It took me two whole days, but I finally figured out how to work our new house’s old-timey stove.

It’s the first time I’ve fired it since we bought the house this summer. This thing is a lot more complicated than it seems. It has a main damper and a bypass damper, a separate air intake and it hadn’t been fired up for 6 months so the flue was full of cold air and humidity.

But crucially, it sits inside a northern house that’s so well insulated it’s airtight enough for the fire to pull a vacuum inside the house, snuff itself out and create enough of a backdraft to smoke up the entire house in seconds when all the windows are closed.

It took me a while to figure out how to adjust the dampers, stop the air extractor and crack a window open when I add a fresh log to avoid turning the whole family into smoked meat 🙂 But now the flue is warm, the draft is going good and the house is sitting at a balmy 82 degrees while it’s freezing outside.

Nice!

  • Dem Bosain@midwest.social
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    10 hours ago

    Get someone to inspect and clean the chimney. They get creosote build-up that could start a fire where you don’t want it.

    Wood stoves are great. I used to go home from school with a pack full of shorts. My Mom kept the house at 90F during the day.

  • Gladaed@feddit.org
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    13 hours ago

    Get a CO detector. If the venting can fail do not use it. This sounds incredibly dangerous. A fireplace that’s unattended must not kill everyone in the house. Back draft is bad.

      • Gladaed@feddit.org
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        10 hours ago

        This is great and all but mishaps happen. Planning for a world in which nothing goes wrong is not realistic. Some day life happens. Also this puts everyone on an unsustainable standard of diligence.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Yeah having grown up in a house that was built about 100 years ago, sounds like what we had on the regular.

        Ofc you should have the chimneys inspected and cleaned, but if that’s fine ite no wörry. Did we often have smoke inside? Eh, maybe not often, but with regular occasion. The house had like six fireplaces or so, two large chimneys.

        So if my grandma who used them for her whole life occasionally also had amoke in the house, I’m sure it’s fine and not something you need to stop using your fireplaces for.

    • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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      10 hours ago

      I think that’s a little bit of modern alarmism. Humans lived with literally open fires in a top ventilated hut 5ever and not even that long ago. But a CO detector isn’t a terrible idea

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      11 hours ago

      I had one but the constant beeping was giving me a headache.

      (I kid, I kid. We live in a shiny new concrete apartment with no fireplace and the regulated 8 smoke- and co2-detectors linked to a central panel etc etc)

  • lemmylommy@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    You have an air extractor (like in the kitchen) and a fireplace? That’s a recipe for a disaster. Hope you have a CO detector.

    • ExtremeDullard@piefed.socialOP
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      12 hours ago

      I turned off the extractor. But this house got me confused, because the previous house we had was less well insulated, and the stove had no trouble breathing even with the extractor at full blast. This one though is much more airtight, and it took me a couple of hours to make the connection between the fire getting choked when I closed the window and the extractor pulling a vacuum. I turned it off and now it’s fine.

      I do have a CO detector. Not a peep.

  • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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    12 hours ago

    The amount of soot above the door makes me think there’s a persistent draft issue.

    • Is it a brick or steel chimney?
    • How tall is the chimney?
    • How far away is the tallest peak in the roof?
    • ExtremeDullard@piefed.socialOP
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      12 hours ago

      The amount of soot above the door makes me think there’s a persistent draft issue.

      In fairness, the stove has been in daily use 6 months per year for 50 years though. I’m not too surprised that the surroundings are blackened.

      It’s a brick chimney. It’s a singly story house with a low roof. The chimney is maybe 3 feet above it.

      And yeah, there is a draft issue. Or rather, it’s a ventilation issue, like in all houses around here: winters are harsh here, and it’s always a fine balancing act between keeping the warmth in and letting enough outside air in to prevent mold and humidity. And when you have a chimney or a stove, letting it breathe enough.

      • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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        11 hours ago

        I suppose the soot is understandable given the level of use and an airtight house. I would think having an external air intake would help with that.

        I wondered about the chimney height because I know masonry fireplaces have a minimum height requirement of ~3m(10ft). We have a huge double sided brick fireplace with a chimney that’s right at the minimum but oddly enough we never have any draft issues.

        I’m not sure what the minimum chimney height is for stoves. Might be worth looking at having it extended by a couple feet or adding a draft inducer fan if you plan to burn a lot of wood.