Hooked up the Draft Gauge,...Finally!

Carbon12 · Post by **Carbon12** » Sat. Mar. 03, 2012 3:42 pm

Well, I finally got off my butt and installed my Dwyer Mark II. I have a Hitzer 983 fireplace insert. No vent pipe and hence no barometric damper. It's 57 degrees outside 70 inside. winds 15-20 gusting to 25. Stove is at a medium idle. Draft is holding at about .04 WC. Varies .03 to .07 with wind gusts. Does this sound acceptable to all? I measured behind the insert shroud in the fireplace and through the bottom ash door vents. Identical readings.

rberq · Post by **rberq** » Sat. Mar. 03, 2012 4:25 pm

Sounds like decent draft considering how warm it is outside. But with no damper, you can't do anything about the draft anyway, so why measure it and just make yourself potentially unhappy?

Or does the Hitzer have some kind of damper built in?

Carbon12 · Post by **Carbon12** » Sat. Mar. 03, 2012 5:08 pm

Yup,.....no easy way to do anything about the draft. I was just curious and felt the need for yet another gadget to add to my vast collection. Lol! To that end, I also have a thermocouple mounted in the fireplace above the stove collar. I figured if the draft turned out to be excessive I could cobble together a way to mount a barometric damper on the front of the shroud that surrounds the stove and blocks off the fireplace opening. The 983 does have a manual pipe damper.

rberq · Post by **rberq** » Sat. Mar. 03, 2012 9:35 pm

Carbon12 wrote:no easy way to do anything about the draft. I was just curious and felt the need for yet another gadget to add to my vast collection.

That's as good a reason as any, and better than most!

Keepaeyeonit · Post by **Keepaeyeonit** » Sat. Mar. 03, 2012 11:42 pm

Carbon12,I don't think that"s bad at all 57*outside and a .03"WC reading that's good, mine at that temp with the baro foiled and the damper full opened and the stove running 250* I"m lucky to get .03"WC.Keepaeyeonit

Carbon12 · Post by **Carbon12** » Sun. Mar. 04, 2012 8:45 am

@ Keepaeyeonit...Thanks! When the wind gusts picked up to 35, I was briefly (for a couple seconds) pulling about .1 WC All in all I guess i'm pretty lucky with the draft situation. Still wondering if I could/should cut a round hole in the shroud and placing a smallish barodamper in the face of the shroud. Probably not. The "Beast" has done fine all winter. I'll continue to monitor and if or when it gets really cold again i'll reevaluate.

Ctyankee · Post by **Ctyankee** » Sun. Mar. 04, 2012 9:11 am

Since it does have a manual damper wouldn't the gauge be helpful? I have an insert with the internal damper. Right now I'm not sure how to use the internal damper since I don't have any way to monitor the draft except for temperature and making sure the fire isn't going out, or the CO alarm going off (it hasn't).

Its my understanding from reading the posts on here that if you have too much draft Hitzer has an additional restrictor you can install.

Wouldn't the gauge give you useful information?

Chuck_Steak · Post by **Chuck_Steak** » Sun. Mar. 04, 2012 10:17 am

Carbon12 wrote:....When the wind gusts picked up to 35, I was briefly (for a couple seconds) pulling about .1 WC

Certainly nothing to worry about.
You will never notice a difference in anything with such small spikes.

Dan

LsFarm · Post by **LsFarm** » Sun. Mar. 04, 2012 11:04 am

Ctyankee wrote:Since it does have a manual damper wouldn't the gauge be helpful? I have an insert with the internal damper. Right now I'm not sure how to use the internal damper since I don't have any way to monitor the draft except for temperature and making sure the fire isn't going out, or the CO alarm going off (it hasn't).

Its my understanding from reading the posts on here that if you have too much draft Hitzer has an additional restrictor you can install.

Wouldn't the gauge give you useful information?

I agree, if you knew your draft was low, due to warm outside temps, then you would know to leave the internal exhaust damper open, which would keep the chimney warmer, and help keep the draft strong.
And on the opposite side, if the draft is really strong, you know you can close the internal damper, and keep more heat in the stove..

In my opinion, you can never have too much instrumentation. Otherwise you are just guessing.

Greg

Carbon12 · Post by **Carbon12** » Sun. Mar. 04, 2012 10:33 pm

Manual pipe DAMPER,.....draft gauge.......duh! I outsmarted myself again! Lol! Thanks all for the continuing education on my new best friend! I still need to name her,......."The Beast" just doesn't sound sexy and she is so darn HOT! any suggestions???

Post by **Lightning** » Mon. Mar. 05, 2012 3:42 am

Carbon12 wrote:Manual pipe DAMPER,.....draft gauge.......duh! I outsmarted myself again! Lol! Thanks all for the continuing education on my new best friend! I still need to name her,......."The Beast" just doesn't sound sexy and she is so darn HOT! any suggestions???

OMG thats awesome! My wife is constantly referring to the furnace with a greeny jealous tone whenever she is on the phone with freinds or whatever. A few months back I had my Step Dad in the basement showing him my set up and I explained how my wife says I spend too much time in the basement with that dam furnace. With a devious grin he says to me, you need to give the furnace a name, a sexy female name, that will fix her wagon lol.. Oh ok I thought. SO her name is Ashley. Later I found out that US Stove has an Ashley line of furnaces but I still decided to keep that name. Freinds and family think its a riot!!

For a while I enjoyed sending picture messages out of her glowing mound.

and underneath I wrote, I want you to meet Ashley, she is SO hot!!

I vote we start a thread on stove/furnace names

grizzly2 · Post by **grizzly2** » Mon. Mar. 05, 2012 3:58 am

Carbon12, I have a baro. and run almost exactly the same range of draft as you do under the same wind cercomstanses. Sounds real good to me. Sometimes in real windy conditions I would need two baros to suck enough air to drop the draft into the preferred range. A little additional heat loss under those very windy conditons does not warrant doing anything to prevent it. If you did add a baro to the shroud around your stove it would provide another place for air leak around and perhaps reduce draft in warm weather conditions too much.

I enjoy watching my mano. as much as it is useful.

Carbon12 · Post by **Carbon12** » Mon. Mar. 05, 2012 3:12 pm

My significant Other thinks I'm crazy with all this stove fixation. She just doesn't get the fascination.......What she does get is the nice warm 70 degree house she has had all winter without having to pay for any fuel oil! Did I mention the stove kinda just showed up one day while she was at work,.......that was an interesting evening! She had no idea I was actually buying the silly thing. Now she complains if the house temp drops to 69.5 degrees ( we kept the thermostat set at 64 last winter) lol! Glad the stove worked out or it and I would literally have been in the doghouse!

rberq · Post by **rberq** » Mon. Mar. 05, 2012 5:39 pm

Carbon12 wrote:Did I mention the stove kinda just showed up one day while she was at work

You're a brave man!