the years that cracking a window has helped them in there burn.

Is there any way to use your manometer to tell if you have negative pressure in the house? Or do you just go around opening doors?

Didn't know if you could take one leg of the mano outside and have one inside. Would that show a pressure differance?

Eric

go around opening doors and windows.....

if it gets too cold in house, dress warmer

mostly concern about burning stove relates to pressure in stove room thus watching the mano while opening and closing...

they make different mano for different apps...i.e. differential pressure....hi scale for pressure chambers ect

...what most important tho is how well and efficient your particular unit burns.

There is a way to use the manometer to measure negative pressure in your home. You would need for the manometer inputs to be one inside and one outside with the outside one calibrated to 0. I can almost guarantee you that your house is under negative pressure. Your stove alone creates it and of course every exhaust fan, dryer or other venting device is contributing. The ideal of course is to be under slight positive pressure to keep outside air out. Most commercial buildings have their environment under positive air with a certain percentage of the air exchanged with outside air. The incoming air gets preheated in a unit that extracts heat out of the air being exchanged to the outside. I tried it once here with a rube goldberg apparatus but the results were less than good. Now I just have a 4" pvc pipe open to the outside at my coal bin area. It draws air in from outside but doesn't reverse the negative pressure but I feel like I'm managing it. I've got a screen over the outside to keep bugs and critters from getting in.

My thought on this is as follows. Yes many houses have house leaks, but I prefer to let my stove have an air source from where I dictate, vs. have it draw from wherever. I leave a basement window (one of those little slider types) open about 2 inches near the stove. My Keystoker is blowing 45 CFM up the chimney 24/7 for combustion. I am doing this until I can dedicate a cold air supply with piping to the blower. I am thinking of putting some 2 inch PVC to the outside, and then having it drop to the top of the block foundation and cutting a hole in the block near the stove so it can draw from there and look "pretty" to keep the bride happy.

My thoughts on this is that since heat rises, there is most likely a slight positive pressure upstairs. While warm air finds its way out thru tiny cracks around windows or where ever upstairs, it creates a lower pressure downstairs where air finds its way in thru tiny cracks or where ever. So I'm thinking its a good idea to have a way for air to be replaced next to your stove to balance the negative pressure downstairs with the pressure outside so its not working against the natural draft of your chimney system. I have a 2 inch hole in my foundation just for this purpose

2001Sierra wrote:My thought on this is as follows. Yes many houses have house leaks, but I prefer to let my stove have an air source from where I dictate, vs. have it draw from wherever. I leave a basement window (one of those little slider types) open about 2 inches near the stove. My Keystoker is blowing 45 CFM up the chimney 24/7 for combustion. I am doing this until I can dedicate a cold air supply with piping to the blower. I am thinking of putting some 2 inch PVC to the outside, and then having it drop to the top of the block foundation and cutting a hole in the block near the stove so it can draw from there and look "pretty" to keep the bride happy.

Hey I do that too. Not by choice though and not in my basement, although that is ridiculously drafty too. There are two windows on either side of my chimney that don't seal, I can actually see the outside around the trimwork. Nothing in this house is straight or level. So, I've always got a fresh air supply to the stove.

Field Controls fan in a can.

ValterBorges wrote:Field Controls fan in a can.

Uh, fan in a can? What does it do??

Lightning wrote:Uh, fan in a can? What does it do??

http://www.fieldcontrols.com/cas.php

When the blower comes on for approx 10 min so does the fan and sucks in outside air. The rest of the time its passive air hole around 4".