Question about Hitzer stoves?

Hi Oliver Power, I just purchased a barometric damper for my 50-93 based on all the posts that strongly recommend one. Am I making a mistake by puting one in from everything I have read they can only help.

jm024 wrote:Hi Oliver Power, I just purchased a barometric damper for my 50-93 based on all the posts that strongly recommend one. Am I making a mistake by puting one in from everything I have read they can only help.

Hi jm024, The barometric dampers purpose is to dampen strong drafts and wind gust from sucking the heat out of the stove, and up the chimney. You're not trying to heat the outdoors. You want to heat your house. Example: When the chimney sucks/draws hard, the baro damper opens to the room, and draws 70* room air, instead of 450* stove air. There's a lot less BTU's in the room air, than stove air. If you're going to throw away heat (send it up the chimney), you might better throw away 70* heat, than 450* heat. That's why the barometric damper is highly suggested on this site. Might I also add the fact that most stove draft controls are openned manually to a given point of comfort. Without the barometric damper, a strong draft pulls excess air through the manually set draft control, sending stove heat up the chimney. So, for the reasons just mentioned, I agree with the recommendations of the other members on this site. Now, that being said, the HITZER "EZ-FLOW" stoves are very well engineered. They have an internal gravity feed hopper (most stoves don't). Gravity hopper stoves require more draft than a non gravity hopper stove, due to thefact that the air has to travel around the hopper, then out the smoke stack. A strong draft/gust will suck the heat out of a non gravity hopper stove easyer than a gravity hopper stove. This isn't just my opinion, I've read this in stove books. The HITZER has both, the manual draft ajustment, as well as the automatic draft ajustment. I keep my manual draft ajustment open just a touch. Other members close it completely. A strong draft/gust draws minimum air, (none if closed), through the manual draft openning. We run our stoves with the auto draft. The auto draft simply closes in the case of strong gusts. Bottom line is; A strong draft does not suck all the heat out of a HITZER EZ-Flow stove. I have no barometric damper on either one of my HITZERS. I live on top of a hill where the wind always blows strong. My stack temps are always low. Will it hurt to install the barometric damper? The answer would be no. I'll never install one in either one of my stoves.

OliverPower ---- That was a swell answer, succinct and yet complete. ........ baldeagle

Freetown-Fred wrote:I have a triple wall 8" pipe from the woodstove--I'm going to run my 6'' up through it with a cap-yep,I'll make something up top of the 8" to run the 6" through

I don't think you need to run a 6" liner all the way up through your existing 8" triple wall. I would just run the 6" from the stove to the ceiling thimble (where 8" triple wall pipe begins) and use a 6"to 8" adapter to connect to the 8", done deal. This would be easier, cheaper and should work just fine.

Thanks Oliver Power, I used the stove one season and it worked great without any damper. I am finaly installing it in my new home for next winter it should work just as well the house and chimney are almost the same as my old home. Hitzer does make great stoves,thanks again.

rockwood wrote:

Freetown-Fred wrote:I have a triple wall 8" pipe from the woodstove--I'm going to run my 6'' up through it with a cap-yep,I'll make something up top of the 8" to run the 6" through

I don't think you need to run a 6" liner all the way up through your existing 8" triple wall. I would just run the 6" from the stove to the ceiling thimble (where 8" triple wall pipe begins) and use a 6"to 8" adapter to connect to the 8", done deal. This would be easier, cheaper and should work just fine.

Rockwood,thanx for the reply.We live on top of a mountain where we, of course get minimal back draft--I'm at least 2" over the roof ridge--it just gets terrible windy up here.I'm going to put a manuel damper in.Those new fangled things,Baros',etc confuse me--nanometers???Any thoughts??By the way,we are on the same page with the reducer from stove to thimble--thanx again.I pick up the stove this Sunday.I'm going to go over it real good.Definatly new glass w/ gasket,paint,always used Rutland on wood stove--what about o-ring at bottom of hopper????I'll check the grates --Yep,I'll do all this outside.I'm real excited about going to the coal but it's still a big change after 50 yrs. of wood. Seeeeya Freetown Fred

OK Oliver Power ,I need to read more posts before I throw another question out there :--finally got to yours about dampers.Thank you.I am so pleased that this Hitzer basically fell in my lap.This Forum has been real helpful.I called the plant in Indiana & spoke with Dean--he is real helpful.called a local dealer around Homer,NY,close to me & they have all the parts I'm looking for--glassw/gaskets,maybe 1 grate(front) point being--the dealer & factory people wqere willing to take the time to talk with me.Hitzer is not the only stove I looked at but it sure is the stove I'll be picking up this Sunday.Again thanks for your reply-- Freetown Fred

We have a 30-95 in our house in southeast PA. It's a tad over 1600 sq ft. We live on top of a hill and across from an open field, so we get a lot of wind. The 30-95 has worked very well for us. Our previous stove was a used Much Wenlock, and i wasn't sure how i'd like the hopper, since i was used to shovelling in the coal. Lots of folks told me i'd grow to love the hopper. Yep, they were right.




We have a Hitzer

grizzly2 wrote:I gotta agree with oliver power all the way. My 30-95 will heat my 1200 sq. ft. no prob, and my house is a little drafty. 1600 sq. ft. is probably about a max. for an average insulated house in northern NY. My Hitzer is of high quality, and very well engineered to burn with ease and efficiency.

oliver power wrote:

Freetown-Fred wrote:I'm going from a big old Bullard wood burner to a 5 yr. old 50-93 gravity feed Hitzer w/blower.We have a 200 yr. old farm house in upstate NY--it's as tight as it gets--post & beam ya know!!If this 50-93 puts out as much heat as I'm reading about maybe I can open up the front upstairs or the whole back of the house--wouldn't that be nice--as far as overkill--come-on,I'm an old panhead graduated to shovelhead guy.Noooo evos' thank you.This site is great--I'm 65 & have done wood all my out of pops house life--then it was shovel coal every couple days.I'm learning alot here.I have a triple wall 8" pipe from the woodstove--I'm going to run my 6'' up through it with a cap-yep,I'll make something up top of the 8" to run the 6" through--you know us farmers--everything but the oink--if that idea scares the britches off anybody-please get back to me.CONTRAVERSY--I'm going to use a manual damper. Seeeee ya,Freetown Fred

Hi freetown Fred, No manual damper, or any other kind of damper needed. The HITZER EZ-Flow stoves are very efficient stoves. This time of year, my stack temps are running at 50-75 degrees. I'm now tending my stove at 24 hour intervals, and will continue this for maybe another month.

stack temps of 50-75 deg ... that's the lowest idling stack temp I've seen. Whats your longest burn on a hopper?

I have a 50-93 which I fired Nov. 5th, my furnace hasn't been on since. I'm burning a little more than a bag of nut a day. The coal is not cheap here, but I don't care (I'm warm)! I was never this warm with natural gas. My wife and I love it. This is my first year with coal and I'll be using it until I can nolonger carry the coal and ash. I was surprised how little ash there was, one pan a day. My stove runs about 300F on top of the stove, and 150 to 200F on the stack. I'm heating
my 1000 ft basement (82F) and 1000 ft livings space (76F). If it gets a little warm in the house I just open the door to my connected garage and heat it too.

You'll never go wrong with Anthracite coal. I'm definitely a convert.

smokeyCityTeacher wrote:

oliver power wrote:

Freetown-Fred wrote:I'm going from a big old Bullard wood burner to a 5 yr. old 50-93 gravity feed Hitzer w/blower.We have a 200 yr. old farm house in upstate NY--it's as tight as it gets--post & beam ya know!!If this 50-93 puts out as much heat as I'm reading about maybe I can open up the front upstairs or the whole back of the house--wouldn't that be nice--as far as overkill--come-on,I'm an old panhead graduated to shovelhead guy.Noooo evos' thank you.This site is great--I'm 65 & have done wood all my out of pops house life--then it was shovel coal every couple days.I'm learning alot here.I have a triple wall 8" pipe from the woodstove--I'm going to run my 6'' up through it with a cap-yep,I'll make something up top of the 8" to run the 6" through--you know us farmers--everything but the oink--if that idea scares the britches off anybody-please get back to me.CONTRAVERSY--I'm going to use a manual damper. Seeeee ya,Freetown Fred

Hi freetown Fred, No manual damper, or any other kind of damper needed. The HITZER EZ-Flow stoves are very efficient stoves. This time of year, my stack temps are running at 50-75 degrees. I'm now tending my stove at 24 hour intervals, and will continue this for maybe another month.

stack temps of 50-75 deg ... that's the lowest idling stack temp I've seen. Whats your longest burn on a hopper?

When maintaining a fire at low stack temps, I never go beyond 24 hours tendings. I top off the hoper at tending time. When I'm going to let itself burn out; If I don't touch it, the stove would go 3 to 4 days at low settings.