Chubby - to Sell or Not to Sell...?

D-frost wrote:Your stove is in the basement, right. You have an excellent stove-keep it. With 20+ feet of chimney you should not have a draft problem. I'm with Fred on this cap removal-12 gauge, 16 gauge, 20 gauge. Just don't miss, or you will have visitors!
Also, check the clean-out door. It's outside and above the stove. I'm thinking you have a leaky door. In fact, seal it with duct tape, or silicone. And, pull the pipe from the wall in the basement, light up a cigar, and see where the smoke goes. Don't give up, unless you have a ton of money to buy oil.

Good call on that clean out door. I missed that one.......

I thought the rule on chimneys was 3 10 2. 3 feet above the roofline where it comes through and 2 feet above anything within 10 feet. If I had to go above my roofline I would need another 12 feet at least possibly more as there is a story and 1/2 to the peak then with a bunch of braces struts etc.. I am about a foot short of that with the woodstove chimney but it has been that way for ages and this summer will add 3 more feet along with the braces that Dura vent advises to exceed the rule before installing the Crane 404 and pester dcrane for a shaker handle.. I think I better add the needed 3 feet as when a Northeaster comes through it can blow a wood fire out if not blazing.

ddahlgren wrote:I thought the rule on chimneys was 3 10 2. 3 feet above the roofline where it comes through and 2 feet above anything within 10 feet. If I had to go above my roofline I would need another 12 feet at least possibly more as there is a story and 1/2 to the peak then with a bunch of braces struts etc.. I am about a foot short of that with the woodstove chimney but it has been that way for ages and this summer will add 3 more feet along with the braces that Dura vent advises to exceed the rule before installing the Crane 404 and pester dcrane for a shaker handle.. I think I better add the needed 3 feet as when a Northeaster comes through it can blow a wood fire out if not blazing.

You said it yourself, "It's a rule". Now you need to understand the theory behind the rule......... The 3 10 2 rule is one reason why I don't think the down draft coming over Mikloy's peak would reach his chimney. His chimney should draft ok, but really has no help from the wind coming out of the West. When the wind comes from any other direction, his chimney has help drafting. Adding enough block to get his chimney above the Down Draft, and up into the main stream coming over the peak, is a good thing. Five more block should do that. Still, adding 5 more block to the chimney top is a lot of dangerous work. Before going through all the work of raising the chimney, I'd first eliminate the possible blockage, due to stove pipe being pushed in too far. And seal around the clean out door. Other concerns are; make-up air in the house, and the rain cap. Personally, I think his chimney needs to go up for optimal performance. One quick check of chimney height would be to add 5 feet of stove pipe, tile, etc. to the top.

And that friends is why this FORUM is a WE thing---God knows we all tend to miss one thing or another:)

oliver power wrote:

D-frost wrote:Your stove is in the basement, right. You have an excellent stove-keep it. With 20+ feet of chimney you should not have a draft problem. I'm with Fred on this cap removal-12 gauge, 16 gauge, 20 gauge. Just don't miss, or you will have visitors!
Also, check the clean-out door. It's outside and above the stove. I'm thinking you have a leaky door. In fact, seal it with duct tape, or silicone. And, pull the pipe from the wall in the basement, light up a cigar, and see where the smoke goes. Don't give up, unless you have a ton of money to buy oil.

Good call on that clean out door. I missed that one.......

This is how wind pressure works against a roof.

mikloy,
nortcan brought up a very good point about the stove starving for cold air return. How far are you from the ocean? We have a place at Plum Island on the North shore, and wind vanes dance constantly. I'm assuming the South shore is the same. The house looks to be maybe 5-7 years old. Vinyl windows? Well insulated for Nor'easter's? Any basement windows? The stove could be using all the oxygen that's available. What is the room temp in the basement after the stove has been burning a couple hours? Last question-what's the primary heat. If it's electric, your house is probably tighter than a Zip-Loc bag. Keep in touch with, and good luck.

dd, cute lil graph point being, tried & true in REAL life--a short chimney causes multiple problems

ddahlgren wrote:This is how wind pressure works against a roof.

to-lee-or-not-to-lee-04.jpg

Too bad they put little black arrows pointing outward in the green areas. Should have no arrows. Also, a little out of proportion. Negative area swoops more downward after going over the peak. Kind of like snow going over a snow fence. In Micloy's case, I'm thinking the air is swooping downward after crossing over the peak, and loosing most of it's energy just short of reaching the chimney. I can see where that picture can send a wrong signal. Still; nice picture.........

oliver power wrote:

ddahlgren wrote:This is how wind pressure works against a roof.

to-lee-or-not-to-lee-04.jpg

Too bad they put little black arrows pointing outward in the green areas. Should have no arrows. Also, a little out of proportion. Negative area swoops more downward after going over the peak. Kind of like snow going over a snow fence. In Micloy's case, I'm thinking the air is swooping downward after crossing over the peak, and loosing most of it's energy just short of reaching the chimney. I can see where that picture can send a wrong signal. Still; nice picture.........

I borrowed it from fire fighting info that is in the public domain but a national training organization. The subject was the effects of wind and having to cut a hole in the roof to vent smoke and heat out so firemen can go in the building. They mentioned various speeds of wind and various roof pitches.

Personally I think that the cap needs to be changed and with that small stove and the exterior masonry chimney he does not have enough heat to make it work. I think the best way out is to drop some sort of insulated liner down it and leave a couple of feet more at the top. Or possibly insulate the outside of the chimney with a chase. If you can not get the chimney warmer than the outside air then it ceases to be a chimney or act like a plugged one with a 'cold plug' in it and not enough hot air to move it up. I would think that chimney is radiating heat as fast as you pump it in. Manometer is first along with removing cap before committing to big money in my eyes. Trying it on a close to dead calm day and getting manometer readings also separates any effects of the peak of the house vs. chimney height. Common sense tells me if you can not get a .1 draft on a calm day it is never going to work on a windy one. But all this just my opinion at the end of the day.

That second picture reveals to me that the chimney is nearly the same height as the peak taken into account of the oblique camera angle. I'm putting my money on other causes for the draft failures. I have an exterior block chimney also. Variations in outdoor temps reek havoc on draft strength.

Y'all might call fowl on me lol but I combat weak draft by adding excessive secondary air when the manometer heads toward -.01.. It works..

Are there secondary air controls on the chubby?

Stack effect of the house is competing with the chimney.

That was my first impression too partner.. I'm on board with that..

Is there a vented bathroom upstairs? It could raise the neutral pressure plane up high in the house causing excessive negative pressure at the stove location.

It has taken until the age of 60 and now 62 so still a kid.. LOL but a loose cabin is a better deal than a very comfy Ziploc bag of a house. Everything works as intended the air exchange is good for health and very uncomplicated in the way it works. I could easily and very happily live is a 25 X 30 open floor cabin with the only interior partitions for the bathroom to give some semblance of privacy for the occasional guest. If it sat on 10 to 20 acres of woods all the better with 5 miles to the nearest village. I have no idea why they let the Ziploc bag houses be built with no concern for fresh air initially. While I hate a cellar it needs a walkout one so it cannot flood and a place for washer dryer and well pump and root cellar section for potatoes etc. The reason for what sounds very off topic is a lot of times 1920's technology requires 1920 building standards. As an engineer it is easy to see where a mixing of technologies from all different eras can cause poor results as too much assumed as a common way to do things.

INDEED dd--I'm with ya on all that & I'm just a dumb old farmer!

freetown fred wrote:INDEED dd--I'm with ya on all that & I'm just a dumb old farmer!

Fred there are no dumb old farmers only disillusioned city kids. I worked on a dairy farm as a kid and quite the learning experience for me so at 16 I changed from a city kid to a country boy as it is easy to see what is important and what is just noise in the wind. I am an accomplished engineer but try to explain everything to everyone in the simplest of terms and usually not a problem. I do a lot of things not very interesting but it pays the bills though the last fun I had was trying to explain to a race team what unsettled their ride. The subject vortex shedding and putting it in simple terms anyone could understand. I asked if they knew why a flag waved then let them know that is vortex shedding. Complicated reasons for simple things. The engineer hat is for 40 hours to make some cash to give to the unworthy and the rest of my life to be a country boy that likes quiet a cabin a garden and all that stuff.