How to Bring in Outside Air to My Kineo Base Burner Stove

I gave the stack effect credit because of the -.03 increase when he satisfied by opening the window. As for getting a new fire started, the inside chimney would have advantage since it is pre warmed by being inside..

Actually the chimney is not inside, stove pipe to the ceiling and then into the chimney that goes through the attic and outside.

I was gonna ask you if you could repeat the experiment and find the same results. And when you close the window the mano reading weakens? You can repeat this successfully? Was it windy that night?? hahaha

I did that test repeatedly that night and you could watch the manometer go up and down when I opened and closed the window.

By any chance, do you have any powered exhaust appliances? Like a clothes dryer, stove hood, bathroom fan or maybe a direct vented gas water heater? Do you by chance have any vents in the ceiling that are open to the attic?? Any of these would influence your open window test and have impact on the mano reading.

The only outside vents are a range hood (was not operating at that time) bathroom vents and a dryer vent (all not operating at that time) I do have a on demand hot water heater but it is electric so no venting.

KC,no apology needed,i thought you were a little off with that "total" vacuum thing,but was not sure about the rest. Randy,you've got some goofy kind of connection from the manometer to the window,someone sneak an invisible string in there ? KC,that was a nice looking set up you had on that other thread about your raised hearth & cold air induction,i didn't see any mention made as to whether the cold air would feed UP the hole without the stove draft pulling.

KingCoal wrote:first post and attached pics in this page of this thread and more sprinkled thru the same and other threads by same author.

Post by NosmoKng - Here's My New Stove on Her New Hearth.

i've done it, it works , there are no negatives. get over it logic boys.

I have similar ideas, but still open minded and still researching. Your install looks really nice, you should be proud of it! Thank you for bringing it to our attention. I am also glad to hear that this does work by bringing fresh air to the stove. Some of the antique stoves actually had a fitting on the stove to bring fresh air in because those older homes were not at all air tight.
Randy

Some photos showing the first base made for the wood stoves about 24 Yrs ago.. The idea was to keep the base cooler and bring some air from outside or from inside to the stove primary air port. The outside air didn't change anything, not better or worst.
Having a super insulated and air tight house, the air exchanger balancing the Inside / outside pressure while improving air quality was more profitable. It also permits to have a light positive pressure (controllable) inside and helps to minimise incontrollable outside air infiltrations from all around the house.
If a house has a negative ins. pressure , you usually will have draft inversions from the stove when turning the cook stove fan ON or the bathroom one...specially when opening the stove loading door...
When setting the Sunnyside base, I raised the base again to make air circulation under the stoves base and have the option to bring outside air if wanted. But didn't need to duct the black pipe to an outside port. A Baltimore Heater has no legs so raising the base was a plus for the ash job

Photog200 wrote:I did that test repeatedly that night and you could watch the manometer go up and down when I opened and closed the window.

Well then ... I don't know what is causing the dramatic stack effect.. Seems like it would have to be stack effect, otherwise you would see the same results regardless of outside conditions.. I dunno.. Keep trying your window test to validate its effect during different conditions.

Try this... Run all your exhaust vents and see how your manometer reacts.. If the house is truly that tight, your mano should dive towards zero or even go positive.. This would be another good test to see if you really require an outside dedicated air source for the stove..

windyhill4.2 wrote:Did you guys learn this stuff in high school,grade 11or 12 or did you go to college to learn that?? My father was killed in a farm accident when I was 16 ,i dropped out of the 11th grade to keep the rented farm going till we moved & then got a job,so I am curious if I missed that learning in those 2 grades or college??

Sorry to hear about your Dad.. That would be terrible. As for education, Just school for me but I was top of the class in most of my science and math classes all the way thru high school. I've always been curious in the science department. Kinda sucks I ended up being a bread man, not much science in selling bread. Breads sales are all about probability..

Lightning,it was a BIG life changing event ,but life goes on..i sure am glad that someone has those "scientific" brains,i do get a little torqued at you at times for the over thinking part,but we need guys like you to do the complicated thinking so simpler thinkers like me don't have to sprain our brain by thinking beyond our brain's capability .Some way or the other we should be able to confuse Randy into a solution for his dilemma with the cold air intake for negative vacuum relief .?

nortcan wrote:Some photos showing the first base made for the wood stoves about 24 Yrs ago.. The idea was to keep the base cooler and bring some air from outside or from inside to the stove primary air port. The outside air didn't change anything, not better or worst.
Having a super insulated and air tight house, the air exchanger balancing the Inside / outside pressure while improving air quality was more profitable. It also permits to have a light positive pressure (controllable) inside and helps to minimise incontrollable outside air infiltrations from all around the house.
If a house has a negative ins. pressure , you usually will have draft inversions from the stove when turning the cook stove fan ON or the bathroom one...specially when opening the stove loading door...
When setting the Sunnyside base, I raised the base again to make air circulation under the stoves base and have the option to bring outside air if wanted. But didn't need to duct the black pipe to an outside port. A Baltimore Heater has no legs so raising the base was a plus for the ash job

Thank you for your reply, I know this is your specialty so I value your input. I know you have an air exchanger and that helps you to get fresh air into your house. I don't have that and is why I thought I need to bring in fresh air to the stove.
Randy

I've been thinking [yeah I know, it's dangerous] about this window/manometer reaction.. and I think it's being miss-interpreted.

A manometer shows the difference in pressure between it's two ports.. one is open to the room and house, the other port is in the flue pipe..

So, to use numbers for simplicity [ I hope ]. if the manometer shows a .05 draft [pressure differential] with the window closed, that is a delta-p. Measured to an absolute base reference zero that could mean that the house due to stack effect, or exhaust fans, clothes dryers running or whatever could, relative to a base reference zero, have a -2.00" pressure, but the chimney has, relative to the same base reference zero, a -2.05" pressure. Hence the manometer showing a -.05" differential. These numbers are totally arbitrary, The house could be -.15" and the chimney -.20" the manometer would still show the differential of -.05"

No matter what, the manometer tells the pressure differential..

So, if opening the window causes the manometer to show a draft increase to -.10". the number in the house was lowered by opening the window.. That translates to showing that the house does have a pretty tight envelope, and opening the window reduced the negative pressure in the house, and the manometer showed this.

So, if the house is under a negative pressure, there IS INFILTRATION. So why not control where that infiltration is coming from?? Why not put that infiltration into a location where it can be heated by the stove, then if any of this introduced, and hopefully controlled and heated 'infiltration' gets 'wild and crazy' and gets away from the stove, it will be at least not frigid air entering under your bathroom floor, or under your kitchen floor where it will be very noticeable and uncomfortable.

With all the above rambling said.. get some incoming air to the base of the stove, warm it if you can by bringing it in under the stove base, and feed the stove with it..

AND [warning: more rambling] if you want to experiment a bit more, duct tape some sheets of plastic over a few of the doorways of the distant bedrooms. or duct tape a plastic sheet over the hallway giving access to the other end of the house, usually the bedrooms, and note if the plastic hangs slack, or is pulled in the direction of the stove and it's chimney. This will prove infiltration from the other side of the plastic sheet is trying to get to the chimney.
Then, open the combustion air vent to the fire in the stove, the plastic should bulge out much more and show more pressure differential. More air up the chimney, more must enter the house from somewhere !
THEN, open that window a few feet from the stove, which causes the manometer to show a greater differential.. and take a look at the plastic sheet.. I'm betting it will be either slack, or not as puffed up.. showing LESS infiltration from the rooms down the hallway and the bedrooms. AND THIS is what your bottom line is: your rooms on the other side of the plastic will be warmer, because there is less frigid outside air infiltrating into those rooms. INSTEAD, the air is entering the warm environment of the stove itself..

There are a few external influences that may have an effect: if there is a strong wind blowing it will have an effect on the leaks in the house where the infiltration enters the house envelope.. so try to do this 'experiment' if you even want to bother to try it at all.. do it on a calm wind day..

OK, enough rambling..

I'm a try it, see what happens type of guy.. too much mental gymnastics causes headaches, leads to too much alcohol intake and lost time to do the experiment anyway.. which is the bottom line: try it and see if it works..

Greg L

LsFarm wrote:I've been thinking [yeah I know, it's dangerous] about this window/manometer reaction.. and I think it's being miss-interpreted.

A manometer shows the difference in pressure between it's two ports.. one is open to the room and house, the other port is in the flue pipe..

So, to use numbers for simplicity [ I hope ]. if the manometer shows a .05 draft [pressure differential] with the window closed, that is a delta-p. Measured to an absolute base reference zero that could mean that the house due to stack effect, or exhaust fans, clothes dryers running or whatever could, relative to a base reference zero, have a -2.00" pressure, but the chimney has, relative to the same base reference zero, a -2.05" pressure. Hence the manometer showing a -.05" differential. These numbers are totally arbitrary, The house could be -.15" and the chimney -.20" the manometer would still show the differential of -.05"

No matter what, the manometer tells the pressure differential..

So, if opening the window causes the manometer to show a draft increase to -.10". the number in the house was lowered by opening the window.. That translates to showing that the house does have a pretty tight envelope, and opening the window reduced the negative pressure in the house, and the manometer showed this.

So, if the house is under a negative pressure, there IS INFILTRATION. So why not control where that infiltration is coming from?? Why not put that infiltration into a location where it can be heated by the stove, then if any of this introduced, and hopefully controlled and heated 'infiltration' gets 'wild and crazy' and gets away from the stove, it will be at least not frigid air entering under your bathroom floor, or under your kitchen floor where it will be very noticeable and uncomfortable.

With all the above rambling said.. get some incoming air to the base of the stove, warm it if you can by bringing it in under the stove base, and feed the stove with it..

AND [warning: more rambling] if you want to experiment a bit more, duct tape some sheets of plastic over a few of the doorways of the distant bedrooms. or duct tape a plastic sheet over the hallway giving access to the other end of the house, usually the bedrooms, and note if the plastic hangs slack, or is pulled in the direction of the stove and it's chimney. This will prove infiltration from the other side of the plastic sheet is trying to get to the chimney.
Then, open the combustion air vent to the fire in the stove, the plastic should bulge out much more and show more pressure differential. More air up the chimney, more must enter the house from somewhere !
THEN, open that window a few feet from the stove, which causes the manometer to show a greater differential.. and take a look at the plastic sheet.. I'm betting it will be either slack, or not as puffed up.. showing LESS infiltration from the rooms down the hallway and the bedrooms. AND THIS is what your bottom line is: your rooms on the other side of the plastic will be warmer, because there is less frigid outside air infiltrating into those rooms. INSTEAD, the air is entering the warm environment of the stove itself..

There are a few external influences that may have an effect: if there is a strong wind blowing it will have an effect on the leaks in the house where the infiltration enters the house envelope.. so try to do this 'experiment' if you even want to bother to try it at all.. do it on a calm wind day..

OK, enough rambling..

I'm a try it, see what happens type of guy.. too much mental gymnastics causes headaches, leads to too much alcohol intake and lost time to do the experiment anyway.. which is the bottom line: try it and see if it works..

Greg L

Thank you Greg for your reply. I do not understand the Delta-p stuff, but it all makes sense after that I do not remember if it was windy the night I originally saw this differential. I do remember it was cold out. Mom and I had just come back from visiting Dad and it was quite hot in the house. I went over and turned the stove down and I looked at the thermometers and the manometer. I then opened the kitchen window because it was too warm. That is when I noticed the jump on the manometer. I have not been able to get the manometer to jump that much again by opening the window. It still does go up some just not as much as that first time. Maybe because the stove was burning hotter and consuming more air?? Also, if it was a bit windy, that would also explain why the stove was burning hotter than normal. Perfect Storm?

I will bring in outside air when I re-do the hearth area just to satisfy my curiosity. I am convinced this will help keep the house warmer.

Randy

Photog200 wrote:

KingCoal wrote:first post and attached pics in this page of this thread and more sprinkled thru the same and other threads by same author.

Post by NosmoKng - Here's My New Stove on Her New Hearth.

i've done it, it works , there are no negatives. get over it logic boys.

I have similar ideas, but still open minded and still researching. Your install looks really nice, you should be proud of it! Thank you for bringing it to our attention. I am also glad to hear that this does work by bringing fresh air to the stove. Some of the antique stoves actually had a fitting on the stove to bring fresh air in because those older homes were not at all air tight.
Randy

windy and Photog,

while I have added air from outside the living space before, the thread and pics I linked are not mine but from another member that I don't think is active any more. he did alot of nice work to get his set up dialed in and I thought it was a fine example.

the way he has his air routed and "sealed" at the stove body it will only move when the intake flap opens or to the degree it is staying open.

i DID use his example to plumb air to the back of my Riteway 37 the last yr. I used it. with the supply "sealed' to the stove so there was no path for it to escape into the living space. worked very well.

sorry for the confusion, I certainly didn't mean to steal credit or mislead.

Well I still think that was a nifty set up ,even if you don't get the credit for it ,you still get credit for posting that info which should help randy visualize his own set up possibilities ,good luck,Randy

Yeah set it up...
Let us know how it works out...

Photog200 wrote:I am hoping to re-do my hearth area in the next year if time with other projects allow. I am trying to come up with ideas on how to incorporate outside air to the stove. I have thought of putting a copper pipe through the wall and just run it under the stove with a shutoff valve on it. I am sure the stove would pull the air in from the closest and easiest source. However this would not look that great to have the copper tube running under the stove. I would welcome some ideas that I might be able to incorporate into the hearth design.
Randy

interesting idea, I was thinking of doing something like this myself. the only way I can see it working out, is to close off and seal the original front stove draft controls completely, drill or cut an opening under or in the back of the stove for a new air inlet, and run a pipe or duct out of sight to the outside of home, and into that new opening, and put a precise ratcheting flap valve with control handle on it, to precisely open/close the outside air supply, and hold the air setting rock solid. something like a small version of an MPD but in the inlet side, and with ratchet teeth so it stays where it's set at. there has to be a duct directly from the stove ashbox under the fire, to the outside, or it will always be pulling varying amounts of indoor heated air into the stove, along with the outside air. that is the only way to direct and control it precisely.