Single Venting, Creosote, Fuel, Back-puffing

There should be no more than eight feet of single- wall stove pipe between the stove and a chimney; longer runs can cool the smoke enough to cause draft and creosote problems. With prefabricated chimney, bring it down to six to eight feet from the stove. With a masonry chimney, arrange the pipe layout to elbow into the chimney within eight feet of the stove.

Single Venting

Each ‘airtight’ stove requires its own flue. If an airtight stove is vented to a flue that also serves an open fireplace, or a leakier stove, it’s easier for the chimney draft to pull air in through those channels than it is to pull air through the airtight, and performance suffers. Imagine a vacuum cleaner with a hole in the hose to see the effect here. In some cases the other appliance can even cause a negative draft through the airtight, and result in a dangerous draft reversal.

Creosote

Creosote is a by-product of slow wood-burning. It’s an organic tar that can condense in the flue if it’s dense in the smoke, and slow-moving, and cools off to less than 290 degrees F (130˚C). Condensed creosote is volatile, and can generate chimney fires if it gets hot enough. All the features that affect chimney draft also affect creosote condensation - so use whatever combination of installation features and operational steps will encourage good draft and minimize creosote production.

Because letting the smoke cool off and slow down is one of the keys to creosote production, it makes sense to line a chimney to match the stove’s outlet size, for safety reasons as well as performance. Canadian law requires a matching liner to serve any stove or insert vented through a fireplace chimney; in the US, the National Fire Protection Association recommends one if the flue is more than three times bigger (in square area) than the outlet on the stove or insert. Some localities enforce the NFPA guidelines as part of their building codes.

Fuel

Even the best stove installation will not perform well with poor fuel. The best fuel is hardwood that has air-dried 12-18 months. Softwood burns, but not as long as hardwood. Fairly ‘green’ wood has a lot of moisture in it; it will burn, but some of the heat potential is used to drive the remaining moisture off the wood. This reduces the amount of heat that reaches your home and can contribute to a creosote problem. There are moisture meters available for firewood; you can also judge your wood by its appearance and weight. If you get it green, lift a piece and get a sense of its

Vermont Castings Defiant

weight; it can lose a third or more of its weight as it dries. Also look at the ends of a log; as it dries it shrinks and often cracks. The more weathered and cracked a piece is, the drier it is.

Dry wood burns readily with a good chimney draft. But with modern stoves, especially catalytic ones, the wood can be too dry. While extra-dry wood has little creosote in it, the remainder can ‘gas out’ from the wood quickly and densely enough to overload the catalytic burner. If you hear a rumbling or roaring noise, like a propane torch, from the stove, that is a sign that the catalyst is seriously overfiring. The catalyst is a platinum film on a ceramic base; the metal can get to higher temperatures than the ceramic can take, and overfiring the catalyst can break it. Dry wood can also burn out faster than you want. If your dry wood burns out too quickly or overloads the catalyst you can mix in greener wood to slow the fire down.

Back-puffing

Back-puffing results when the fire produces volatile gases faster than the chimney draft pulls them out of the firebox. The gases back up in the firebox till they’re dense enough and hot enough to ignite. If your stove back-puffs, you should open up the damper to let the smoke rise to the flue more quickly, let more air into the firebox, and avoid big loads of firewood. You should always see lively, dancing flames in the firebox; a lazy, smoky fire is inefficient and can contribute to creosote buildup in the chimney.

Draft Testing

An easy way to test your chimney draft is to close the stove’s damper, wait a few minutes to let the airflow stabilize, then see whether you can vary the strength of the fire by swinging the air control open and closed. Results are not always instant; you may need to wait a few minutes for a change in the air control setting to have an effect on the fire. If there’s no change, then the draft isn’t strong enough yet to let you close the damper, and you’ll need to open it for a while longer and manage the fire with the air inlet until the draft strengthens. If you keep track of your burning habits and relate them to their effects on the stove’s opera- tion, you’ll be rewarded with good performance and a safe system.